Latest News - Page 2795

YardArm is working with several police agencies in California and Texas, testing a mobile network-connected technology that sends signals when an officer unholsters and fires their weapon. The company originally developed a consumer technology that could monitor a weapon's location - but didn't find many interested customers. Instead, the company revamped and wanted to develop new solutions that could be used for potential police and military use.

"You have a social demand for smart gun technology, but not necessarily a market demand," said Jim Schaff, VP of marketing at YardArm. "As a consumer product, it's going to be a long road."

YardArm also is developing new methods to send wireless data of which direction a weapon is pointing, offering data that can be viewed via smartphone and fed to dispatch. If implemented, YardArm's technology could help prevent public outrage - and clear officers of wrongdoing - when officers use their weapons accordingly.

Apple recently upset their users by removing support for third-party software that enables TRIM functionality. Perhaps most distressing was the fact the change went unannounced. Many Apple users with Trim Enabler, a third party app that enables TRIM functionality, unfortunately bricked their installs when they updated to OS X 10.10 Yosemite. There is a method for enabling TRIM with third-party SSDs, but it involves creating a massive security vulnerability. SSDs can work without TRIM but speed is reduced and endurance also takes a hit. TRIM works by complimenting the Garbage Collection routines inside the SSD, which allows the early removal of previously deleted data.

After the news was released we were contacted by several third-party SSD vendors about the impact of removing TRIM functionality. From our conversations it was revealed that only one manufacturer currently has native TRIM support for Apple products. Angelbird has supported native Apple TRIM support for two years, and the Angelbird wrk for Mac is the only SSD right now that circumvents the issue. Chris, our consumer SSD guru, recently took an in-depth look at the SSD in the Angelbird SSD wrk 512GB SSD Review. The wrk leverages a Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller, but we aren't sure if that specific controller is the key to native Apple TRIM support. We contacted Angelbird representatives and they confirmed native TRIM support, but could not share specifics on exactly how they enable it. Angelbird representatives also confirmed they have external USB 3.0 devices that support TRIM through their proprietary software.

Other large manufacturers have touted their enhanced garbage collection routines as viable alternatives for native TRIM support. Garbage collection helps keep SSDs fast and responsive, with or without TRIM, but work much better in concert with TRIM functionality. SandForce SSDs benefit from enhanced garbage collection performance as a side-benefit of their DuraWrite data reduction technology, but as Chris explained in the TRIM Lost and Found, Performance Investigated Article, all SSDs perform better with native TRIM. OWC supplies SandForce-powered SSDs for use in Apple products, but currently the only third-party SSD manufacturer with native TRIM support is Angelbird.

A new advanced persistent threat (APT), known as DarkHotel, is now targeting C-level executives of major businesses. Instead of trying to compromise governments to steal state secrets, Dark Hotel is cleverly engineered to conduct corporate espionage, likely for a foreign state-sponsored group, utilizing poor wireless hotel security - a rather clever technique for when business leaders are staying in hotels.

Utilizing Flash zero-day exploits and using spear-phishing to compromise users, DarkHotel has been found to steal and re-use digital certificates that inject malicious code. The attacks have taken aim at business visitors in the United States, Japan, South Korea, India, mainland China, Russia, Germany, Hong Kong and Ireland.

"Just think about the playing field IT security professionals have to deal with, and why they need all the help they can get," said Joe Caruso, Global Digital Forensics (GDC) CEO and CTO. "There are mobile devices like smartphones and tablets being used more than ever before, all with seemingly endless choices of software and applications, and all providing a potential threat vector for cross-platform intrusions and attacks."

BadUSB was developed by a team of researchers to highlight the inherently flawed design of the USB specification. Once injected, this exploit allows full control to the users computer. The worst aspect of this vulnerability lies in the nature of the hack, it actually resides in the firmware of USB devices. Erasing or wiping a USB stick is the most common method of removing malware, but since this exploit resides in the firmware of the device, it renders traditional virus removal techniques useless. The hack goes far beyond just flash memory sticks and includes USB hubs, SD card adapters, SATA adapters, all USB input devices, webcams, and storage devices.

The concept of attacking a computer through USB devices certainly isn't new, the NSA has been known to utilize similar tactics via the Cottonmouth device leaked by Edward Snowden. A recent update on the severity of the issue was released at the PacSec security conference. Researchers tested eight USB controllers from leading manufacturers and determined that only half of them were safe from the attack. This is a better outlook than previous research that indicated all USB devices are vulnerable, but is a hollow comfort because users have no method of determining which devices are exposed to the nefarious firmware hacks. There is no known method for the common user to even detect an infection, let alone remove it.

The original researchers refused to publish the BadUSB code, but some other friendly sorts have published their own BadUSB code, purportedly for studying the problem and providing incentive for companies to fix the issue. The bad news? The code is now available to the public. The only recourse for end users is to simply not trust any USB device.

The recent launch of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, the fifth expansion for the popular MMORPG game series, received a large amount of attention. The game launched in Europe and the number of players trying to enter Draenor caused problems, and Blizzard added multiple entrance points to the game - and while this initially helped - North American users were met by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

"While that solution helped a ton for our North American launch, we ran into a few other issues, including a distributed denial of service attack, that resulted in increased latency," the company confirmed.

Blizzard was able to recover from the DDoS attack, which no group has claimed responsibility for, though there are still problems related to server load. The game company will continue to work on server time outs and other improvements to help ease server load - and make sure gamers are able to log in and play with minimal interruptions.

Supermicro has announced world-record setting performance in the STAC-N1 and STAC-A2 benchmarks. Supermicro's 3rd generation Hyper-Speed platform, in tandem with the Intel Xeon Phi co-processor, delivered the record-setting results from an incredibly slim 1U server. The results indicate a propensity for superior performance in HFT (high Frequency Trading) applications, which crave low latency and high performance. Performance consistency is a big key to delivering predictable and sustainable QoS for HFT applications. The Hyper-Speed platform nailed key requirements with the lowest mean latency, max latency, and jitter. The slim 1U platforms can be deployed with up to 3 Intel Xeon Phi co-processors, expanding the use-case for even more demanding workloads.

The Hyper-Speed Ultra provides an impressive stable of connectivity with 10 2.5" drive bays, 8 12Gb/s SAS 3 ports, 2 SATA 6Gb/s ports, and a range of PCIe connections. The platform also accepts 2 NVMe drives via the AOC-URN2-i2XT. The system is powered by dual E5-2643 v3 Haswell processors. Supermicro has several high-performance systems available, and the pending release of their ULLtraDIMM-enabled platforms may increase performance beyond their own world record. 3

We recently had a chance to take a Supermicro development system for a spin in our Sandisk ULLtraDIMM DDR3 400GB SSD Enterprise Review. We also feature full evaluations of a number of Supermicro and competing platforms in the Motherboard and Server categories of our IT/Datacenter section.

Ubisoft has had a hard week, with the troubled launch of Assassin's Creed: Unity causing some serious headaches, but now Ubisoft North American President, Laurent Detoc, has sat down with IGN to have a chat, with some interesting things being said. The thing is, this chat happened nearly a year ago, so don't be fooled that this was a recent chat.

Detoc told IGN that the company would break its annualized schedule for Assassin's Creed "if it's not good enough". Detoc continued: "If we think we've ended up with a 70 percent Assassin's Creed game, we're not going to ship it. That damages the brand. I'm not going to give you the names of products, because you know them as well as I do, but if you start to make games at 70 percent, even with a big brand, eventually people are going to change their mind about that brand. They won't want it anymore. That's what saves the recurrence. There are 30 million people or so who have been playing Grand Theft Auto. Last year, to pick a round number, we had about 10 million people playing Assassin's Creed. When we come up with an Assassin's Creed the next year, there's another 10 million brand new people who might be interested in the new setting, because of the new history, or the new naval battles and the pirates. It's a variation on gameplay from even last year".

"You bring something fresh, but you have to bring quality too," he added. "There's a lot of people who can play your game. We have fans who come back to the franchise and we're very thankful for them, because we think we're giving them a good game to play, and they give back to us when they buy it. But there's a lot more people out there who we can sell games to. I like to think that we don't delay everything. It's the reason for the delay that really matters. It's a lot easier to predict the release of an Assassin's Creed, because we understand what it takes. It's a lot easier to predict a franchise that has more recurrence, for sure, than a new IP".

Human Element, if you haven't heard about it yet, is developed by fresh LA-based studio Robotoki. Robert Bowling, the ex Creative Strategist of Call of Duty, and the Lead of Infinity Ward, formed the studio in 2012 - but have only just announced that they have now abandoned the free-to-play design of Human Element, which will now launch as a premium product in November next year.

With Robotoki dropping the free-to-play side of Human Element, it has agreed to end its agreement with Nexon, a free-to-play giant, laying off a portion of its staff. Bowling said in a statement with Gamasutra: "As the game evolved we realized that the elements that make Human Element the most fun would be hindered by keeping it a free-to-play experience. Therefore, we made the decision to switch to a premium experience for our players; which also meant that working with the premier publisher in free-to-play was no longer the best partnership fit for the game we were creating".

A Nexon America rep chimed in, saying: "Nexon and Robotoki have come to a mutual decision to end their publishing agreement for the game Human Element. As development of the project progressed the direction of the game naturally evolved, and it no longer aligns with the Nexon portfolio".

It wasn't long ago that we teased that AMD could be using SK Hynix's next-gen memory on its next-gen Radeon R9 390X GPU, but this new memory is now shipping from SK Hynix in the form of 8GHz GDDR5, in 4Gb single sticks.

As it stands, AMD's best GPU; the Radeon R9 290X, has its memory frequency hitting around 5-6GHz, while NVIDIA's enjoys things a little higher, at 7GHz. SK Hynix's new chips increase the frequency up to 8GHz, in 4Gb chips, which should see some deliriously fast GPUs on offer for the next-gen.

With AMD's Radeon R9 390X rumored to have a 4096-bit bus, this memory shipping could indicate we're closer to seeing a next-gen GPU not only from AMD, but NVIDIA. AMD's R9 290X has a 512-bit memory bus, but this new HBM RAM could really kick things up a notch, especially with AMD partnering up with SK Hynix before the rumors of the next-gen GPUs even began.

To celebrate this week's release of 'Doctor Who: The Complete Eighth Series' on Blu-ray HD and DVD, we have ten copies of the complete season boxset to give away to readers, thanks to our friends at Village Roadshow Home Entertainment.

In this thrilling new series, the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Clara (Jenna Coleman) encounter previously unimaginable wonders and horrors. The time travellers meet a fleet of Daleks as they attempt to rescue a stranded ship of human survivors, face ranks of Cybermen stalking Earth, go back in time and join Robin Hood in a fight with killer robots in Sherwood Forest, become outlaws when they break into the deadliest bank in the cosmos, face a Mummy on the Orient Express, discover a deadly horror dwelling on the Moon and meet the last man standing at the end of the universe.

To go into the running to take a Blu-ray home, simply correctly answer the following question:

The US State Department is now the fourth US federal government agency to be attacked by organized hackers, with hackers targeting unclassified computer systems. The "activity of concern" did not impact any classified systems, and shows foreign state-sponsored cybercriminals are having success attacking the US federal government.

"This has impacted some of our unclassified email traffic and our access to public websites from our main unclassified system," according to a senior State Department official. The State Department tried to avoid saying it was compromised, and said routine "maintenance" would be carried out, but the Associated Press was able to verify it was a cyberattack.

In previous weeks, the National Weather Service, US Postal Service and White House have all been targeted - and likely originated from Russian-sponsored cyberattackers.

The adoption of virtual currencies, mainly bitcoin, has continued to expand in 2014 - with a growing number of businesses accepting bitcoin payments - but legitimate securities offerings showing greater interest in virtual currencies face cybersecurity problems.

In addition to currency volatility, which has scared some investors away, associated anonymity and growing risk of cyber theft from hackers is increasing.

"We are living in an age where traditional financial and investing relationships are being transformed rapidly and sometimes in confusing fashion by technology and innovation," said Glenn Moyer, Secretary of Banking and Securities. "It is especially important that investors fully understand where they are putting their money, and with whom they are investing it."

The bitcoin cryptocurrency is becoming more appealing for businesses looking to accept additional payment methods from customers. However, widespread adoption by consumers and financial investors remains unknown, as bitcoins have a high volatility mixed with problematic acceptance of state and federal regulators.

Even so, a growing number of bitcoin-focused startups and businesses indicate a growing legitimacy that cannot be simply overlooked. The current value of a single bitcoin is $391.74, a fraction of the all-time $1,130 value it reached in December 2013, but investors urge potential investors to not lose faith.

"In terms of purchasing bitcoin for investment, we need to remember that bitcoin is still early in its adoption cycle," said Trevor Murphy, CTO of the BitStash bitcoin storage solution company, in a statement to TweakTown. "So, a portion of the current price of bitcoin reflects the future value and potential of bitcoin, and as such that value can and will fluctuate with sentiment, regulatory changes, and investor demand."

Police authorities in Beijing have detained three suspects accused of creating the "WireLurker" malware targeting Apple iOS and OS X computers and mobile devices in China. The Chinese security firm Qihoo 360 Technology provided a tip that led to the arrest of three suspects, Chen, Wang and Li, and all three have been charged with the creation and distribution of WireLurker. It appears WireLurker was created to generate monetary profits for the organizers, which wouldn't be a surprising confirmation that cybercriminals are racking up large amounts of profits from cybercrimes.

Apple moved quickly to block the WireLurker malware from spreading any further, and recommended users only download apps from trusted sources.

It's ironic that China, believed to be one of the largest state sponsors of organized cyberattacks against the Western world, moved so quickly to arrest the creators of WireLurker - the malware victimized Chinese users only, and didn't have a widespread presence outside of the country.

Ubisoft has come out with some great content for us to write about all year, limiting its games like The Division to 30FPS, saying that "resolution doesn't matter", telling everyone to turn their Internet off to get better frame rates in the obviously still broken Assassin's Creed: Unity, and now we're here at Far Cry 4.

What has Ubisoft done now you ask? The studio has cut the ability for gamers to make maps for the competitive multiplayer in Far Cry 4, with the option of creating maps for Assault, Hunt, Outpost and Extraction still there, just not the player-vs-player multiplayer maps. Ubisoft Montreal's Creative Director, who believes Alex "Resolution Doesn't Matter" Hutchinson offered the following explanation for why Ubisoft didn't provide it with this year's Far Cry adventure, he said that Ubisoft "always squeeze in as much as we can, but we're always prioritizing".

Hutchinson added that the team are "going to keep supporting the game so hopefully we can get it done post release. No promises but we will try". I'm sure it'll arrive soon, but they'll probably slug you $20 for it or something.

I'm sure that by now, most gamers have heard about the colossal mess Ubisoft has found itself in with the launch of Assassin's Creed: Unity, something we've been all over - and not just for the last week like most, but for most of the year.

Well, now the company has taken to their forums, providing angry gamers with multiple ways to the slew of issues on AC:U for all platforms. One of the fixes for the "frame rate issues" as Ubisoft puts it, is to "in the meantime", Ubisoft suggests "that you disconnect from your internet connection (wifi or network cable).It could potentially improve frame rate".

There are many other issues, with one of the bigger ones being "graphical and collision issues" having Ubisoft say they're "WORKING ON IT" according to their forum post. It was only two days ago that Ubisoft was laying blame on AMD for AC:U's various issues, so let's see where we go from here and how long it takes a AAA developer to fix a AAA game that had tens of millions of dollars poured into it, yet launched like this - just sayin'.

There are two versions of the new iPhone from Apple, the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, with the bigger iPhone receiving all of the attention - but which one is selling more? Most wouldn't have guessed it, but it's the smaller iPhone 6.

The information is coming from a new report out of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, who have said that the iPhone 6 has accounted for 68% of all iPhones sold in the US in its first 30 days. The iPhone 6 Plus on the other hand, only represented 24%. The new iPhones accounted for 91% of all iPhones sold over the period, which should come as no surprise. The remaining iPhones sold were the last two: iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

When the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C were launched, they represented 84% of total iPhone sales, so we can see that more iPhone users have upgraded this time. We don't know the exact sales between the 6 and 6 Plus, but I'm sure we'll hear more about it during Apple's next earnings report.

Driveclub has been in shambles since it hit the road and launched a couple of months back, but Evolution Studios, the developer behind the PlayStation 4 exclusive racing game has announced that two DLC packs will be given to Driveclub owners.

The developer was originally going to charge for the two premium DLC packs, with the Ignition Expansion and Photo-Finish Tour Pack offering racers up to five new cars, 22 new tour events, 10 new livery items and an additional 10 trophies to win. These two DLC packs were previously part of the premium Season Pass subscription, something that will extend into four more packs in July. Season pass subscribers will receive 38 cars, 80 livery items, and 176 tour events, according to Evolution Studios.

On Tuesday, the developer will release a title update that will include a Photo Mode, as well as some adjustments to multiplayer collision which will reduce spin outs.

Security threats continue to give IT professionals headaches, but hardware failure, lost data, and other potential problems are often overlooked. Even though almost nine out of 10 IT professionals have lost data, half of respondents don't back up data because they forgot to do it, according to a new survey published by the CloudBerry Lab backup and management solutions company.

Furthermore 88 percent of IT professionals suffered lost data due to hardware failure, data corruption, malware or accidental deletion. In a rather surprising finding, 38 percent have never bothered to test recoverability of backed up data, while 47 percent end up waiting up to one month before backing up data.

Depending on the type of business, IT professionals recommend at least weekly data backups - though some industries should have critical information backed up on a daily basis. CloudBerry Lab found 32 percent of IT professionals understood they weren't protected or were unsure if their backups were secured with encryption, password protection, or some other type of security protocol.

Apple and Samsung have had a contentious history, but business makes for strange bedfellows. Apple and Samsung curtailed their supplier agreements as they broadsided each other with full-on legal attacks over the last few years, but Samsung resumed supplying Apple earlier this year. This alliance has been fruitful for both participants as they continue to enjoy favorable operating profits. Samsung's 10 percent volume growth for NAND last quarter is likely due to Apple demand. This couldn't come at a better time for Samsung, whose own mobile unit is experiencing some turbulence. Apple continues its meteoric rise with record performance.

Much of Samsung's growth is spurred by increases in eMMC, eMCP, and SSD shipments. eMMC enjoys broad use in mobile applications, and Samsung is already transitioning to new UFS 2.0 (Universal Flash Storage) designs. These designs quadruple eMMC's performance, jumping from a top speed of 400MB/s with eMMC 5.0 to 1.45GB/s with UFS 2.0. UFS 2.0 allows for command queuing and simultaneous read/write operations, which lead to the big boost in performance. UFS 2.0 will provide enough throughput for next-gen cameras and multimedia applications.

Apple is likely including the new UFS 2.0 devices into their next generation of devices, and several NAND fabricators are also producing UFS 2.0 designs, which are slated to debut in 2015. Samsung has already announced their intention to leverage UFS 2.0 into new designs from their struggling smartphone unit.