Intel's Kaby Lake Chip Promises Deeper Internet Immersion

Facing a shrinking market for personal computers and a stalled market for tablets, Intel on Tuesday unveiled its 7th-generation processors, code-named "Kaby Lake," which deliver more speed and power than its 6th-generation chipsets, while improving battery efficiency. Intel has positioned the new Kaby Lake chipsets as ideal for the immersive Internet. Their 14 nm+ technology delivers 12 percent increases in productivity and 19 percent faster Web performance, compared to year-ago processors.

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Zen's Place in the Computing World

AMD, which has been clawing its way out of the doldrums, recently showcased its octacore, 16-thread Summit Ridge desktop processor featuring its Zen core in a performance match-up against Intel's octacore Broadwell-E Core i7-6900K CPU. The two similarly configured processors were locked at 3 GHz for the test, in which they ran the multithreaded Blender rendering application, in a demo presented earlier this month in San Francisco. AMD's Summit Ridge outperformed the Intel processor.

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Election Season Spawns Scams With Political Twist

Dirty tricks during political campaigns are nothing new, but the Internet and the proliferation of mobile devices have allowed tricksters to up their games a notch. It came to light last week, for example, that Donald Trump's campaign app was hoovering the address books on his supporters' phones. Trump's app wasn't doing anything illegal. It wasn't even trying to hide what it was doing. The app seeks the user's permission to download all contacts before it does so. However, both the ACLU and EPIC have rapped the practice.

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Nextdoor Tackles Racial Profiling at Street Level

Nextdoor last week rolled out to all 110,000 of its neighborhoods a new form-based process for making crime and safety reports. Implementation of the tool reduced incidents of racial profiling by 75 percent in areas where it was tested, according to CEO Nirav Tolia. Some Nextdoor members had begun using the site to post problematic messages targeting racial minorities. For example, Oakland members posted vague warnings about suspicious activity focusing on black citizens walking down the street, driving a car, or knocking on a door.

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Snazzier Fitbits Sport Beefed-Up Feature Sets

Fitbit on Monday announced two new fitness trackers with sleeker looks, more durable construction and greater data-gathering capabilities. The Fitbit Charge 2, priced at $149.95, features continuous heart-rate tracking. It uses the data to generate a cardio fitness score and provides guidance for improving it over time. The Charge 2 displays real-time exercise stats, connects to the GPS in a smartphone, and has a set of advanced sensors that make it easier to track activity throughout a day.

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The Peppermint Twist Is Still Cool

The Peppermint operating system is built around a concept not found in most Linux distros. It is a hybrid combination of traditional Linux desktop applications and cloud-based infrastructure. Peppermint 7, the annual update released in June, is a lightweight distribution based on Ubuntu 16.04. It uses LXDE as the default desktop environment, and shows considerable growth since our review of Peppermint 5 two years ago. The key to this process of linking full desktop functionality to cloud apps is an in-house developed application dubbed "Ice."

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#StandWithLeslie and Obliterate Internet Trolls

I think there's a legitimate argument for removing one category of folks from the gene pool, because they spend the little time they are given on Earth making other folks' lives miserable. Back when I was playing MMOs, some twisted folks -- known as "griefers," would lie in wait to mug lower level characters and find creative ways to destroy the fun in a game, often eventually killing it. Then came trolls, folks who drop into forums to attack other members, often driving people away from the forums and killing them.

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Innocents Exposed as WikiLeaks Gushes Information

WikiLeaks reportedly has leaked sensitive personal information belonging to hundreds of innocent individuals worldwide, including some residing in several highly repressive countries. The organization has revealed private credit card data, medical information, personal addresses and other data of various individuals, including the identification as gay of a Saudi Arabian who had been arrested, and the identities of two teenage rape victims, along with other highly vulnerable people.

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Apple Speeds iOS Patch to Bring Down Pegasus

Apple on Thursday issued a patch that addresses three recently discovered critical iOS zero-day vulnerabilities, and advised users to update their systems immediately. State-sponsored actors exploited the flaws to target United Arab Emirates human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, and a Mexican journalist who reported on government corruption. Researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab and security firm Lookout discovered the vulnerabilities, which they dubbed "Trident," after investigating suspicious text messages sent to Mansoor.

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US Government's Social Media Vetting Idea Draws Fire

A coalition headed by the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Internet Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union this week filed objections to a Department of Homeland Security proposal to collect social media information from visitors entering the United States. The proposal, published in June, calls for the addition of a request to the I-94W form required for aliens seeking entry under the nonimmigrant Visa Waiver Program and the Electronic System for Travel Authorization.

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Instagram Opens Snappy New Events Channel

Instagram last week announced a new Explore video channel that gives users an easier way to find and watch events. The channel aggregates videos from concerts, sporting events and more, and its personalization features flag events that might be a good match for users' individual interests. The new channel initially will be available only to U.S. users. "One of the fundamental limitations of Instagram is that you only see content from people you explicitly follow," said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research.

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25 Years of Linux: What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Happy Birthday Linux! You're 25! When Linux was born on Aug. 25, 1991, it was little more than a hobby for then 21-year old Linus Torvald. Today the Linux community is estimated to be upwards of 86 million users strong. It has become the backbone of large enterprises, and it is installed in government systems and embedded in devices worldwide. The Linux operating system started out as an alternative to other platform architectures in use on mainframes and enterprise back-ends. It has grown into a major mainstream computing platform.

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Gadget Ogling: Musical Pizza Boxes, Backup Backpacks, and Tattooing Robots

Call it a gimmick if you must, but I'm very much into the idea of having a pizza box that doubles as a turntable. Pizza Hut partnered with Novalia to make the box, which includes pitch and volume controls, a mixer, and touch-sensitive decks. Using printed electronics, DJs can crossfade, rewind and even scratch. The box pairs with smartphones and computers using Bluetooth and works with DJ software. I'm glad this is not a set of true physical turntables, as the idea of placing delicate vinyls anywhere close to a greasy pizza box makes me queasy.

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Twitter Steps Up Counterterrorism Efforts

Twitter last week announced it had suspended 235,000 accounts since February for promoting terrorism, bringing to 360,000 the total number of suspensions since mid-2015. Daily suspensions have increased more than 80 percent since last year, spiking immediately after terrorist attacks. Twitter's response time for suspending reported accounts, the length of time offending accounts are active on its platform, and the number of followers they draw all have decreased dramatically, the company said.

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Apple Buys Healthcare 'Magic Machine'

Apple has purchased medical records startup Gliimpse in order to broaden its presence in the personal healthcare information management market. Apple reportedly confirmed that the purchase took place earlier this year. Apple in recent years has delved into healthcare with offerings such as HealthKit, CareKit and ResearchKit. The Gliimpse acquisition is seen as an extension of those efforts. "Apple is highly committed to creating products and services around health," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies.

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Google Fills Nexus Devices With Rich Nougat Features

Google on Monday began rolling out its long-awaited Android 7.0 Nougat release to Nexus smartphones and tablets. The new operating system became available as a beta release, known only as "Android N," earlier this year. The experiences of developers and other users led to more than 250 new features, including improved multitasking, stronger battery life and tighter security features, noted Sameer Samat, vice president of product development. The new OS provides quick access to settings, so important features are readily available when needed.

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Netgear's Orbi WiFi Promises Strong Signal All Through the House

Netgear on Monday announced the Orbi WiFi System, designed to eliminate dead spots in smart homes. Orbi's system "is similar to using a network extender, but Netgear has improved on this approach with a dedicated band for communication with the satellite devices," explained Bill Ablondi, a research director at Strategy Analytics. An Orbi WiFi system consisting of one router and one satellite can cover a home of up to 4,000 square feet in area. The initial Orbi system will be available in September for $400.

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Latest Slackware Version Doesn't Cut Newbies any Slack

Slackware is one of those Linux distros often described as being difficult to use. The Slackware Project version 14.2 released on July 1 does little to change that view -- at least, as far as installing it is concerned. Its KDE desktop is probably the most contemporary trait. Other than an update under the hood, the latest Slackware release offers little that's new in terms of usability and few new features. If you are comfortable with Debian-style Linux distros, prepare to be uncomfortable.

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From the Olympic Non-Robbery to Ford Getting Out of Cars, to Evil NSA: A Strange Week

There were three stories that caught my eye last week that I think deserve some additional discussion. One is the alleged robbery of U.S. Olympians followed by questions of whether it really happened because their phones weren't stolen. There may be a legitimate reason for that, and it suggests a lot of folks will be getting huge cellphone bills next month. Another eye-catching story is that Ford is getting out of the car business. The third is an NSA leak that has me wondering if we should reclassify the NSA as a criminal organization.

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To Protect Enterprise Data, Secure the Code

Responsibility for securing enterprise applications has been moving down the development lifecycle, and for good reason. It not only makes the enterprise more secure, but also saves companies time and money. For example, the average time to fix a vulnerability in IBM's application security solution has dropped from 20 hours to 30 minutes, according to a study Forrester Consulting released last month. Also, finding bugs earlier rather than later in the development process resulted in a 90 percent cost savings.

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Uber Revs Engine in Self-Driving Race

Uber on Thursday announced plans to begin testing semi-autonomous vehicles in Pittsburgh later this month. Its first partially self-driving Volvo XC90 vehicles reportedly will be assigned at random to customers who use the company's app. Each of the prototype cars will have an actual human on board to act as copilot and monitor the vehicle's performance from the driver's seat. The passengers who are provided transport in one of those vehicles reportedly will receive a free ride. Uber, which launched in 2014, has its headquarters in Pittsburgh.

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The Linux Foundation Gives PNDA a Home

The Linux Foundation on Tuesday added PNDA -- the Platform for Network Data Analytics -- to its project menagerie. PNDA provides an open source, scalable platform for next-generation network analytics. It integrates data from multiple sources on a network and works with Apache Spark to crunch the numbers in order to find useful patterns in the data more effectively. The project is now available in its initial platform release. Early PNDA supporters include Cisco, Deepfield, FRINX, Intersec, Moogsoft, NGENA, Ontology, OpenDataSoft and Tupl.

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Edward Snowden Sheds Light on Shadow Brokers

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden on Tuesday injected himself into an escalating cyberstruggle that could affect the U.S. presidential election. The reported hack of The Equation Group might have been a warning shot from Russia, Snowden claimed. The group, which is widely believed to be a front operation for the NSA, apparently was hacked over the weekend by a previously unknown outfit called the "Shadow Brokers," which then claimed to have valuable files in its possession that would be available to the highest bidder.

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Intel's Project Alloy Tosses Reality Into a Blender

Intel on Tuesday presented its virtual reality vision -- a vision that mixes virtual and real worlds into a kind of merged reality -- to developers attending a conference in San Francisco. Mixing reality and unreality sometimes can be a recipe for disaster, but Intel thinks it will be a formula for success. At the center of Intel's vision is its Project Alloy mobile headset and its cutting edge RealSense software. The Alloy head-mounted device departs from other VR devices in that the headset housese all sensors and computing power.

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The Growing Scourge of Cyberbullying, Part 2

The digitization of everything has decreased the degrees of separation between everyone. While that interconnectedness has solved many problems, old and new, digitization has worsened one age-old problem: bullying. An online bullying epidemic is now pushing parents, teens, teachers and technology companies to try even harder to mitigate the misery inflicted on its victims. The connection between bullying and suicide is deeper than once believed, an updated report from the American Academy of Pediatrics indicates. Suicide was identified as the No. 2 cause of teen deaths.

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Super-Sophisticated Spyware Spotted After 5-Year Run

Symantec and Kaspersky Lab last week separately announced the discovery of a highly sophisticated advanced persistent threat that had eluded security researchers for at least five years. A previously unknown group called "Strider" has been using Remsec, an advanced tool that seems to be designed primarily for spying. Its code contains a reference to Sauron, the main villain in The Lord of the Rings, according to Symantec. The APT spyware is called "ProjectSauron" or "Strider" in Kaspersky's report.

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Google Duo Aims to Make Video Calling Super-Easy

Google on Monday launched Google Duo, a one-on-one video calling app that runs on iOS and Android. The app will be available worldwide in the next few days, said Justin Uberti, principal software engineer at Google. Duo switches from cellular service to WiFi, and transitions from high-speed to lower speed wireless service smoothly, promising to let users continue video calls irrespective of their location and service speeds, although video degradation may be apparent on slower services.

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Gadget Ogling: Levitating Smart Things, Making WiFi-Perfect Wine, and Staying Safe While Solo

Lift is an antigravity charger for Apple Watch and Pebble. The charger is wireless, so there's almost no clutter involved -- except, I suppose, when you have to charge the charger. The watch wraps around a portable battery pack, which the base keeps elevated using magnets. There's a Pro version of the base, which you can use as an iPhone or iPad stand and charger. Meanwhile, there's an optional smart lamp attachment called "Orb," which illuminates when you have notifications and can float on the base itself when you're not charging anything.

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Microsoft to Add Beam's Live-Streaming Skills to Xbox

Microsoft last week announced a deal to acquire live-streaming startup Beam. It plans to use Beam's interactive technology to enhance the Xbox Live experience. Beam has attracted a number of top investors, including Techstars, Courtside Ventures and Ore Ventures. The deal is designed to help make Xbox Live more social and fun for users, Microsoft said, allowing members of the community not only to just watch players engage in new gaming experiences, but also to engage directly with each other.

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Google May Paint IoT Fuchsia

A team at Google is working on a new operating system called "Fuchsia," but details are sparse. Fuchsia "is a new open source project that is not at all related to Android or Chrome OS," said Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz. He declined to provide further details about Fuchsia, saying only that "we have many revolving open source projects at Google." Fuchsia reportedly already has undergone some testing, and it is booting "reasonably well" on NUCs based on Intel's Skylake and Broadwell processors.

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The Big Tech Election Stories No One Else Is Covering

Most analysts earn their daily bread by focusing on a particular subject area and following that direction. However, I rebelled against that established pattern -- and as a result, I tend to look between the lines more than many of my peers do. That means when major news media outlets focus on a story, I'm more likely to see what they missed. In the case of both the Clinton email scandal and the DNC email leak -- not to mention the various whistle-blower events -- what interests me isn't what's been covered but what hasn't been covered.

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Hackability of Volkswagen's Keyless Entry System Exposed

Hackers using cheap wireless devices pose a threat to millions of cars equipped with Volkswagen's keyless entry system, according to a study from the University of Birmingham. Scheduled for presentation Friday at the USENIX security conference in Austin, Texas, the study shows that thieves can use a simple wireless device to unlock the doors of millions of cars remotely, essentially by cloning the remote control that wirelessly secures a car door lock. A second hack involves recovering the cryptographic key by attacking the rolling code scheme.

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TCP Flaw Opens Linux Systems to Hijackers

A flaw in the RCP 2159 specification the Internet Engineering Task Force developed to protect TCP against blind in-window attacks could threaten Android smartphones, as well as every Linux computer on the planet. The flaw is described in a paper a team of researchers presented at the 25th Usenix Security Symposium, ongoing in Austin, Texas, through Friday. The researchers are affiliated with the University of California at Riverside and the United States Army Research Laboratory.

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Russia Plays the Cybervictim Card

Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, recently reported that it found a cyberspying virus in the computer networks of more than 20 state authorities and defense contractors. The claim that malware has infected various government and defense companies, published last month by Russia's official TASS news agency, came in the midst of a flurry of accusations that Russia has engaged in cyberattacks against U.S. targets in an effort to impact the presidential election.

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DARPA Rewards Best Bug-Bombing Bots

The code warriors of the future literally might be computer code acting as warriors to defend against attackers on computer networks. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, gave us a glimpse into that future last Sunday, when it announced the winners of its Cyber Grand Challenge at DEF CON. Seven teams participated in the challenge to create systems that used bots to find and fix software problems without human intervention. "Our mission is to change what's possible," said DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar.

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Reports: MacBook Pro Is Getting a Makeover

The long wait for a MacBook Pro refresh appears to be nearing an end, if the latest rumors are correct. The new MacBook Pros expected to launch this fall will feature a Touch ID power button and a touch-sensitive OLED strip that will replace the physical function keys on the keyboard, according to reports. The strip will bring up functions appropriate to the application that's in use. For example, it may display media playback controls when a user opens iTunes. It also might display editing commands when a word processing program is running.

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No Man's Sky: The Universe So Far Feels Good

One of the most highly anticipated gaming titles ever, No Man's Sky from indie developer Hello Games, has arrived -- and it could have a major impact on the resurgent gaming world this season. The title made its PS4 debut on Tuesday in North America and on Wednesday in Europe. It will be available for the PC on Friday. The long-awaited game takes players on a mind-bending journey of space exploration, allowing them to take a deep dive into distant planets filled with deep water oceans, alien life forms and unseen threats.

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The Growing Scourge of Cyberbullying, Part 1

Smartphones are proliferating among adolescents, and so is cyberbullying. That's particularly worrisome due to its potential contribution to the No. 2 cause of teen death: suicide. About 26.3 percent of the middle- and high-school students who responded to a nine-school survey indicated that they'd been bullied in each of the eight years the poll was taken, the Cyberbullying Research Center found. That percentage stood at about 18.8 percent back in May of 2007 but climbed to around 34 percent by February of last year.

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900 Million Androids Could Be Easy Prey for QuadRooter Exploits

Four newly identified vulnerabilities could affect 900 million Android devices, Check Point researchers disclosed. The vulnerabilities, which the researchers dubbed "QuadRooter," affect Android devices that use Qualcomm chipsets. They exist in the chipset software drivers. The drivers, which control communications between chipset components, are incorporated into Android builds manufacturers develop for their devices, so they're preinstalled on devices and can be fixed only through installation of a patch from the distributor or carrier.

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Linux Mint 18: Fresher Than Ever

The Linux Mint 18 Sarah will please long-time users and impress new adopters for its growth in features and overall consistent performance. Linux Mint 18, released at the end of June, is a long-term edition supported through 2021. The in-house built Cinnamon desktop and the GNOME 2 fork MATE desktop were available at its introduction. The Xfce edition became available earlier this month, and the KDE edition is coming soon. Linux Mint 18 Sarah is based on Ubuntu 16.04 and comes loaded with numerous significant new features.

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Delta's Tech Glitches Cause More Cancellations, Delays

Delta Air Lines reportedly canceled 300 flights Tuesday morning, a day after a mammoth outage that forced it to temporarily ground thousands of flights worldwide and ultimately cancel more than 400 of them. Although an update posted at 10:00 p.m. ET Monday night warned that there would be more than 100 flight cancellations and roughly 200 delays Tuesday morning, the actual numbers appeared considerably worse. The disruption began with a power outage that took place around 2:30 a.m. on Monday at the airline's Atlanta headquarters.

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AMD's Budget-Friendly Radeon RX 460 Makes It Easier to Get in the Game

AMD on Monday introduced its budget-priced Radeon RX 460 graphics card designed for e-sports gamers. It delivers the high frame rates DirectX 9-based shooters and action games demand, but also handles the more robust next-generation DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs. The Radeon RX 460 offers a peak performance of 2.2 TFLOPS with support for 1080p frame rates at 1080p. It is designed to remain both cool and quiet, thanks to its Polaris architecture, which adapts to card temperature and reduces fan operation during low GPU demands.

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Nucleus Home Intercom Gets Alexa Advantage

The smart home of the future could be a wee bit smarter with the addition of the Alexa-powered connected intercom system Nucleus announced last week. The Nucleus intercom, which last fall made its debut without Alexa, is a tablet that connects to a home network through WiFi or Ethernet to allow family members to communicate with each other both inside and outside the home. The inclusion of Amazon's Alexa technology in the $250 Nucleus lets it understand voice commands.

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Is the Internet Turning Donald Trump - and You - Into an Idiot?

President Obama was viewed as the first techie presidential candidate when he launched his campaign, and he has been connected at the hip with Google for a large part of both terms. However, the brilliance his teams displayed with using analytics during both campaigns never seemed to carry over into running the country, which was disappointing. Most of the U.S. government still has systems that are decades out of date. Some, like the Veterans Administration, are so bad they are a national embarrassment.

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Apple to Enlist the Aid of a Few Good Hackers

Apple on Thursday introduced its first bug bounty program, set to launch in September. Ivan Krstic, head of Apple security engineering and architecture, announced the program during his presentation at Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. The focus reportedly is on an exceptionally high level of service, and on quality over quantity. Participation in the program initially will be by invitation only, and it will be limited to a select group of researchers. However, Apple plans to work with other researchers on a case-by-case basis.

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Alexa Takes On Smart Home Security Responsibilities

Millions of customers using Amazon's Alexa voice assistant technology now can add locks that can be controlled remotely to the growing ecosystem of smart home capabilities. August Home last week announced that Amazon's line of voice-assisted products, including the best-selling Echo, now support its smart products, allowing users to lock and unlock their front doors and other points of access using simple voice commands. August product line includes the August Smart Lock, the August Smart Keypad and the August Smart Doorbell Cam.

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Linux Botnets on a Rampage

Linux-operated botnet Distributed Denial of Service attacks surged in this year's second quarter, due to growing interest in targeting Chinese servers, according to a Kaspersky Lab report released this week. South Korea kept its top ranking for having the most command-and-control servers. Brazil, Italy and Israel ranked among the leaders behind South Korea for hosting C&C servers, according to Kaspersky Lab. DDoS attacks affected resources in 70 countries, with targets in China absorbing 77 percent of all attacks.

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Samsung Hones Galaxy Note7 to a Fine Point

Samsung on Tuesday unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note7. It has an iris-scanning feature that combines with Samsung Knox for security, as well as a fingerprint scanner. The Galaxy Note7 has a water resistant body, a 5.7-inch QHD Super Amoled screen with a front-to-back symmetrical dual-edged curve, HDR video-streaming capabilities for immersive entertainment. It comes with an enhanced stylus. It has a rear dual-pixel 12-MP OIS camera and a front 5-MP camera, both with a focal length of F1.7.

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Apple's Switch to Squirt Gun Emoji Triggers Flood of Emotions

Apple earlier this week announced its decision to change the gun emoji in iOS 10, to be released this fall. It plans to substitute an image of a green-and-orange squirt gun for the existing image of a black pistol. The new version of the gun is one of more than 100 new and redesigned emoji characters that will be available in iOS 10. The change appears to be a reflection of Apple's stance against gun violence. News of Apple's emoji change has sparked a debate.

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Instagram's Stories Inspired by Snapchat

Everyone has a story to tell, and Instagram on Tuesday announced Stories, a new way for users to tell theirs. Stories allows Instagram users to string together images and videos for a dynamic slide show presentation that can be shared with friends or the entire Instagram community. Rather than sharing content individually with others on the platform, a user can choose to share it through a story. Someone following the story simply taps the new story icon on the Instagram interface to see the latest addition or to watch it from beginning to end.

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