71615063
submission
jones_supa writes:
Windows 7 SP1 and 8.1 users are being offered a mystical update KB3035583 that "enables additional capabilities for Windows Update notifications". The update is offered as a recommended update since March 28th. Myce did some investigation about what this means, and discovered that the update is actually a download helper for Windows 10, which will also notify the user when Microsoft's upcoming operating system can be acquired. Once the update is downloaded, it places a folder to %WINDIR%\System32 called GWX which contains some files and a folder called Download. One of the four executables reveals what the update really is, as the description of GWXUXWorker.exe states "Download Windows 10". The configuration file defines some rules as to how to behave when the Windows 10 release date nears.
71611045
submission
jones_supa writes:
Google is in talks towards a deal with Hutchison Whampoa, the owner of the mobile operator Three, that will allow United States customers to use their phones abroad at no extra cost. The two giants are discussing a wholesale access agreement that would become an important part of Google’s planned attempt to shake up the US mobile market with its own network. It is understood that Google aims to create a global network that will cost the same to use for calls, texts and data no matter where a customer is located. By linking up with Hutchison, it could gain wholesale access to mobile service in the UK, Ireland, Italy and several more countries where the Hong Kong conglomerate owns mobile networks.
71567833
submission
jones_supa writes:
Version 4.0.0 has been released of Mono, the FOSS implementation of the .NET Framework. This is the first release of Mono that replaces various components of Mono with code that was released by Microsoft under the MIT license. Microsoft itself is working towards .NET Core: a redistributable and re-imagined version of .NET, which has two code drops: CoreFX and CoreCLR. Mono at this point continues to provide an API that tracks the .NET desktop/server version. This means that most of the Mono code that has been integrated from Microsoft comes from the ReferenceSource code drop. Mono's C# compiler now also defaults to C# 6.0.
71559413
submission
jones_supa writes:
The second technical preview of Windows Server 2016 will be launching in May as the first one nears its expiration date. The next Windows Server is being developed and targeted for an early 2016 release, however, the latest and greatest preview builds haven't been released to the public by Microsoft since October 2014. At the same time, Windows 10 builds have been released regularly to everybody who wants to try them out. It was revealed earlier that the Windows Server release won't take place along with that of Windows 10, so it makes sense that Microsoft is pushing more builds of the desktop OS out for testing first. There is no mention of an exact date of the upcoming Windows Server Technical Preview, but an announcement can be expected during the upcoming BUILD 2015 conference which starts on 29th April.
71534623
submission
jones_supa writes:
Some of you have probably used the Feedback app of Windows 10 Technical Preview, which has enabled us to submit feature requests and bug reports directly to Microsoft in order to improve the operating system as the company approaches the final release. While Microsoft tries to make some of the requests available, it also depends on the number of votes that each submission gets. Softpedia takes a look at the top 5 requests right now: make Feedback app available in final Windows too, improve network connections management, allow task view drag windows between desktops, give Cortana the ability to open programs, and bring back resize options for Start Menu.
71509673
submission
jones_supa writes:
Phoronix has noticed that the Visual Studio 2015 product page mentions that the new IDE can target Linux out of the box. Specifically the page says "Build for iOS, Android, Windows devices, Windows Server or Linux". What this actually means is not completely certain at this point, but it certainly laces nicely with the company opening up the .NET Framework.
71475215
submission
jones_supa writes:
A critical vulnerability has been found in the MPEG-1 Layer III playback backend of Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. Security researcher Aki Helin reported a use-after-free scenario when playing certain audio files on the web using the Fluendo MP3 plugin for GStreamer on Linux. This is due to a flaw in handling certain MP3 files by the plugin and its interaction with Mozilla code. A maliciously crafted MP3 file can lead to a potentially exploitable crash. Linux is the only affected platform, so Windows and OS X users are safe from this particular vulnerability.
71455829
submission
jones_supa writes:
Well, we saw this one coming. Just a couple of days after computer science student Erik Roystan Ross released a free recreation of the first level of Nintendo's 1996 Super Mario 64, Nintendo filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint. It was sent to the content distribution network CloudFlare and the complaint asked to immediately disable public access to the page hosting the remade game. CloudFlare forwarded the complaint to the person hosting Ross' game, after which the hosting provider (a friend of Ross) had to take the game down. Nintendo also sent Ross takedown notices for his downloadable desktop versions of the Bob-Omb Battlefield. Nintendo is famously protective of its copyright, taking issue even with "Let's Play" videos posted on YouTube and threatening to shut down live-streamed Super Smash Bros tournaments.
71449837
submission
jones_supa writes:
Luke Hodorowicz, the hard-working developer behind the townbuilding strategy computer game Banished, has designed a novel GPU shading language and written a compiler for it. The language has been christened "Shining Rock Shading Language" (SRSL) and it outputs the program in several other shading languages. The first goal for the language was to treat the vertex, fragment and geometry shader as a single program. The language sees the graphics pipeline as a stream of data, followed by some code, which outputs a stream of data, and then more code runs, and another stream of data is output. Body text of the shaders is very C-like and should be understood easily coming from other shading languages. SRSL has all the intrinsic functions you would expect from HLSL or GLSL. All types are HLSL-style. Loops and conditionals are available, but switch statements and global variables are seen redundant and not implemented. Luke's blog post tells more about the details of the language, complemented with examples.
71436115
submission
jones_supa writes:
German tabloid newspaper Bild has released what is claims is a summary of the timeline from downed Germanwings flight 9525 (4U9525/GWI18G). The timeline is based on the data recorded on one of the black boxes recovered from the wreckage. An official transcript of the cockpit voice recording has not been released, so Bild cites sources close to the investigation for the information. CNN translated Bild's report, but cannot independently verify the information. The timeline provides one of the most detailed descriptions of the plane's final moments, and makes it seem that the crash was indeed intentional.
71365201
submission
jones_supa writes:
There's no video footage from inside the cockpit of the Germanwings flight that left 150 people dead — nor is such footage recorded from any other commercial airline crash in recent years. Unlike many other vehicles operating with heightened safety concerns, airline cockpits don't come with video surveillance. The reason, in part, is that airline pilots and their unions have argued vigorously against what they see as an invasion of privacy that would not improve aviation safety. The long debate on whether airplane cockpits in the U.S. should be equipped with cameras dates back at least 15 years, when the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) first pushed regulators require video monitoring following what the agency called "several accidents involving a lack of information regarding crewmember actions and the flight deck environment". The latest NTSB recommendation for a cockpit image system came in January 2015. Should video streams captured inside the plane become a standard part of aviation safety measures?
71360809
submission
jones_supa writes:
A rather interesting product, Ikea's line of flatpack refugee shelters are going into production, the Swedish furniture maker announced this week. The lightweight Better Shelter was developed under a partnership between the Ikea Foundation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and beta tested among refugee families in Ethiopia, Iraq, and Lebanon. Each unit takes about four hours to assemble and is designed to last for three years — far longer than conventional refugee shelters, which typically last about six months. The product is important tool in the prolonged refugee crisis that has unfolded across the Middle East. The war in Syria has spurred nearly 4 million people to leave their homes. The UNHCR has agreed to buy 10,000 of the shelters, and will begin providing them to refugee families this summer.
71338961
submission
jones_supa writes:
Intel Linux developers have landed a lot of Broadwell CPU architecture enablement code into Coreboot. While there has been basic Broadwell support code within Coreboot for a number of months, pushed in the past few hours has been a lot more Broadwell code. This is likely an indication that more Google Chromebooks based on this latest-generation Intel architecture should be surfacing soon. See the patches in Coreboot Git browser.
71328347
submission
jones_supa writes:
After a co-pilot appeared to deliberately crash Germanwings flight 4U9525, some airlines are to change their rules to ensure two crew members are in plane cockpits at all times. Two low-cost European carriers EasyJet and Norwegian Air Shuttle are going to roll the new policy into effect almost immediately. The latter company said that they had already been discussing about such scenario before. Air Canada and the Canadian charter airline Air Transat also said they would go with the new rule. Many more carriers are likely to follow. Airlines in United States already follow the "rule of two".
71296307
submission
jones_supa writes:
Xylitol is the natural sweetener that is globally added to everyday products such as sugar-free chewing gum, toothpaste, gels, lozenges and sweets. It has been suggested that the addition of xylitol to products may help to prevent tooth decay by stopping the growth of decay-producing bacteria. However, a fresh metastudy from The University of Manchester concludes that there is limited evidence to show that xylitol is actually effective in preventing dental cavities. The authors gathered together data from 5,903 participants in 10 different studies. They found only low quality evidence that levels of tooth decay were a small amount lower in those who used a fluoride toothpaste containing xylitol, compared to those who used a fluoride-only toothpaste. For other xylitol-containing products, such as syrup, lozenges and tablets, there was little or no evidence of any benefit.
