71491791
submission
itwbennett writes:
You win some, you lose some. Microsoft this week dropped support for ARM processors from its Surface tablets with the Surface 3, but adoption of the chip architecture in Chromebooks is growing. Chromebooks from little-known companies HiSense and Haier went on sale this week for $149, and come with an ARM-based chip made by Rockchip. Asus also announced a new ARM-based 10.1-inch Chromebook Flip hybrid that will ship in a few months starting at $249. Acer announced a Chromebase, a 21.5-inch all-in-one PC with Chrome OS and an ARM-based processor from Nvidia.
71491631
submission
itwbennett writes:
Do you want a Raspberry Pi 2 laptop? A new hardware kit coming in May from Pi-Top will help you build one at home in a matter of minutes. The full Pi-Top kit includes a 13.3-inch screen, battery, trackpad, mousepad, laptop casings and Raspberry Pi 2, which would serve as the main motherboard.
71478899
submission
itwbennett writes:
Verizon said in January that it would allow subscribers to opt out of having a unique identifier placed on their phones that critics have labelled a ‘supercookie’ because it’s almost impossible to remove, but it didn’t say when. On Tuesday, Verizon said the identifier won’t be inserted for customers who opt out of its mobile advertising program: 'Verizon Wireless has updated its systems so that we will stop inserting the UIDH after a customer opts out of the relevant mobile advertising program or activates a line that is ineligible for the advertising program,” such as as a government or business line,' Verizon said in a change to its policies Tuesday.
71477925
submission
itwbennett writes:
A new GitHub repository traces the entire change history of France’s civil codes going back to the times of Napoleon.
71455729
submission
Lucas123 writes:
While the rest of the nation's solar power generation hovers around 1%, California clocked in with a record 5% of power coming from utility-grade (1MW or more) solar power sources, according to a report from Mercom Capital Group and the Energy Information Administration. That's three times the next closest state, Arizona. At the same time, 22 states have yet to deploy even one utility-grade solar power plant, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association. Meanwhile, the rest of the world saw a 14% uptick in solar power installations in 2014 for a total of 54.5GW of capacity, and that figure is expected to grow even faster in 2015. While China still leads the world in new solar capacity, Japan and the U.S. come in as a close second and third, respectively. In the U.S. distributed solar and utility-grade solar installations are soaring as the solar investment tax credit (ITC) is set to expire next year. The U.S. is expected to deploy 8.5GW of new solar capacity in 2015, according to Mercom Capital Group.
71455569
submission
itwbennett writes:
The malware program, dubbed Trojan.Laziok by researchers from antivirus vendor Symantec, was used in spear-phishing attacks earlier this year against companies from the petroleum, gas and helium industries from many countries in the Middle East, but also from the U.S., India, the U.K., and others. The Trojan is spread via emails with malicious documents that exploit a Microsoft Office vulnerability for which a patch has existed since April 2012.
71454381
submission
itwbennett writes:
In a technical analysis of Facebook’s tracking practices, researchers at the University of Leuven in cooperation with researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel found that Facebook tracks everyone who visits its site, including people who don’t have an account, and even continues to track users and non-users who have opted out of targeted ads. The problem with these practices is that the cookies are placed without consent, which under EU law is only allowed if there is a strict necessity to do so.
71454075
submission
itwbennett writes:
Intel is researching new ways to up the storage capacity in mobile devices and PCs without hurting the size or price of devices. One effort underway aims to cram four bits in a storage cell, an improvement over the three bits that can be put in a single storage cell currently. By putting four bits per cell, a technique Intel calls QLC (quad-level cell), the capacity of SSDs could balloon to more than 10TB on standard 2.5-inch drives. Intel said QLC is still under research, and didn’t provide a timeline for the release of flash chips based on the technology. But this isn’t the first time a company has tried to cram four bits in a cell. M-Systems tried the same close to a decade ago, but failed. SanDisk ultimately acquired M-Systems in 2006.
71453629
submission
itwbennett writes:
For the past two years, a cyberespionage group that likely operates from Lebanon has hacked into hundreds of defense contractors, telecommunications operators, media groups and educational organizations from at least 10 countries, according to security researchers from Check Point Software Technologies. The researchers found evidence that the attackers started their operation in late 2012, but have managed to fly under the radar until now by carefully adapting their tools to avoid being detected by antivirus programs.
71420403
submission
itwbennett writes:
Two former U.S. government agents face charges related to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin while assisting with an investigation of the Silk Road underground online marketplace, with one accused of using a fake online persona to extort money from operators of the site.
71419397
submission
itwbennett writes:
Web usability is all about bridging the gap between the human and the machine, with the assumption that when you do so that neither will be operating in its 'natural' state. But in a recent blog post, usability engineer Sasha Akhavi takes the view that being mechanistic, or algorithmic, is actually a very human tendency, and one we employ when reliability is critical: 'When humans need to be reliable (and have enough resources to determine how), we ourselves become algorithmic. Armies march in lockstep according to standard drills. Legislators fit their content contributions into a programmatic framework and acquiesce to its limits. Scientists follow standard protocols. And software companies practice software development methodologies.'
71418279
submission
jfruh writes:
In theory, the European Union is supposed to act as a single national market. But one area in which practice doesn't live up to theory is geoblocking: Europeans may find that a website they can reach or content they have a legal right to stream in one EU country is blocked in another. Now two members of the EU Commission (the equivalent of a nation's cabinet) are feuding as to whether geoblocks should be eliminated: Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said that "deep in my heart ... I hate geoblocking," while Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger, worrying about protecting the European film industry, said "We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater."
71343129
submission
itwbennett writes:
With AMD's fade out from the server market and the rapid decline of RISC systems, Intel has stood atop the server market all by itself. But now IBM, through its OpenPOWER Foundation, could give Intel and its server OEMs a real fight in China, which is a massive server market. As the investor group Motley Fool notes, OpenPOWER is a threat to Intel in the Chinese server market because the government has been actively pushing homegrown solutions over foreign technology, and many of the Foundation members like Tyan are from China.
71336107
submission
itwbennett writes:
When developers dish on what makes some source code particularly 'good,' a handful of qualities tend to get mentioned frequently (think working, readable, testable). What would you add to this list?
71330139
submission
jfruh writes:
Rumors are flying around the Asian press that Samsung wants to buy AMD. The deal would make a certain amount of sense from Samsung's viewpoint, giving it crucial inroads into CPU and GPU markets and a line of attack against Qualcomm. But it would also wreak havoc with the delicate network of deals and agreements within the chipmaking industry, especially when it comes to rights to x86 intellectual property.
