0 Samsung, LG set for TV battle at CES

LG Electronics is hoping to make its smart TVs more attractive by making it easier to share and find content, while Samsung Electronics is only hinting at what its plans are for 2013.
The TV market is highly competitive and vendors are doing their best to differentiate their products from the competition, or at least not fall behind.

Samsung and LG will both present new TV hardware and software at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas next month.

LG's TVs will make it easier to share content with a feature called Tag On, which uses NFC (near-field communication) to connect a TV with, for example, a smartphone.
To connect, users just have to hold a smartphone or some other NFC-enabled device against an NFC sticker on the TV, the company said on Monday.

A recommendation function called On Now will suggest trending on-demand and broadcast content. Results pop up in thumbnail images, making it faster and easier for the viewer to make a selection, according to LG.
The TVs will also have thinner bezels, the frames that surround TV screens.
LG has already announced that its 2013 lineup will include two new Google TVs called the GA7900 and GA6400. Its TVs will also get better support for speech recognition, thanks in part to a new remote.
Samsung, on the other hand, is still keeping its new offerings under wraps.

Last week, the company posted a teaser on Youtube, which didn't provide any details beyond the arrival of a new product that by the looks of it still has a bezel. The set will have an "unprecedented new TV shape," according to Samsung's official blog.

The next 12 months could have some interesting developments in store for consumers with the arrival of more Ultra HD and OLED TVs. But the big question is still if Apple will finally reveal its own TV.
Samsung and LG both have launch events planned for Jan. 7 where they will announce their new products.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Velocity Solo X2 review: Teach an old PC new SATA 6-gbps tricks

If your PC lacks a SATA 6-gigabits-per-second interface, you can't get top performance out of any of the latest consumer-grade solid-state drives. Such drives bump up against the 6-gbps limit of that bus, while the older second-generation SATA interface maxes out at just 3 gbps. Apricorn's Velocity x2 should remove that roadblock for you.

My main system sports a circa-2009 Intel D58SO motherboard. It has a great feature set, but it predates third-generation, 6-gbps SATA. The only way to upgrade such a beast is via a PCIe adapter card with a SATA 6-gbps interface, of which the market has plenty to choose from. I tried installing one of those a couple of years ago, but it gave me blue screens. SSDs at that time weren't nearly as fast as they are today, so I saw no real reason to upgrade. But with SSD performance now topping 600 MBps, it's time.
Lo and behold, Apricorn contacted me about its Velocity Solo PCIe cards. These will not only add SATA 6-gbps capability to any system with an available PCIe slot, but they'll also serve as a caddy for a single SSD. Apricorn sent two cards for me to evaluate: the $50 Velocity x1 and the $99 Velocity x2. I tried both, and recommend one.

A Kingston HyperX 3K drive attached to my motherboard's second-generation SATA interface, which is capable of delivering maximum performance of only 3 gbps, read data at 227 MBps and wrote data at 236 MBps while running the synthetic benchmark CrystalDiskMark 3. Surprisingly enough, a much faster OCZ Vertex 4 SSD mounted on the Velocity x1 delivered slower
performance: It read at only 203.3 MBps and wrote at 196.5 MBps.
When I paired the Vertex 4 with Apricorn's Velocity Solo x2 card, however, the SSD's numbers jumped to 348.1 MBps reading and 323.2 MBps writing--a substantial improvement beyond what is possible with the second-generation SATA interface. Attaching the Kingston HyperX 3K to the Velocity Solo x2, meanwhile, improved its numbers to 322.1 MBps reading and 239.6 MBps writing. That considerably faster read performance made my system feel much more responsive.

The reason for the two cards' performance disparity is that the x1 uses only a single PCIe 2.0 lane, while the x2 employs two lanes (and must be installed in at least a PCIe 2.0 x2 slot as a result). Since each PCIe 2.0 lane is capable of transferring data at 500 megabytes per second (or 3.9 gigabits per second) in each direction, two PCIe lanes are necessary to satisfy the requirements of the SATA 6-gbps interface. Both Velocity Solo cards are outfitted with a standard female SATA connector for attaching a second drive, and both cards are bundled with Apricorn's EZ Gig software for cloning your existing hard drive to your new SSD.

I can't recommend the Velocity Solo x1, as the SSDs I mounted to it performed more slowly than they did when connected to my motherboard's second-generation SATA interface. The Velocity Solo x2, on the other hand, delivered a dramatic improvement, both during testing and subjectively. My only real qualm is the x2's $99 price tag, which is steep compared with the cost of some SATA 6-gbps interface cards (such as the Syba HyperDuo) that don't have the handy mounting caddy. The lowest street price we could find as of December 18, 2012, was $95.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Accelerate ‘Assassin’s Creed III,’ ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,’ and ‘Far Cry 3′ with New GeForce Drivers

NVIDIA released new GeForce R310 drivers today that are Microsoft Windows certified and optimized for this year’s biggest holiday games.

GeForce 310.70 drivers are now certified by the Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) and are available for download from GeForce.com.

These drivers provide gamers the accumulated benefits of five beta driver releases that have dramatically improved performance and compatibility in today’s top best-selling games over the past two months.

It’s yet another example of how NVIDIA works with game developers to deliver more immersive gameplay and cinematic visuals.


GeForce 310.70 Driver Highlights (vs. previous WHQL driver)
• Best performance in the top holiday games:
• Movie-quality gaming with Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TXAA) in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Assassin’s Creed III.
• Up to 16 percent faster performance in other top games likes such as Battlefield 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and StarCraft II.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 FCC eases licensing for in-flight Internet gear on aircraft

 The FCC is making it easier to launch in-flight Internet services on planes in the U.S. by setting up a standard approval process for onboard systems that use satellites.
Since 2001, the Federal Communications Commission has approved some satellite based Internet systems for airplanes, called Earth Stations Aboard Aircraft (ESAA), on an ad-hoc basis. On Friday, the agency said it had formalized ESAA as a licensed application, which should cut in half the time required to get services approved, according to the FCC.

In-flight Internet access is typically delivered via Wi-Fi in an airplane's cabin, but that access requires a wireless link outside the plane to the larger Internet. Some services make that link via special 3G cellular towers on the ground, while others exchange their data over satellites. Row44, a provider of satellite-based in-flight Wi-Fi, names Southwest Airlines and Allegiant Air as customers on its website.

Under the new rules, all it will take for airlines to implement onboard ESAA systems is to test the technology, establish that it meets FCC standards and doesn't interfere with any aircraft systems, and get Federal Aviation Administration approval, the FCC said. The result should be quicker deployments and more competition among in-flight Internet systems, according to the agency.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 How Windows RT Lightened One Email-Addicted NVIDIAN’s Load

Oh $#!%.
It was 6:55 in the morning and I was in an airport parking lot. I was about to embark on a business trip and had just given my backpack a hard tug and unexpectedly yanked it into my face. I quickly realized it was missing something: my laptop. My stomach hurt.

Then I remembered I hadn’t forgotten my laptop. I had replaced it –  with a tiny tablet/notebook hybrid, Microsoft’s new Surface RT. This lighter load would take getting used to.
This trip would be the first time in 12 years I had left the office without a laptop.

A little about me: I double dip in my PR role here at NVIDIA, getting the story out about our notebook GPUs and the Windows RT devices that use NVIDIA’s Tegra processors.  So, on my latest road trip to talk about GeForce Experience I decided to put my Surface RT to the test. In tech we call this ‘eating your own dog food.’

Eating The Dog Food
Big bag, tiny tablet.
And I was about to take an awfully big bite. NVIDIA is a very ‘email-centric’ company. People who join NVIDIA are often overwhelmed by the volume of email. Hundreds of notes come in each day. Smartphones can’t handle it. So can an email-addicted PR guy survive without his trusted laptop?  After that scare in the parking lot, my trip got better. When the plane took off, I reached for my Surface RT. Where did I get all this space? The laptop backpack I had come to love was now grossly oversized. My Surface RT looked ridiculous in there, like it was hiding in a wizard’s sleeve.

My flight had Wi-Fi, so I checked the weather, read some sports updates and hit my favorite websites.  Now off to work, as I’m knee deep in email already. Answering all those messages was a breeze thanks to the Surface’s type cover. My tray table was plenty big enough even with the dude in front of me reclining.
My email revealed a new embargo date for GeForce Experience.  Windows RT tablets come preinstalled with Office, so I opened my PowerPoint presentation and made the edit.  You can’t do that with just any tablet. Excited that I had just become a case study for Windows RT tablets, I opened Word and started this blog post.  I even squeezed in an episode of Freaks and Geeks
on Netflix before we landed.

Upon arrival at the hotel for set-up I learned that my colleague had the presentation on his MacBook Pro, but did not have the proprietary cable needed to display it on a TV.  No problem, I have a mini HDMI port on my Surface RT.  Using it in tablet mode to present was awesome.  I never had to look away from our guests, so I was more engaged, and I could see the upcoming slide and even cheat by referring to my presentation notes to get my specs right. Perfect.

Surface RT turned out to be the perfect portable presentation tool. 
A Battery Life Measured In Days

Wednesday was a full day of presentations, and about half way through my Surface was down to 16 percent battery life, so I plugged it in between meetings.  An editor for CNET noticed, so I explained that the last time I plugged it in was Monday night.  It had handled a heavy workload for a day and half, and still had some battery left.
I loved traveling without a notebook, but I am adding a messenger bag to my Christmas list. I’m not going to risk bonking myself in the face again.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Toshiba developing Lytro-like phone camera with over 30,000 mini-lenses

Toshiba is developing a tiny digital camera module similar to the Lytro camera, which shoots tens of thousands of individual photos and then allows the user to pick the point of focus.

The new camera will have from 30,000 to 50,000 tiny lenses, yet still be small enough to fit in modern smartphones and tablets. The company aims to have a product ready for sale by March of 2014.
The concept is similar to that behind a much-hyped camera launched by California-based Lytro earlier this year. Lytro calls its technology "light field capture," and photos taken by the device can be adjusted for focus and perspective after they are taken.

"Lytro doesn't make semiconductors, so the camera module is a product that Toshiba is probably better-suited to make," said Toshiba spokesman Atsushi Ido.
Ido said the concept behind the camera module is similar to the compound eyes found in many insects. He said much of the processing involved in taking and combining the individual images with the new camera would likely be handled by the module's hardware.

Toshiba is among the world's largest manufacturers of CMOS image sensors, where it competes with rivals including Sony, Samsung and OmniVision. Toshiba is better known for its massive NAND flash operations, where it cranks out memory chips for hard drives and memory cards.
In January, Lytro executive Charles Chi told PCWorld that his company was focused on branded cameras aimed at consumers, and any entry into the smartphone market would probably involve a tie-up with an established player.

Earlier this week, Toshiba announced it is readying a 20-megapixel CMOS image chip aimed at the digital camera market, where it hopes to challenge the dominance of Sony. The new chip will also be able to shoot 30 frames per second at full resolution, or 60 frames at 1080P. Toshiba said it will ship samples of the new CMOS sensor next month, with mass production to begin in August.
Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Test Drive Shows New Kepler GPUs Offer Instant Performance Boost to Research

Since we launched the Tesla K20 GPU accelerators at the Supercomputing 2012 (SC12) show in November, researchers have been eagerly waiting to get their hands on them.

To benchmark the new Kepler GPUs on real-world scientific applications, we offered a number of researchers using our last-generation Fermi GPUs early access to the new Tesla K20 and K20X GPUs before product launch. We asked them – around 40 individuals from science and academia — to take a free test drive of the new family of Tesla GPUs, and share their experiences.

The results are in.
Two-thirds of the users (65 percent) who took the test drive reported speed-ups of 2x or more, right out of the box, without making any code changes. You can just imagine what they will achieve with a couple code optimizations.

And, this was done on a wide range of real scientific applications like GROMACS, GTC, and CST, not on synthetic benchmarks, showing how the new Kepler GPUs can make an immediate impact on research.




Accelerating Clean Energy, Cosmology, and More…

The researchers who participated in the test drive represent a variety of scientific domains, from astrophysics to biology to material science. And they all experienced how Kepler offers an instant performance boost over Fermi for their CUDA-enabled applications.
Below is a video from two of the researchers who wanted to share their experiences in their own words.
The first is from Dr. Inanc Senocak at Boise State University. His research focuses on simulating wind patterns to forecast wind-generated energy, and to determine how to efficiently supply wind energy to the power grid.

The second is from Prof. Esteban at Clua of Universidade Federal Fluminense in Brazil. His work centers on developing cosmological models of the movement of stars and galaxies as a means to better understand the origin of the universe.

Both researchers saw a tremendous benefit from the acceleration they achieved using Tesla K20 GPUs.
These are just two real-world examples of the power of GPU acceleration on Kepler. There are many other examples from the test drive, and you can access the full list here.


Take the Kepler Test Drive Yourself 

We were so pleased with these results that we decided to continue the GPU Test Drive Program to give even more GPU users like you a chance to experience Kepler.
Would you like to see how much faster your CUDA code or GPU-accelerated application runs on Tesla K20 GPUs?

The GPU Test Drive Program is a free and easy way to find out how Kepler can work for you.  You can sign up for the program at www.nvidia.com/GPUTestDrive.
We think you’ll be impressed with the power of Kepler.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 NVIDIA Reinvents the Holiday Party, Again, Putting in 7,500 Volunteer-Hours in a Weekend

Closed doors. Strong drinks. Awkward conversations. Maybe it’s time to re-invent the annual company holiday party.

CEO Jen-Hsun Huang addresses volunteers.
NVIDIA’s done just that, again, inviting friends, family and community members to muddy their boots, dig irrigation ditches, paint murals and build everything from a farm stand to an outdoor teaching kitchen. Boredom is not an option.

More than 1,500 NVIDIA employees, family and community members racked up 7,500 volunteer hours this past weekend at Veggielution, the focus of NVIDIA’s sixth annual Project Inspire volunteer event.
Veggielution –- an urban farm based in a low-income neighborhood of San Jose, California — grows and sells fruits and vegetables in a community where good nutrition is a critical issue.

Proceeds from the sale of the non-profit’s fresh produce helps educate families about how health, the environment, and education intersect.

Hard work for a good cause is a holiday tradition at NVIDIA, and it’s the high-point of an innovative 11-month-long planning process.
The employee-led NVIDIA Foundation selects a project to tackle every year guided by employee surveys that show health, education, and the environment are areas where employees most want to make a difference.
We then bring friends, family, and community members in on the conspiracy. More than a good cause, the event is something of a family reunion, with long-time employees bringing their spouses, partners, parents, and children.

Project Inspire has also become a chance to get to know the neighbors, with more than 200 community members picking up hammers and shovels to join our annual effort.
Volunteers from City Year, a national youth-leadership organization that has been assisting us with Project Inspire since 2009, helped lead the effort.

Working together, we’ve made a measurable difference. With nearly $500,000 invested in donated material and labor, Project Inspire has transformed the community farm.
More than GPUs: NVIDIANs built farm stands and a packing shed, among other structures.
Volunteers built an outdoor community gathering space, a packing shed and farm stand for sorting and selling produce, an irrigation system that will turn the non-profit’s new acreage into productive land and a colorful mural.

The non-profit’s leaders say these projects will help Veggielution more than double its output of vegetables to 75,000 pounds a year from 30,000 pounds over the next year alone.
Click here for pictures from day one of our event, and here for pictures from day two.
Tagged: City Year, corporate giving, Global Citizenship, NVIDIA, NVIDIA Foundation, project inspire, San Jose, Veggielution

View the original article here

Read More...

0 How NVIDIA Innovation Makes ‘Assassin’s Creed III,’ and ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 2′ Feel More Like Movies

Watch a movie on a Blu-Ray disc. If you know where to look — and what to look at — you’ll see something strange. The images aren’t crisper than those you’ll find in video games. Quite the opposite: distant objects can seem fuzzy. In games, by contrast, they’re often sharp and jaggy. That’s part of why movies can seem more lifelike and immersive.

It takes an artist’s eye to notice details like this. And it takes a hard-core coder to do something about it. Tim Lottes is both. Maybe that’s why the NVIDIA engineer’s technology has been built into hundreds of games. Lottes specializes in a field of visual computing known as ‘anti-aliasing.’ The aim is to smooth the jagged lines created when putting an image on a screen composed of dots, known as pixels.

His latest creation is an anti-aliasing technology dubbed TXAA (temporal approximate anti-aliasing). The NVIDIA-only techology, which debuted in July, gives games running NVIDIA’s latest Kepler-based GPUs a more cinematic feel. In the five months since its debut, TXAA has been built into “The Secret World,” “Assassin’s Creed III,” and “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”




It helps that Lottes knows how to think like a game developer. Before joining NVIDIA, he worked at computer game developer Human Head Studios.

For years, the way graphics were generated for movies and videogames were different, he says. Now, developers are looking for technologies that mimic the look of a Blu-Ray movie. “My personal goal is to get games up the quality of a feature film,” Lottes says.

That’s a goal propelled forward by the 34-year-old’s passion for landscape photography. You begin to notice small details when stitching together realistic panoramas out of high-resolution images, he says.
Lottes also has a knack for writing ‘low-level’ code. He likes stuff that’s as close to the bare metal in a machine as you can get. “I was writing assembly language before I was a teenager,” says Lottes, who holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

So when he got the chance to join NVIDIA three years ago, he jumped. He soon began working on an anti-aliasing technology now known as FXAA (Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing). Inspired by a technique that ran slowly on CPUs, known as ‘MLAA,’ Lottes  aimed to come up with the fastest possible anti-aliasing technique for GPUs.

Rather than using hardware ‘multi-sample anti-aliasing’ (MSAA) — a process that takes place as an image is rendered — FXAA smooths the edges on the screen after all the rendering is finished. The result: more life-like images on older, slower hardware. The technology is now used in many of the top tier video games for the PC, PlayStation 3, and XBox 360.

Lottes wasn’t satisfied, however. His latest creation, TXAA aims to remove the crawl seen on the edges of objects and inside many shaded surfaces that appear as characters move through a virtual world. “I wanted to take what the film guys have been doing with anti-aliasing and get as close as I could to that,” Lottes says.
Not easy, considering filmmakers can rely on banks of servers working days, or weeks, to generate life-like effects. To do that Lottes exploits his knowledge of NVIDIA’s  GPUs to craft a compact ball of code that can deliver superior image quality with a smaller performance impact. The trick? “I do the right amount of work, and I don’t do too much work,” says Lottes, who is already working on another round of improvements to TXAA .


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Finding the Best Windows RT Games Just Got Easier with TegraZone

TegraZone continues to be the ultimate gaming destination for mobile devices, pointing Android gamers to the hottest Tegra-optimized titles along with gaming news and reviews.

And with NVIDIA Tegra-powered Windows RT tablets and notebooks now available, Windows RT gamers can now look to our TegraZone app as the one-stop shop for all their mobile gaming needs. TegraZone for Windows RT features the new Windows 8 interface and is now available to download for free on all Tegra-powered Windows RT tablets and notebooks via the Windows Store.

TegraZone for Windows RT launches with a number of games already available in the Windows Store including: Judge Dredd vs Zombies, Pinball FX 2, Reckless Racing Ultimate, Riptide GP, Soulcraft (pictured, above), Space Ark, Sprinkle and Vendetta Online.

These Tegra-optimized titles offer special features not found in the standard versions, including HD characters and environments; realistic physics effects such as water, smoke and cloth; as well as dynamic lighting and particle effects.

NVIDIA offers one of the largest developer relations teams in the world – a dedicated support team of over 100 employees to help Windows RT and Android developers create games that take advantage of the ultra-efficient power of the quad-core Tegra 3 processor.
TegraZone on Windows RT offers a steady stream of Tegra-optimized games. 
This unmatched developer support is an NVIDIA tradition carried over from our GeForce team.  Through app support, tools delivery and extensive QA, the net result is console-quality experiences for gamers on-the-go.
With over 6 million downloads for Android devices, TegraZone is primed to make a splash on Windows RT tablets. Be sure to download it from the Windows Store.
Tagged: microsoft, NVIDIA, Tablet, Tegra, tegrazone, windows rt

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Christmas Eve Netflix Outage Forces Families to Socially Interact

Christmas is a time for family, eggnog, unwrapping gifts … and apparantly, streaming movies.
Not this year, though, thanks to an outage at Amazon's Virginia data centers.

According to Wired, Netflix's streaming video service began to falter around 3:30 p.m. Eastern on Monday, when customers began reporting the outage. Later that night, the company said on Twitter that the partial outage affected "some, but not all devices that can stream from Netflix."

"We're aware the some members are experiencing issues streaming movies and TV shows," the @Netflixhelps Twitter account wrote Monday afternoon. "We're working to resolve the problem," which seemed to affect certain users in only the U.S., Canada, and Latin America.
Offering tips like visiting the "Cannot Connect to Netflix" support page, the team manned its Twitter feed constantly throughout Tuesday, responding directly to many members and offering apologies for the service disruption— even in Spanish.

A true Christmas miracle, service was restored by Tuesday morning, according to the Netflix Twitter feed.
"Special thanks to our awesome members for being patient. We're back to normal streaming levels. We hope everyone has a great holiday," a Dec. 25 message said.

Netflix's system runs on Amazon's cloud computer service, managed by the mega-company's engineers and aimed at ensuring that the servers never go down, according to Wired. "So any kind of high-profile outage is a big embarrassment for the company," the site said.

This isn't Netflix's first tango with disaster, though. The site was knocked out by an Amazon cloud outage in August 2011 which also left popular services and sites like Foursquare and Reddit in limbo. Severe thunderstorms near Amazon's North Virginia facilities in June left massive power outages in their wake, affecting Amazon's Elastic Computer Cloud, which powers Netflix, Instagram, and Pinterest.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Is Windows 8 Adoption Rate Really Trailing Vista ?

In the roughly two months since the release of Windows 8, the adoption rate of Microsoft's latest flagship operating system appears to be trailing Window Vista, until now the slowest OS rollout in the software giant's recent history.

Data compiled by Web analytics firm Net Applications put Windows 8's online usage share at just under 1.6 percent through Dec. 22 as measured in relation to all desktop and laptop PC operating systems. Microsoft made its next-gen PC and tablet platform available on Oct. 26. Computerworld's Gregg Keizer tabbed back through the data to find that Vista, after the same period of time following its 2007 release, had shown up on 2.2 percent of all Windows systems (you can access the same data by clicking back through the Net Application report.)

More bad news for Microsoft—the adoption of Windows 8 on PCs only grew by about 0.4 percentage points from Nov. 22 to Dec. 22. In the second month after Vista's release, adoption of the much maligned OS had doubled from the end of its first month, Keizer noted.
Net Applications also measures the online usage share of operating systems for all major computing system device types, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles in addition to PCs. When you account for all of those hardware platforms, Microsoft's flashy new OS currently has about a 1.4 percent share of the overall OS market.

Other researchers and even some Microsoft OEM partners have recently warned that the uptake of Windows 8 was proceeding slowly in the early going, though Redmond said in late November that it had already sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses.

An overall decline in new PC sales in 2012 relative to corresponding growth in the sales of mobile devices like tablets and smartphones may partially account for the seeming discrepancy between Microsoft's story and that of some key hardware partners. It's not clear how many of the tens of millions of Windows 8 license sales the software giant has reported were for brand-new PCs, tablets, and a new class of hybrid devices versus upgrades on previously owned systems.

If Windows 8's initial adoption rate appears to be moving at an almost glacial pace, it's almost unimaginable that the new OS will follow Vista's disastrous path for too long. Nearly six years after Vista's release—and more than three years after the release of Service Pack 2, the bridge between Windows XP and Windows 7 has a meager 5.49 percent share of the desktop OS market, according to Net Application.
The analytics firm currently has Windows 7 with a 45.6 percent share of the PC operating system market while the amazingly enduring Windows XP—easily Microsoft's most successful enterprise product ever—was holding on to just over 39 percent through Dec. 22.

With Microsoft planning to pull in release dates of future-generation Windows platforms —Windows 9, code named Blue, could be coming as soon as mid-2013 —it may be that Redmond never again owns the market so fully with a single OS as it did with XP or even Windows 7 for that matter.
Even so, Windows 8 surely can't fare as poorly as Vista has ... can it?

For more, see Windows 8 Sees 'Slow Start,' Analysts Say, Asus, Acer Express Doubts About Windows 8 Demand, and Is Windows 8 a Replay of the 1980s?, as well as our full review of Windows 8 plus the slide show above.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Acer Aspire AME600-UR378

Pros Decent expandability. Integrated Wi-Fi. Capacious hard drive. 10GB RAM. 

Cons Large amount of bloatware. GPU upgradeability hampered by 300W PSU.  

 
Bottom Line

The Acer Aspire AME600-UR378's solid hardware, decent expandability, and reasonable price tag helps set the bar for what we expect from mainstream multimedia desktops in a Windows 8 world.By Ahmer Kazi If the Acer Aspire AME600-UR378 ($899.99 list) is a harbinger of the sort of mainstream multimedia desktops that we'll be seeing in a Windows 8 world, then consider us enthusiastic. In addition to packing a nimble Intel Core i7-3770 processor, a hefty amount of RAM, and a huge hard drive, it also offers decent expandability and sports a reasonable price tag. Although a few shortcomings keep it from being a total knockout, it nonetheless sets the bar pretty high for what we expect from media-center desktops in a Windows 8 world.

Design and Features

The AME600-UR378 measures 14.9 by 7.09 by 15.82 inches (HWD). Its boxy black metallic chassis is a relatively unassuming affair, but its glossy plastic face adds a splash of style. The front portion houses a dual-layer DVD burner and a free optical drive bay. Directly beneath that is a sliding door that covers a swappable expansion bay whose removable sled allows for a straightforward hard drive upgrade without having to open the chassis. The only departure from the AME600-UR378's all-black aesthetic is its gray upper lip protruding above the tower, which houses two USB 2.0 ports, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, a multicard reader, headphone and mic jacks, and a button that toggles a dim white light that emanates from a sliver between the AME600-UR378's face and the lip. The rear of the chassis houses the remainder of its ports, including four USB 2.0 ports, dual USB 3.0 ports, two PS/2 ports (for old-school mice and keyboard, even though the ones bundled with the AME600-UR378 are USB 2.0), HDMI- and VGA- out, audio ports, and Ethernet.

Opening the AME600-UR378's chassis requires unscrewing two rear bolts. Once you pop open the side of the AME600-UR378, you'll find an empty bay that can accommodate a supplemental optical drive as well as the removable sled mentioned above for an additional hard drive The system's 10GB DDR3 RAM is divvied into one 2GB module and a pair of 4GB modules, leaving a single vacant socket for RAM upgrades. One of the system's three PCIe x1 slots is occupied by the built-in 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi card. The other two PCIe x1 slots are available, as well as a free PCIe x16 slot. The AME600-UR378 has integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU, and one of its available PCI slots can be filled with a beefier GPU. That said, the AME600-UR378's 300W power supply means that it won't be able to accommodate anything beyond a midrange graphics card.

The AME600-UR378 ships with a generous 2TB 5,400RPM hard drive. At the same time, however, it's laden with a fairly heavy amount of preloaded software. As is often the case, these programs vary in utility. At any rate, one encounters all of the usual suspects, ranging from the genuinely useful (Office 2010 Starter, a full version of McAfee Internet Security Suite, media-oriented software like CyberLink Media Espresso, Clear.fi Media and Photo) to the obligatorily proprietary (Acer Power Management, Acer Recovery Management, Acer Cloud Docs) to the typical delete-immediately-after-unpacking bloatware (Wild Tangent games suite, desktop links to eBay, Amazon, Spotify). The AME600-UR378 is covered by a one-year limited warranty.



Performance

The AME600-UR378's 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-3770 processor and 10GB of DDR3 RAM yielded impressive scores across the board. Since it was one of our first Windows 8 mainstream multimedia desktops, comparable systems are scarce. That said, we were able to stack the AME600-UR378's performance against similarly priced Windows 7 desktops, like the Lenovo IdeaCentre K430 and the Dell Vostro 470.

While each system sported the same processor, the Aspire AME600-UR378's PCMark 7 score of 3,917 points muscled its way past its competitors, well ahead of the Lenovo IdeaCentre K430 (3,737 points). It also scored higher than both the Gateway DX4870-UR11P (3,540 points) and Asus Essentio CM6870 (3,304 points). The AME600-UR378 displayed similar agility in multimedia-oriented tasks. It completed our Handbrake video-encoding test in a brisk 40 seconds, leaving the Asus CM6870 (1:03) in a distant second place. The AME600-UR378 completed our Photoshop CS6 test in 3 minutes 32 seconds.


On our Cinebench test, the Aspire AME600-UR378 scored 7 points, coming relatively close to the Gateway DX4870-UR11P (7.45 points) but falling a bit short of the Lenovo K430 (7.86 points), a disparity that can be attributed to the latter's extra 2GB of RAM. On a practical level, though, the two score closely enough that most users won't be able to discern much of a difference in processing capability between them.
While the Aspire AME600-UR378 understandably didn't display the same 3D rendering prowess as desktops sporting discrete graphics processors did, it held its ground in 3DMark 11 (1,478 in Entry-level settings; 230 in Extreme-level settings) where it counted—against the Gateway DX4870-UR11P (1,460 points in Entry-level settings), the only other system in the class with an integrated GPU. It came as no surprise, then, that the Aspire AME600-UR378 was outflanked by systems in its class with discrete graphics, like the Asus CM6870 (2,832 points and 523 points, respectively) and the Lenovo K430 (2,948 points and 525 points, respectively.

Like the Lenovo K430, the Aspire AME600-UR378 failed to crack the 30 frames per second (fps) playability barrier in the high-end gaming arena. Such was the case in both our Aliens vs. Predator benchmark test (14fps with medium-quality settings in 1,366-by-768 resolution; 5fps with maximum-quality in 1,920-by-1,080 resolution) and our Heaven benchmark tests (14fps with medium-quality settings in 1,366-by-768 resolution; 4fps with maximum-quality in 1,920-by-1,080 resolution), and this shortcoming is more forgivable than it is with the IdeaCentre K430's inability to do so in both Aliens vs. Predator (12fps with maximum-quality in 1,920-by-1,080 resolution) and Heaven (26fps and 12fps) since that system is actually touted as a gaming rig.

All said, the Acer Aspire AME600-UR378 is a good choice for users looking for an affordably priced mainstream multimedia desktop preloaded with Windows 8. In addition to its solid hardware offerings, it also offers decent expandability and comes with a reasonable price tag. At the same time, however, the mere inclusion of Windows 8 alone hardly distinguishes it from our current Editors' Choice for midrange desktop PCs, the Gateway DX4870-UR11P, a system whose extremely similar specs and slightly lower price help keep it at the top of the pile. Still, the Aspire AME600-UR378 is certainly worth checking out.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

Check out the test scores for the Acer Aspire AME600-UR378

COMPARISON TABLE

Compare the Acer Aspire AME600-UR378 with several other desktops side by side.
More desktop reviews:
•   AVADirect X79 Gaming PC
•   Acer Aspire AME600-UR378
•   HP Spectre One 23-e010se
•   HP Envy 23-d060qd TouchSmart
•   Apple iMac 21.5-Inch (Late 2012)
•  more

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Foxconn Factory Conditions Improving, One Comfy Chair at a Time

Working conditions seem to be improving at Apple production partner Foxconn's mainland China factories, if that's what more comfortable chairs and protective foam on low stairwell ceilings mean.
A New York Times article published Wednesday details positive changes at Foxconn's China-based plants, which have been criticized by global labor rights groups and were toured by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) at Apple's request earlier this year.

In May, reports from both the Hong Kong-based watchdog group Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) and the FLA found abuses at Foxconn facilities. This year's multiple Apple product launches put added pressure on the factories, which allegedly pushed workers into overtime and forced them to endure "humiliating" disciplinary action, including the writing and reading of confession letters, and manual labor duties like toilet cleaning.

A worker uprising came about a month later, when dozens of Foxconn employees were arrested during a riot at the Chengdu, China plant after a class with security staff. Furthermore, reports of an iPhone 5 production line strike surfaced just weeks after the new Apple smartphone hit shelves in September.
But could the Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant be turning things around just in time to make a New Year's resolution?

According to the Times, Foxconn has already carried out more than 280 of 360 changes recommended by the FLA.

One of which, it seems, was getting one assembly line worker, Pu Xiaolan, some cozier furniture.
Xiaolan's new seat is one of what the paper called "personal" reforms, along with automatic shut-off devices on whirring machines, and cushioned seats for other workers.

More significant, though, are those changes that will do more than comfort employee's backsides. Foxconn announced earlier this year that by next summer, schedules will allow for no more than an average of 49 hours of work a week. Former timetables kept some employees at the factory for almost 100 hours per week.

Meanwhile, other improvements being implemented by Foxconn are in areas like health and safety, environmental protection, compensation, grievance systems, workplace conduct and discipline, and termination and retrenchment policy.

Neither Foxconn nor Apple immediately responded to requests for comment.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Foxconn would expand operations into North America, a move that could come in conjunction with Apple's efforts to move some parts of its Mac production to the U.S. next year.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 AVADirect X79 Gaming PC

Pros High-end components. Classy design. Abundance of ports. Nearly bloatware free. Some games preinstalled. 

Cons Expensive. Bulky. Perforated grille on top of chassis blocks most ports.  

Bottom Line Despite its appealing design and considerable firepower, the AVADirect X79 Gaming PC nonetheless falls short of comparable systems, making it difficult to recommend to high-end gaming enthusiasts.By Ahmer Kazi The AVADirect X79 Gaming PC ($4,800 direct, as tested) continues the proud, high-end gaming desktop tradition of going completely over the top in every possible regard. Of course, when you enter into rarefied elite territory where five grand systems are the norm, a certain degree of flashiness is to be expected, and in this regard AVADirect have certainly hits the mark. Everything inside and outside of the X79 gives the appearance of raw power, from its sleek, refined Silverstone chassis to the top-of-the-line components humming away beneath the surface.

 The X79's performance in our benchmarks tests confirmed its brute strength, though it still fell short of its competitors in some areas. Gamers shelling out so much cash don't expect a good system, they expect the best system. With these heightened expectations in mind, then, the X79 faces stiff competition in its price point.

Design and Features
The X79's chassis measures 19.6 by 8.3 by 24.2 inches (HWD). Its huge dimensions is meant to accommodate a massive amount of components, but finding a place for the gaming rig will be a challenge for gamers living in tight quarters.
With the SilverStone chassis, AVADirect delivers an elegantly refined gaming desktop. Instead of the flashing LED lights and garish grilles typically seen in this category, the X79 comes in a subdued metallic silver chassis. Moreover, the SilverStone chassis has the motherboard vertically mounted, allowing the heat generated by the X79 to dissipate upwards.

The top of the X79 chassis has a removable perforated grill,that must be pulled off for gamers to access the majority of its ports and, moreover, to unscrew either one of the side panels and pop open the chassis. All the removable grill allows users to hide all of their cables, this can become cumbersome after a while since the top needs to be removed each time you want to access the ports beneath.

The X79 features an abundance of ports. The top of the chassis has four USB 3.0 ports, seven USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, a Bluetooth module, a PS/2 input, audio inputs, and an S/PDIF digital audio output. The top also has some hardcore gamer-friendly elements. There's a Clear CMOS switch (for letting gamers replace the motherboard's jumper cap in the event that an overclock fails) and an ROG connect switch, and corresponding ROG input (which allows you monitor the system's processing speed in real-time through a laptop). There's also an integrated OC Key dongle, which can be plugged into the DVI port of any graphics card to give gamers on-screen performance information and overclocking options without having to boot the OS. The top also houses three fan control switches that allow users to toggle between high- and low-speed for each of the X79's three cooling fans. During testing, I didn't notice a difference in noise levels between the settings.

Toward the front of the system, the top of the chassis sports a power button, reset button, and activity LEDs. A sliding door to the side of these elements opens to reveal headphone and mic inputs, as well as a pair of USB 3.0 ports.

The front panel of the X79 features a total of five bays. The top bay houses a Blu-ray reader that also reads and burns DVDs and CDs. The second bay beneath it has a 65-in-1 card reader and a USB 2.0 port. Further down still, there are three empty 5.25-inch drive bays. The X79's rear is a more low-key affair that has a removable plastic grille that allows users to easily clean a dust filter that captures all the debris kicked up in the maelstrom of the system's cooling fans.

Popping open either of the chassis side panels reveals an impressive array of hardware as well as padding on the inside of each panel, ostensibly for muffling any sound. The sound, of course, stems from the X79's three fans at the bottom of the system. In addition to integrated Bluetooth, the X79's motherboard also sports a total of eight DIMM sockets that can accommodate a maximum of 64GB of RAM; our test unit had two occupied by 8GB modules, leaving six available, though two of these are slightly difficult to access because the X79's massive six-core 3.2GHz Intel Core i7-3960X processor sits directly in the middle of the modules.

A good portion of the X79's interior real estate is also occupied by its trio of EVGA 2GB GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards in a three-way SLI configuration. Each graphics card features one HDMI port, two DVI ports, and one DisplayPort input, making it possible to use multiple displays at once. Additional expansion cards would be difficult to accommodate since the graphics cards block access to the motherboard's remaining PCIe x8 slot.

Although the X79 is already brimming with components, its 1,000-watt power supply (PSU) means that it can easily accommodate even more upgrades. Of course, most users don't shell out nearly five grand on a system with the expectation of having to upgrade it in the foreseeable future, but the possibility is still there.
The X79 packs two solid-state-drives (SSDs) and two hard disk drives (HDDs); the two 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs are for the operating system and are in RAID 0 array in order to provide a quick platform for running your OS and programs. The two 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7,200rpm HDDs are in RAID 1 (mirror) array, leaving you with plenty of storage space.

Like most custom-built gaming rigs, pre-installed software is kept to a minimum, and, includes stuff worth keeping, like full versions of Assassin's Creed and Deus Ex Human Revolution – The Missing Link. Like the V3 Gaming PC Avenger, the X79 is covered by a three-year limited parts and labor warranty and free life-time tech support.

Performance
With a six-core 3.2GHz Intel Core i7-3960X CPU overclocked to 4.5GHz and 16GB of DDR3 RAM, the X79 tore through our benchmark tests. Still, the X79 belongs to a class of gaming desktops where ripping through benchmark tests is the norm. Thus, while the actual difference between the systems in terms of performance is nearly impossible to perceive, a nearly $5,000 price tag means that you'd want to buy the best of the best—not merely "one of the best."

With these elevated expectations in mind, it was disappointing that the X79 failed to top the charts in our tests against other similarly-priced gaming desktops. Its PCMark 7 score of 6,197 came within striking distance of the Falcon Northwest Mach IV Icon2 (6,245 points) as well as the V3 Gaming PC Avenger (6,348 points) but lagged behind the class-leading Maingear Shift Super Stock (Core i7-3930K) (6,501 points)

The same goes for the X79's multimedia performance. It completed our Handbrake video-encoding test in 54 seconds, putting it on equal footing with the Maingear Shift Super Stock (54 seconds) and the V3 Gaming PC Avenger (54 seconds) and a few seconds behind both the Northwest Icon2 (53 seconds) and the Origin Genesis (i7-3930K) (51 seconds). Meanwhile, the X79's Cinebench R11.5 score (13.15) handily surpassed the Falcon Icon2 (9.66) but lagged slightly behind the Shift Super Stock (Core i7-3930K) (13.98 points) and, to a greater extent, the Origin Genesis (i7-3930K) (14.23 points).

The X79 finished our Photoshop CS5 test in 2 minutes 22 seconds, which was several seconds longer than both the V3 Gaming Avenger (2:17) and Maingear Shift Super Stock (Core i7-3930K) (2:15) while finishing ten seconds behind the Origin Genesis (i7-3930K) (2:12).

Although the X79s' trio of Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 GPUs easily delivered insane frame rates in even the most demanding settings of our gaming benchmark tests, it ultimately couldn't keep pace with its peers. In our Crysis benchmark test, the X79 dished out strong frame rates (120fps in medium quality at 1,280-by-720 resolution; 77fps in very high quality at 1,920-by-1,080 resolution) but couldn't keep pace with either the Northwest Icon2 or the Origin Genesis (i7-3930K).

The X79 fared better in our Lost Planet 2 benchmark test, managing to outmuscle the V3 Gaming PC Avenger, but once again failing to pump out frame rates with as much dexterity as the Origin Genesis (i7-3930K) or the Maingear Shift Super Stock (Core i7-3930K). That said, the X79's frame rates are impressive in their own right, and it's worth repeating that it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between these systems since they all effortlessly deliver silky smooth graphics.

As far as 3D rendering is concerned, the X79's performance in our 3DMark 11 benchmark tests (23,397 points in Entry-level mode, 8,916 points in Extreme-level mode) were objectively impressive but nonetheless not as high as the Falcon Northwest Icon2 (23,627 points and 10,523 points, respectively) or the Origin Genesis (i7-3930K) (24,330 points and 9,710 points, respectively). While these are certainly smoothly playable scores, they still fall short of the competition, all of which fall in the same price range, save for the more expensive Origin Genesis (i7-3930K).

All said, the AVADirect X79 Gaming PC is undoubtedly an attractive system with the capability to handle enormously complex visual tasks as well as unfettered multimedia creation and consumption. However, high-end gaming enthusiasts who can afford to drop nearly five grand on a gaming rig would be better off spending the few hundred dollars extra for our current Editors' Choice, the Maingear Shift Super Stock (Core i7 3930K), which outscores the X79 across the board (though it should be said that the scores were very close).

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
Check out the test scores for the AVADirect X79 Gaming PC

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the AVADirect X79 Gaming PC with several other desktops side by side.
More desktop reviews:
•   AVADirect X79 Gaming PC
•   Acer Aspire AME600-UR378
•   HP Spectre One 23-e010se
•   HP Envy 23-d060qd TouchSmart
•   Apple iMac 21.5-Inch (Late 2012)
•  more

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Apple May Soon Let You Talk to the Hand

Apple fans are hungry for the company's next product innovation, but will they be satisfied if it turns out to be a watch rather than the hotly anticipated Apple TV? Rumor has it an iOS-powered, Siri-enabled smartwatch could soon be appearing on the scene. "Wearable computing is a hot trend," said marketing prof Daniel Ladik, "and Apple cannot let Google have all the fun with Google glasses, right?"Apple's supply chain has clearly sprung a leak since Steve Jobs' passing: Every few months, it seems, a rumor or report from unnamed sources at this or that supplier makes the rounds. The current rumor is that Apple is hard at work at its next innovation -- and it's not a television set or a smart remote control. Instead, it is a watch.

The crux of the report is this: Intel has teamed up with Apple to build a Bluetooth-enabled iOS watch that sports a 1.5-inch screen from which users can make calls. The news was first reported in the Asian tech press. U.S. publications including Mobilegeek and TheNextWeb translated the reports and unearthed the details.

Apple did not respond to our request to comment for this story.
Certainly the demand for smartwatches is there, said Rob Walch, host of Today in iOS, pointing to Pebble's success on Kickstarter earlier this year.
Indeed, Walch expected Apple to announce a smartwatch in September, he told MacNewsWorld. Instead the company rolled out its upgraded iPod nano with a 2.5-inch multitouch screen.

Eventually, Apple will make a play with a smartwatch, he maintained, although the timing is less than clear.
"I guess it is like those people who keep predicting Apple will launch a smart TV. Sooner or later it will -- and if you keep on saying it, you will be eventually right," Walch said.
Apple is clearly at work on something along these lines, Daniel M. Ladik, an associate professor of marketing at Seton Hall University, told MacNewsWorld. Whether it is a smartwatch or an Apple TV -- or possibly both -- remains to be seen, of course.

However, it's likely that the world will know sooner rather than later what Apple has up its sleeve, he said.

"Think about the state of Apple at the moment," continued Ladik. "Eighty-five percent of their sales in the latest quarter are from products they released in the last 12 months. When you think of the total revenue of a company the size of Apple, that has to be a record of some sort."
Also, Apple has changed its normal innovation cycle, he pointed out. The latest iPad arrived with the iPhone 5 in October -- with only six months between update cycles -- and the iPad mini came in November.

"Something new has to be happening in 2013," Ladik said. "There is no other reason to push a new iPad out that fast, as well as release the new mini iPad all within the same four-to-six-week window of iPhone 5."
It could be an Apple TV, but a smartwatch is not out of the question, he added. "Wearable computing is a hot trend, and Apple cannot let Google have all the fun with Google glasses, right?"


Perhaps the most interesting question is what kind of functionality this alleged smartwatch would offer. The gadget could be little more than a Bluetooth accessory, displaying essential bits of data such as email or incoming phone calls for the user's quick reference, Walch suggested.

Or it could be a more elaborate play on Apple's part, offered Ladik. Users could speak to a Siri-powered smartwatch to access such content as music, stock information, a calculator and so on. Down the road, Apple could develop a whole new market for mini apps for a watch.
"I'm not sure what the price point will be for an Apple watch," he said, "but it has to be cheaper than what Google is suggesting its glasses might price at."

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Researchers find malware targeting Java HTTP servers

Security researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro have uncovered a piece of backdoor-type malware that infects Java-based HTTP servers and allows attackers to execute malicious commands on the underlying systems.

The threat, known as BKDR_JAVAWAR.JG, comes in the form of a JavaServer Page (JSP), a type of Web page that can only be deployed and served from a specialized Web server with a Java servlet container, such as Apache Tomcat.

Once this page is deployed, the attacker can access it remotely and can use its functions to browse, upload, edit, delete, download or copy files from the infected system using a Web console interface. This is similar to the functionality provided by PHP-based backdoors, commonly known as PHP Web shells.
"Aside from gaining access to sensitive information, an attacker gains control of the infected system thru the backdoor and can carry out more malicious commands onto the vulnerable server," Trend Micro researchers said Thursday in a blog post.

This JSP backdoor can be installed by other malware already running on the system that hosts the Java-based HTTP server and Java servlet container or can be downloaded when browsing to malicious websites from such a system.

According to Trend Micro's technical notes, the malware targets systems running Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

"Another possible attack scenario is when an attacker checks for websites powered by Apache Tomcat then attempts to access the Tomcat Web Application Manager," the Trend Micro researchers said. "Using a password cracking tool, cybercriminals are able to login and gain manager/administrative rights allowing the deployment of Web application archive (WAR) files packaged with the backdoor to the server."
In order to protect their servers from such threats, administrators should use strong passwords that cannot be easily cracked by using brute force tools, should deploy all security updates available for their systems and software and should avoid visiting unknown and untrusted websites, the Trend Micro researchers said.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Drones, phones and other 2012 privacy threats

Verizon's attempt -- unsuccessful so far -- to secure a patent for a so-called 'snooping technology,' which in this case would let television advertisers target individual viewers based on what they're doing or saying in front of their sets, capped another challenging year for privacy advocates.

The Verizon technology, which includes a sensor/camera housed in a set-top box, would determine the activities of individual viewers -- eating, playing, cuddling, laughing, singing, fighting or gesturing -- and then trigger personal advertisements based on the activities.
Overall, the technology would serve targeted ads based on what the user is doing, who the user is, his or her surroundings, and any other suitable personal information, according to Verizon.

The U.S. Patent Office delivered a "non-final" rejection of Verizon's application in November.
But analysts say that because engineers are already working on such technology, it's a cinch that some kind of similar technology will be included in TV set-top boxes in the not too distant future.
Here, in no particular order, are other developments in 2012 that could have a major long-term impact on privacy:

The Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, signed into law by President Barack Obama in February, was immediately slammed by rights groups, privacy advocates and lawmakers who contended that the law poses a major threat to the privacy of law-abiding citizens.
The bill, still largely unnoticed by the general public, opens up American airspace to commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones. Over the next few years, the FAA is expected to license the use of as many as 30,000 drones by border patrol agents, government agencies, state and local law enforcement agencies as well as businesses.

The powerful drone lobby has done much to highlight the benefits of drones in tracking fugitive criminals, managing traffic, monitoring crops, conducting land management activities, news reporting and filmmaking.
Numerous agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the FBI. the border patrol, and local police departments have secured licenses to operate drones in U.S. airspace.

Rights advocates argue that the law includes no meaningful guidelines for protecting privacy rights.
The advocates warn that drones equipped with facial recognition cameras, license plate scanners, thermal imaging cameras, open WiFi sniffers, and other sensors could be used for general public safety surveillance.

The Center for Democracy and Technology earlier this year noted that static surveillance technology like closed circuit television cameras cannot track individuals beyond their fields of vision. But drones, the group contended, can peek into backyards and be used -- without a warrant -- to track individuals pervasively.
The next big breakthrough in IT management is here. Learn how you can reduce change risk, speed incident resolution, and improve visibility across your environment with Social IT Operations Management.
Read now.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 China Tightens Its Grip on Internet Users

China is clamping down further on Internet users. Service providers now must play a greater role in policing online behavior -- verifying identities, deleting offending posts, and reporting violators to the government. The rules will undoubtedly pose challenges for companies wanting to do business in the country as well as for individuals wanting to engage in free and open discourse.The Chinese government issued a set of new Internet rules on Friday. Internet users must now provide their real names to service providers, and ISPs are required to delete forbidden posts and report such activities to authorities. In other words, the so-called "Great Firewall of China" has been further fortified.

"This is just another indication that they really want to control what information gets to their citizens," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "From the standpoint of overall impact, it means that all communication going in and out of China are going to be more closely monitored."

The new regulations were issued by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. While users may still adopt pseudonyms for online postings, they will have to provide a real name to service providers first.

The new regulations also will require Internet service providers, including those providing access for both fixed-line and mobile phones, to confirm their identities. However, just as the invaders of medieval China found ways through or around China's Great Wall, it is likely that Internet users will be able to exploit weaknesses in China's Great Firewall to thwart the stricter new security measures.

"There are some ways they could break through -- VPN and encryption could get through," Enderle told TechNewsWorld. "A VPN tunnel might be hard to monitor, but China might look to block those as well."

While it is likely that hackers could piggyback on communications and use high-level encryption, the truth is that for most users the so-called spy-level "black bag stuff" simply isn't going to be practical.

"It might be possible to get a satellite uplink to work," Enderle added, "at least until there is a way to jam the signal. But it is pretty easy to break into the government's methods of monitoring. As we saw in Eastern Europe, it just means that companies will have to be more careful about what information goes through, as it will be easy to know what is being monitored."

Since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, which resulted in the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government has on occasion moved toward providing more individual freedom, but those in power have inevitably pulled back. This latest move is a far cry from the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution, but ironically neither movement is even allowed to be widely discussed in China.

This latest move shows that China's government will likely continue to crack down on the free flow of communication to avoid a turn away from party control.

This attitude isn't limited to China, though.

"We all know about the Arab spring and how Iran has tried to crack down on the Internet. Motivation and technology being what they are, word will get out," Claudia Rast, a business and technology attorney with Butzel Long, told TechNewsWorld.

"How do you keep 535 million people from accessing information they want or posting information they want?" she mused.

The changes in the Internet rules in China essentially encompass three main points: allowing users to adopt pseudonyms only after providing real names; requiring providers to confirm the information provided is accurate; and requiring businesses to exercise greater caution in gathering and protecting data.

"Broadly speaking, China's government is attempting to eliminate Internet anonymity," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "While the concept is largely ignored globally, it occasionally arises in discussions of how to better control abusive online behaviors including stalking, harassment, bullying, etc. On the surface, China's move is likely to be interpreted as a simplistic response to a number of recent cases where corrupt government officials were publicly exposed and embarrassed on social networking and microblogging sites."

Both the broadness of the changes and their potential consequences for both users and service providers suggest that the problem -- and its resolution -- could be far more complex.

"According to a number of reports, while official Internet policies in China are highly restrictive, the government has mostly left enforcement up to the country's large and diverse community of service providers. In turn, many service providers have dragged their feet in order to avoid angering customers who can easily switch to other service providers," King told TechNewsWorld.

"With that in mind, it's possible to consider these new rules an obvious attempt by the central government to bring order to an increasingly freewheeling online environment," he added. "But cautiously spreading the pain between both users and SPs, and [sweetening] those bitter pills with data privacy sops, suggests China's new rulers may also be trying to avoid draconian measures that would be ignored or rejected."

In wartime, it was common to see posters that suggest "loose lips sink ships." This could be a new Cold War of over the spread of information, and users may not worry so much about ships as their own freedoms.

"The result is that individuals as well as businesses that look to do business in China will have to be much more careful about what goes in and out of the country," said Enderle. "Just watch what you say."

View the original article here

Read More...