Kubernetes 1.6 scales to 5,000 nodes

Google's container orchestration platform can now scale to massive clusters

Kubernetes 1.6, the latest version of Google's open source container orchestration platform, was released on Tuesday, featuring support for 5,000-node clusters. The 5,000-node cluster capability also will be added shortly to Google Container Engine, the company's Kubernetes-based automated container management system.

"For users who want to scale beyond 5,000 nodes or spread across multiple regions or clouds, federation lets you combine multiple Kubernetes clusters and address them through a single API endpoint," Kubernetes proponents said in a bulletin.

Support for 5,000 nodes is provided via the etcd 3.0 key value store, which is enabled by default in Kubernetes 1.6. Switching from etcd2 to etcd3 involves a full migration of data between different storage engines, with users having to stop the API from writing to etcd during the migration.

With version 1.6, integration with container runtimes is done through the Kubernetes CRI (Container Runtime Interface), for easier migration of runtimes via the kubelet node agent. Role-based access control, which defines secure default roles for control plane, node, and controller components, has graduated to a beta stage. The kubeadm cluster bootstrap tool, for installing Kubernetes on Linux, moves to a beta stage as well, as has the kubefed federation bootstrap tool, for cluster federation. "Docker remains the default runtime via Docker-CRI, which moves to beta," release notes state, and daemonsets, which ensure that nodes run a copy of a Kubernetes pod, can be updated via a rolling update in version 1.6.

With the 1.2 release a year ago, Kubernetes supported clusters of 1,000 nodes, while Kubernetes 1.3 scaled to 2,000-node clusters. Version 1.6 would follow by about three months the Kubernetes 1.5 release, which featured Windows Server and Windows Container support.

Windows 10's next major update arrives April 11

The Creators Update includes features for Edge, gaming, and more

After months of waiting, beta tests, and trickles of information about new features, the next major update for Windows 10 will arrive on April 11. Microsoft announced Wednesday that the Creators Update, as it’s known, will start rolling out to users of the company’s latest operating system in roughly two weeks.

The update includes a slew of new features, including changes to the Microsoft Edge browser, improvements to gaming on Windows 10 and more features for devices with touch screens. As the name implies, the Creators Update includes new tools for people who make and consume media on their PCs, including a new Paint3D app that updates Microsoft’s classic drawing tool to create three-dimensional models.

When it’s released, the Creators Update will be Microsoft’s second major update for Windows 10, which was released in July 2015.

It’s important to note that April 11 is just the start of the Creators Update rollout. Microsoft makes the update available to different users at different times, and will withhold the update from people if the company is unsure that it will work with their hardware.

Unlike past major feature updates, Windows 10 users will also have greater control over when the update is applied. Users will be able to schedule a specific time for the update to be applied, and “snooze” the update for as many as three days when they need to use their computers without going through a massive patching process.

Microsoft has also expanded a device’s possible “active hours,” so the updates don’t try to install themselves when users are still working.

The internet is littered with user reports of updates that arrived at inopportune times, shutting users’ computers down while they were still in use. These changes are supposed to help alleviate some of those complaints.

The changes users are most likely to notice have to do with Microsoft’s Edge browser. New functionality will let users open up a tab preview bar that will show them thumbnail images of the content on each tab they have open, so it’s easier to remember what they were looking for.

Microsoft

A screenshot shows the set aside tabs feature in Microsoft Edge.

To help cut down on tab clutter, Microsoft will allow users to set tabs aside, then come back to the pages they were on at a later time. Setting tabs aside is meant to be used for pages that users don’t want to bookmark, but don’t need immediate access to.

All of a user’s tabs will be stored in a list that’s sorted by when they were set aside. Clicking on tabs will return to those pages.

Starting with the Creators Update, users will also see a new dialog box whenever they use the share button in an app built on the Universal Windows Platform such as Microsoft Edge. In the past, pressing the share button would bring in a sidebar that would allow users to send content to other people and applications. Now, that sidebar has been replaced by a floating box.

Gamers have a few new features at their disposal, too. Microsoft introduced a new Game Mode that’s designed to help maintain consistent game performance when people are deep into a session. It works by relegating all of the applications that aren’t an active game to a subset of a computer’s processor cores.

Microsoft

A screenshot shows the Windows 10 Creators Update's built-in support for streaming games using Microsoft's Beam service.

In addition, the Creators Update will allow users to live stream the games that they’re playing to Beam, a service Microsoft acquired last year. It’s a competitor to Twitch (owned by Amazon) and YouTube (owned by Google). Unlike those other services, Beam streaming is baked into Microsoft’s operating system, so users don’t have to set up special software in order to start broadcasting their games.

Microsoft

A rendering of the Acer Mixed Reality Developer Edition headset.

There’s also an aspect of the Creators Update that isn’t useful for most people just yet: it has the software foundation necessary to support Windows Mixed Reality headsets. The Mixed Reality support that Microsoft introduced is designed to drive a variety of augmented and virtual reality headsets. 

Right now, that only works with the Acer Mixed Reality Development Edition VR headset, which Microsoft is keeping locked to a handpicked group of developers. However, consumers are supposed to get access to Windows Mixed Reality headsets around the holidays. Microsoft expects that its manufacturing partners will have headsets that are ready for the public by that point.

This run-down only scratches the surface of the major features being introduced with the Creators Update.

Open-source developers targeted in sophisticated malware attack

Attackers have targeted developers present on GitHub since January with an information-stealing program called Dimnie

For the past few months, developers who publish their code on GitHub have been targeted in an attack campaign that uses a little-known but potent cyberespionage malware.

The attacks started in January and consisted of malicious emails specifically crafted to attract the attention of developers, such as requests for help with development projects and offers of payment for custom programming jobs.

The emails had .gz attachments that contained Word documents with malicious macro code attached. If allowed to execute, the macro code executed a PowerShell script that reached out to a remote server and downloaded a malware program known as Dimnie.

According to researchers from Palo Alto Networks, Dimnie has been around since at least 2014, but has flown under the radar until now because it primarily targeted users from Russia.

The malware uses some stealthy techniques to make its malicious traffic blend into normal user activity. It generates requests that appear to be directed to Google-owned domain names, but which in reality are sent to an attacker-controlled IP address.

Dimnie is able to download additional malicious modules that are injected directly into the memory of legitimate Windows processes. These modules leave no traces on disk, which makes their detection and analysis more complicated, the Palo Alto researchers said in a blog post.

There are separate modules for keylogging, screen grabbing, interacting with smartcards attached to the computer and more. There is even a self-destruct module that wipes all files from the system drive in order to destroy traces of the malware's presence.

Data stolen from an infected computer is encrypted and appended to image headers in an attempt to bypass intrusion prevention systems.

Even though Palo Alto Networks did not attribute these attacks to a particular group, the malware bears striking similarities to other recent attacks that are suspected of being state-sponsored: the use of documents with malicious macros, the use of PowerShell, the loading of malicious code directly in memory, the use of stealthy command-and-control channels and data exfiltration techniques, highly targeted phishing campaigns and more.

Developers can be valuable targets for cyberespionage. Their computers often hold proprietary information and access credentials for their employers' networks and systems.

The Yahoo breach that resulted in hackers gaining access to the accounts of 500 million users started with a semi-privileged employee falling for a spear-phishing email.

The Dimnie attack campaign seems to have specifically targeted developers who are present on GitHub, a free source code hosting service. This category also includes developers who work for large companies and who publish personal open source projects in their spare time.

In a response to a report about these emails in January, Gervase Markham, who works as a policy engineer at Mozilla, said that he received several such messages to an email address that he only used on Github. This made him believe that the targeting might have been automated.

With access to source code repositories and distribution servers attackers can inject backdoors into software projects or turn the compiled binaries into Trojan horses. This has happened several times in the past. For example, the macOS version of the Transmission BitTorrent client hosted on the project's official website was found to contain malware on two separate occasions.

Trump extends Obama executive order on cyberattacks

The ability for the government to sanction cybercriminals will last for at least one more year

U.S. President Donald Trump is extending by one year special powers introduced by former President Barack Obama that allow the government to issue sanctions against people and organizations engaged in significant cyberattacks and cybercrime against the U.S.

Executive Order 13694 was introduced on April 1, 2015, and was due to expire on Saturday, but the president sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday evening informing it of his plans to keep it active.

"Significant malicious cyber-enabled activities originating from, or directed by persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States," Trump wrote in the letter. "Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13694 with respect to significant malicious cyber-enabled activities."

The executive order gave the U.S. new powers to retaliate for hacking of critical infrastructure, major denial of service attacks or large scale economic hacking.

It was expanded in December 2016 to include election-related systems and used to sanction Russian agents and organizations for their alleged role in a series of attacks during the presidential election.

In that action, Obama named the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, and the federal security service, the FSU, as responsible for the election-related attacks. It also named three organizations and four Russian individuals for their alleged role.

The extension of the existing executive order is one of the first actions President Trump has taken publicly that addresses cybersecurity. In February, he had been due to sign an executive order that addressed the issue but it was canceled at the last minute.

The order, as it stood to be signed, largely addressed cybersecurity in the federal government by placing responsibility for cyber risk at the head of each department. It also would have asked the Department of Commerce and Department of Defense to work on cyberdefense of critical infrastructure.

But, after meeting with some of his national security staff and representatives from the National Security Agency, the order was never signed. The White House never explained why that didn't happen.

China Oceanwide completes its purchase of IDG

The tech publishing pioneer and analyst group IDC are part of the deal

The sale of tech publishing pioneer International Data Group to China Oceanwide Holdings Group and China-based IDG Capital is final.

The deal for China Oceanwide Holdings Group to acquire a majority stake in International Data Group was first announced in January. Tech analyst firm IDC and venture capital firm IDG Ventures are included in the deal.

China Oceanwide hosted an event in Bejing today to announce the closing of the deal. The companies did not disclose the terms of the sale.

China Oceanwide has said it will focus on growth at IDG and IDC.

IDG publishes PCWorld, Computerworld, CIO, CSO Macworld, InfoWorld, CSO, Network World, IDG.tv, and hundreds of other publications worldwide. IDG, which operates in 97 countries, is also the parent company of the IDG News Service.

IDG was founded in 1964 by Patrick McGovern, who died in March 2014. Since then, the company has been run by a board of directors, which has been seeking a buyer for about a year.

China Oceanwide is a privately held international conglomerate founded by Chairman Zhiqiang Lu in 1985. The company operates businesses in the financial services, real estate assets, media, technology, and strategic investment markets, and it has more than 12,000 employees globally.

The company purchased a stake in Lenovo's parent company, Legend Holdings, in 2009. It has continued to expand globally and in October last year, it agreed to buy U.S.-based insurance firm Genworth Financial for $2.7 billion in cash.

IDG Capital is an independently operated investment management partnership, with IDG as one of many limited partners. It was formed in 1993 as China’s first technology venture investment firm.

China Oceanwide will be the controlling shareholder of IDG's operating businesses, including IDC and IDG Communications, while IDG Capital will become the controlling shareholder of the IDG venture business. 

IDG will continue to be headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and managed by its current team.

Oracle recommends axing Java object finalizer

But due to Java’s release schedule, the Object.finalize feature will likely stick around for a while

Java’s Object.finalize capability is on the chopping block, deemed more trouble than it’s worth. But expect it to stick around for a while.

Deprecation has been proposed for Java Development Kit (JDK) 9, Oracle said. Oracle recommends that the capability no longer be used and a warning will be issued. Initially, Object.finalize won't be deprecated for removal, so at the earliest, it could be dropped in Java SE 11. With JDK 9 due this July and JDK 10 presumably in the mix, the capability could still be available for several years.

A part of Java since the nearly 22-year-old language was founded, the Object.finalize method provides object cleanup operations before an object is discarded. However, the timing is unpredictable, with no guarantee the finalizer will be called, according to Oracle.

The use of a finalizer is in fact “problematic,” said Oracle’s Roger Riggs in a recent post to an openjdk mailing list proposing deprecation. A finalizer can lead to performance issues, hangs, and deadlocks. “The problems have been accumulating for many years and the first step to deprecate Object.finalize and the overrides in the JDK to communicate the issues, recommend alternatives, and motivate changes where finalization is currently used.” 

VMware patches critical virtual machine escape flaws

Four vulnerabilities demonstrated during the Pwn2Own hacking contest were fixed in VMware ESXi, Workstation and Fusion.

VMware has released critical security patches for vulnerabilities demonstrated during the recent Pwn2Own hacking contest that could be exploited to escape from the isolation of virtual machines.

The patches fix four vulnerabilities that affect VMware ESXi, VMware Workstation Pro and Player, and VMware Fusion.

Two of the vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2017-4902 and CVE-2017-4903 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, were exploited by a team from Chinese internet security firm Qihoo 360 as part of an attack demonstrated two weeks ago at Pwn2Own.

The team's exploit chain started with a compromise of Microsoft Edge, moved to the Windows kernel, and then exploited the two flaws to escape from a virtual machine and execute code on the host operating system. The researchers were awarded $105,000 for their feat.

Pwn2Own is an annual hacking contest organized by Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) program that runs during the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, Canada. Researchers receive cash prizes for demonstrating zero-day -- previously unknown -- exploits against browsers, operating systems and other popular enterprise software programs.

This year, the contest organizers added prizes for exploits in hypervisors like VMware Workstation and Microsoft Hyper-V and two teams stepped up to the challenge.

The second team, made up of researchers from the Keen Lab and PC Manager divisions of internet services provider Tencent, exploited the two other flaws patched by VMware this week: CVE-2017-4904 and CVE-2017-4905. The latter is a memory information leak vulnerability that is rated only as moderate, but which could help hackers pull off a more serious attack.

Users are advised to update VMware Workstation to version 12.5.5 on all platforms and VMware Fusion to version 8.5.6 on macOS (OS X). Individual patches are also available for ESXi 6.5, 6.0 U3, 6.0 U2, 6.0 U1 and 5.5, where applicable.

Virtual machines are often used to create throw-away environments that pose no threat to the main operating system in case of compromise. For example, malware researchers execute malicious code and visit suspicious URLs inside virtual machines to observe their behavior. Companies also run many applications inside virtual machines to limit the potential impact if they're compromised.

One of the main goals of hypervisors like VMware Workstation is to create a barrier between the guest operating system that runs inside the virtual machine and the host OS where the hypervisor runs. That's why VM escape exploits are highly prized among hackers.

Windows 10 Creators Update will take months to roll out, Microsoft confirms

Data suggests that it took up to three months for most users to get the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, and the same could go for the upcoming Creators Update

Users waiting for Windows 10’s Creators Update, which is expected to release soon, may need to be patient. Data released Wednesday by AdDuplex suggests that Microsoft’s Windows 10 Anniversary Update took months to roll out to users after it was released last August, and the same pace could apply to the Creators Update. 

In fact, Microsoft said today that the rollout will indeed take place in a phased approach, with newer devices targeted first. Microsoft sources had told PCWorld that the rollout was deliberately slower than with the Anniversary Update, just to be careful.  “We’ll iterate this process over a period of several months until all compatible devices running Windows 10 worldwide are offered the Creators Update,” the company said in a blog post. 

AdDuplex, which runs its own ad network and sniffs the platforms on which its ads deploy, said it took about 4 months for 80 percent of Microsoft’s user base to migrate to the Anniversary Update, once Microsoft started sending it to users on August 2. Just a third of Windows users had received the update after two months, the firm found.

“The Windows 10 Anniversary Update is being rolled out to Windows 10 PCs across the world in phases starting with the newer machines first,” Microsoft said in a blog post officially announcing the Anniversary Update rollout last August. 

If you want to receive updates more quickly, Microsoft’s traditionally offered an easy way: Go to Settings > Updates & Security > Windows Update and click the Check for Updates button. It may still take a few hours or days for your PC to successfully signal Microsoft’s servers, but you should receive it soon. This year, Microsoft will begin the automatic rollout on April 11, but you can manually kick it off even earlier, on April 5.

This story, "Windows 10 Creators Update will take months to roll out, Microsoft confirms" was originally published by PCWorld.

5 Samsung Galaxy S8 features Apple should steal for iPhone 8

Samsung has long been inspired by Apple's hardware design, now Apple should 'borrow' these Galaxy S8 features in return

Samsung just took the wraps off its new Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones in a bid to make people forget about last year’s exploding Note 7 disaster. While the Galaxy S8 has a few things working against it—namely that it runs Android—Samsung gave its new flagship an impressively slick redesign. We wouldn’t mind if Apple lifted a few of the S8’s features for its 10th anniversary iPhone.

In fact, Apple is reportedly working on a few of these features already. We’re not saying that Samsung looks at Apple product rumors to define its own roadmap, but…anything’s possible.

Here are five Galaxy S8 features we’d like to see in the next iPhone:

Bye, bezels

Adam Patrick Murray, IDG Worldwide

Look at that edge-to-edge display.

Samsung’s basically bezel-less “infinity display” on the Galaxy S8 is bananas, to put it mildly. The new phone has an 83 percent screen-to-body ratio, which means this thing is basically all display—a Super AMOLED display, at that.

Apple is reportedly working on an edge-to-edge display of its own, which is a good thing. At this point, the iPhone’s thick bezel and LCD screen feel a bit dated, although the iPhone 7 LCD display’s quality has been rated as comparable to its competitors’ OLED versions. But we would love if the iPhone 8 featured an expansive screen with hair’s-width side bezels and a super slim “forehead” and “chin.”

Samsung has also gone all-in with curved OLED screens, which Apple is also reportedly considering, though it’s unclear if the company has found high-quality suppliers that can produce enough curved OLED panels for all those iPhones.

Home button, be gone

Michael Simon

Samsung put the Galaxy S8’s fingerprint sensor on the back, which we hope Apple doesn’t do.

With its vast screen, Samsung banished the phone’s physical home button. The S8’s home button is now beneath the display, so you can press the screen and the button will respond with haptic feedback (though our Greenbot colleagues report that the S8’s vibrations are nothing like the iPhone’s).

Samsung kept its flagship’s fingerprint sensor, but moved it to the back—right next to the camera lens. This is a bad move, and one we hope Apple doesn’t follow.

Rumor has it Apple is planning to embed Touch ID right into the iPhone’s display, which makes much more sense than sticking it on the back.

Use your face to unlock your phone

The Galaxy S8 turns your face into the password you use to unlock your phone, with an iris scanner to recognize your “eyeprint” instead of a fingerprint. The S8 also uses biometric facial recognition, so you hold your phone in front of your face and the S8 will immediately slide into your home screen. Given that Samsung put its fingerprint sensor in such an awkward spot, this is a necessary design decision. But it’s also an insanely cool advance for smartphone technology, and something we hope Apple is exploring for the iPhone.

A useful voice assistant

Last year, Samsung acquired Viv, an AI-powered voice assistant created by the founders of Siri. Viv become the foundation of Bixby, the voice-activated assistant baked into the Galaxy S8.

Bixby is contextually aware with the ability to answer follow-up questions. This is something Siri can’t do. At all. If you’re looking at a map on your screen, Bixby knows what it is and what you mean when you say, “Bixby, capture this.” Siri doesn’t know what you’re looking at on your screen, and saying, “Siri, capture this,” would likely take you to a list of Bing search results for “this.”

To be fair, the early word on Bixby is that it’s incredibly limited and not as cool as it sounds, though Samsung didn’t let anyone try it out before unveiling the S8.

Apple is slowly improving its assistant’s capabilities, but its glacial pace of progress is due to privacy concerns. Apple doesn’t want Siri to store information about you or what you’re doing on your phone. Anyone who cares about protecting their data appreciates Apple’s premium on privacy, but there must be some middle ground that would make Siri smarter.

Augmented reality comes to the camera

Michael Simon

Samsung redesigned the Galaxy S8 camera to include augmented reality.

Samsung also introduced a new feature called Bixby Vision, which lets you use your camera to scan items. Bixby Vision will then overlay details about the item, such as a book, and give you a link to buy it.

Apple is reportedly working on augmented reality, too—CEO Tim Cook has hinted as much in a series of comments over the last year. And rumor has it Apple is still considering the best AR applications for the iPhone camera, though it’s unclear whether the company’s ideal use cases are product scanning and shopping. (Our guess is no.)

Samsung still has to prove that Galaxy S8’s new safety-checked battery won’t set the phone on fire, which is a pretty low bar to clear. But the S8’s new features are ones we hope Apple is already working to perfect for the iPhone 8, which we expect to launch this September.

This story, "5 Samsung Galaxy S8 features Apple should steal for iPhone 8" was originally published by Macworld.

Galaxy S8+ in Orchid Grey now shown in hands-on shots, Bixby gets a blurry video

Galaxy S8+ in Orchid Grey now shown in hands-on shots, Bixby gets a blurry video

It's been around a couple of hours since we showed you the latest leaked things about the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+. We're talking about pictures showing their batteries, of course. And now it's time to move on to the next leak, because the deluge of information, images, and videos in some way related to Samsung's next flagships just won't end.

So, on this installment of LeaksArena, we have a couple of hands-on shots depicting the Orchid Grey color version of the Galaxy S8+. Here they are for your viewing pleasure, though be advised that the handset in question could use the touch of a microfiber cloth.

Samsung Galaxy S8+ in Orchid Grey

If you were wondering whether the S8 duo would be smudgetastic, there's your answer. Fingerprints and smudges love glass surfaces, so it's not like this is unexpected. For the umpteenth time we get to gawk at those slim, almost non-existent bezels, the myriad of sensors up top, and the lack of a physical Home button. And that's just the front. On the other side there's the oddly placed fingerprint sensor and the only Samsung branding you'll find on the phone - along with the model's name so you never forget what you paid €899 for.

But wait, there's more! Samsung has already announced Bixby, the built-in virtual assistant coming on the S8 duo, but chose to do so in text-only form. So we haven't seen any images or videos of it in action. Until now, that is. The very, very short video below says that's Bixby over there, doing its thing... somewhere on the screen. It's tough to tell, because of the incredible blurriness of the recording (and how short it is isn't helping either).

Still, count this as our first look at Bixby. At the rate leaks have been popping up, by tomorrow we may know (and see) more.

New Samsung Galaxy Note 4 update optimizes battery usage

New Samsung Galaxy Note 4 update optimizes battery usage

Samsung has started pushing out a new update to its Galaxy Note 4 smartphone. Arriving as version XXS1DQC3 and weighing in at around 403MB, the update brings along several changes, including Android security fixes for March.

Aside from the latest security patch, the update also includes battery-related optimizations as well as changes aimed at improving stability and performance of the device. Currently, only unbranded European units are getting the update, but carrier variants and other markets should also get it soon.

Black Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 UK launch delayed by a week

Black Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 UK launch delayed by a week

The UK launch of the black the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 has been pushed by a week. Previously, pre-orders were scheduled to ship beginning March 31, but now the company's UK website reveals only silver units will make it by that date. The black version shipping date has been changed to April 7.

There's currently no information on exactly why the date has been pushed, but let's just hope there aren't any further delays. Those pre-ordering the £599 device before March 31 will also get a keyboard book cover (usually worth £119).

New LeEco smartphone gets benchmarked with Android 7.1.2 and Helio X20 SoC

New LeEco smartphone gets benchmarked with Android 7.1.2 and Helio X20 SoC

While we wait for that oft-leaked Le X850 handset to become official, LeEco has started teasing a new smartphone yesterday, saying that it wants to strike a good balance between performance and battery life with it. This teaser may in fact refer to the Le X850, but it could also be about an entirely new phone.

That's because an oddly named "LeMobile XiubaleR" device was spotted in the Geekbench database today. As usual, the benchmark listing gives us an idea of the handset's specs, but Geekbench isn't as comprehensive in this regard as GFXBench, for example, so all we get is the chipset, amount of RAM, and Android version on board.

That's still plenty for us to realize that this definitely isn't the Le X850 under another name. While that model was supposedly coming with the Snapdragon 821 in tow, the "XiubaleR" is powered by MediaTek's Helio X20 (MT6797), which has a deca-core CPU with two Cortex-A53 clusters and one Cortex-A72 cluster. This is paired with 3GB of RAM, and surprisingly the prototype already runs Android 7.1.2 - a version of the OS that's still in beta for devices supported by Google.

The Android version in use here gives away the fact that this is likely not launching anytime soon, but who knows - maybe LeEco wants to be the first handset maker to release a device running Android 7.1.2 out of the box.

Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro arrives in Hong Kong

Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro arrives in Hong Kong

The Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro - which was unveiled earlier this month, and has only been available in China so far - is no longer China-exclusive. The device is now listed on the tech giant's official Hong Kong website.

The listing reveals all three color options (Lake Blue, Maple Leaf, Powder Rose) will be available in the country. However, it isn't yet clear whether or not the phone has already gone on sale in Hong Kong, and if yes, what's the price?

Samsung Gear S3 classic LTE escapes South Korea, is on its way to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon

Samsung Gear S3 classic LTE escapes South Korea, is on its way to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon

A couple of months ago an LTE-capable version of Samsung's Gear S3 classic smartwatch surfaced in its home country of South Korea as an exclusive to one of the carriers over there. Fast forward to today, and this model is now officially announced for international markets. That includes the US, as you'd expect, where the new Gear S3 classic LTE will be sold by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

So far if you were outside of Korea and wanted LTE connectivity from your Gear S3, you had to pick the sporty-looking frontier version, but that's no longer the case. Now lovers of the classic's more understated design can have their cake and eat it too.

The Gear S3 classic LTE is unsurprisingly a Gear S3 classic with LTE added. Thus it features a 1.3-inch 360x360 circular AMOLED touchscreen, and it's powered by a 1 GHz dual-core CPU, aided by 768MB of RAM. You get 4GB of storage, as well as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC and MST for Samsung Pay, and GPS. The watch's sensors include a heart rate monitor, accelerometer, gyro, barometer, and one for ambient light. The device runs Tizen, and has a 380 mAh battery. It's IP68 water and dust resistant.

Availability details and pricing should come from those aforementioned three carriers, hopefully soon.

New renders of Xiaomi Mi 6 show a dual camera

New renders of Xiaomi Mi 6 show a dual camera

A few low-res renders have surfaced from China showing what is allegedly the Xiaomi Mi6 and specifically its dual rear camera. However the leaked renders don't offer any information regarding the specifics of the cameras.

Xiaomi Mi6 renders

The Mi 6 rumors aren't solid at the moment - they point to either a 5.5" LCD or a 5.2" one, there are whispers of a Xiaomi Mi 6 running on either a Snapdragon 821 or a Helio X30 and of a higher-end version with the Snapdragon 835 chip.

Finally the rumor mill points to an April 11 event for the new flagship.

Source 1 | 2 (requires login) | Via

Everything we think we know about the Galaxy S8

Bdrive secures files in the cloud with fingerprints and fragmentation

Guess goes all in on Android Wear 2.0 as it reboots its smartwatch strategy

GelTouch adds a new dimension to touch-sensitive controls

Qualcomm's new chip brings high-end features to low-end 'candy bar' phones

Pwn2Own hacking contest ends with two virtual machine escapes

Bill Gates again is the world's richest man

FBI looks into Russian hack of US election, possible Trump involvement

Google finally lets you save your parking spot in latest Maps beta

BlackBerry readies a more secure version of the Samsung Galaxy S7

Star Citizen dumps DirectX 12 plans to focus on Vulkan-powered graphics

The Week in Apple News and Rumors: iPad Pro rumors, 5th gen Apple TV rumors, iPhone 8 rumors, and some actual news

Inside the Infinity Room, SXSW's trippy art installation

South by Southwest is all about merging tech with art, and Refik Anadol's Infinity Room is a dazzling example.

South by Southwest isn’t just a tech show—it’s more of an ideas show, a place where technology comes together with art, music, and film in creative ways to bring these outside-the-box concepts to the people. 

Well, I guess in the case of the Infinity Room, the point is to bring people inside the box. The Infinity Room is an installation by mixed-media artist Refik Anadol that uses trippy audio and visuals to create an illusion of infinite time and space. The room is a completely closed-off box with projectors on each of the four walls, and mirrors on both the floor and ceiling that make the space feel much bigger than it actually is. Looking down was a little freaky—it looked like I was suspended in midair. 

The Infinity Room is part of Anadol’s ongoing “temporary immersive environment experiments,” which is supposed to help viewers reach an “elevated level of consciousness” where your “awareness of physical self is transformed.” I don’t know if I was “transformed,” but to me, the space was super meditative. I felt an overwhelming sense of calm in the room and could have easily stayed in there for a while—it was almost like one of those sensory-deprivation pods. (I visited the Infinity Room on my last day in Austin, so perhaps I just really, really needed a nap.) 

There are different iterations of the Infinity Room popping up in museums and galleries all around the world, and it’s definitely worth checking out if you get the chance. Or, watch the video above to get a better idea of what the room is all about.

This story, "Inside the Infinity Room, SXSW's trippy art installation " was originally published by Macworld.

Every custom GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card revealed so far

Intel claims storage speed record with first large-capacity Optane SSD

The Optane DC P4800X SSD has 375GB of storage and is priced at $1,520

Intel's first Optane storage modules came out in early January, but were only 32GB. Larger Optane drives with up to 1.5TB of storage capacity are on their way, and we now have a better understanding of how they're going to perform.

The first large-capacity Optane SSD drive is the DC P4800X, which has 375GB of storage and started shipping on Sunday. The $1,520 SSD is targeted at servers. (Intel didn't provide regional availability information.)

Intel says an enterprise Optane SSD with 750GB will ship in the second quarter, and that a 1.5TB SSD will ship in the second half of this year.

These SSDs will fit as add-in cards in the PCI-Express/NVMe and U.2 slots. That means they could work in some workstations and servers based on AMD's 32-core Naples processors.

Optane will also ship in the form of DRAM modules next year. Intel did not share information on when it would ship consumer SSDs. 

Optane has been hyped as a new class of superfast memory and storage that could replace today's SSDs and DRAM. Intel has claimed Optane is up to 10 times faster than conventional SSDs.

The technology underpinning Optane is 3D Xpoint, a form of memory that stores data based on the resistance of cells. Intel developed 3D Xpoint with Micron, which later this year will release an Optane competitor called QuantX, aimed at enterprise SSDs.

For the first time, Intel has shared internal benchmarks on the large-capacity Optane drives compared to conventional flash SSDs. The Optane SSD DC P4800X was pitted against the three-year old SSD DC P3700 flash SSD, which is considered one of Intel's fastest data-center SSDs in terms of random reads and writes.

The benchmarks indicate that the new Optane drive, in most real-world uses, won't reach the levels of performance that Intel has been hyping up to now. On top of that, the benchmarks were conducted in complex environments that made the numbers hard to interpret.

In a nutshell, Intel said that if you run sequential tasks, it would be better to use conventional SSDs. Optane lights up when running random reads and writes, which are common in servers and high-end PCs. Optane's random writes reach up to 10 times faster compared to conventional SSDs, but only when utilization is being pushed to extremes, while reads are around three times faster.

In a standard 4K data block, with 70 percent read and 30 percent write, the P4800X was five to eight times faster than the older P3700. The responsiveness of the drive increased with the data load.

Aside from the unusual benchmarking presentation by Intel, Optane has promise, and it could be the storage technology of the future. However, flash-based SSDs are well-established and Optane won't unseat them overnight, according to analysts.

Optane is more expensive and still being developed, and joins the ranks of other technologies like MRAM (magnetoresistive RAM) and RRAM (resistive RAM) trying to unseat flash.

Intel took a long time to develop large-capacity Optane SSDs, and there is some concern about the drive's durability. The P4800X has a five-year warranty, but it remains to be seen how long the drive will last.

Optane SSDs will speed up data movement among servers in data centers, said James Myers, director for NVM Solutions Architecture at Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group.

Storage is a big bottleneck, and the Optane SSDs will reduce latency. That will improve the productivity of servers, and will help in applications like analytics, which deal with large data sets. Optane could be used for for caching or long-term or short-term storage.

Optane SSDs could also be used to expand memory capacity in servers by mimicking DRAM with the help of a hypervisor, Myers said. To make this happen, Intel will sell software called Memory Drive for Optane drives. This feature will only work on servers with Intel's upcoming Xeon chips based on the Skylake architecture, and won't work with AMD chips.

Applications that will benefit from Optane include MySQL and Memcached, which are popular with cloud providers. Data movement in servers run by companies like Facebook and Google is fast to ensure instant responses to social media or search requests.

Intel's Myers also saw the storage fitting into hyperconverged environments, in which Optane is closer to the CPU, or in an array. Optane isn't a particularly good fit for typical networked storage arrays like EMC's EqualLogic, which are extremely popular, but Myers is pinning hopes on companies moving to hyperconverged infrastructures.

Intel estimated that two servers with P4800X drives could provide 10 times more MySQL transactions than with P3700 SSDs. It would also result in a 91 percent reduction in cost per transaction.

But there's a heavy cost involved in changing the data-center infrastructure to fit the superfast Optane drives. In the long run, the Optane drives may be beneficial in speeding up database, cloud and machine-learning applications, but switching over to a hyperconverged environment could call for wholesale changes in server hardware, virtualization environment, and organization of storage in data centers.

Also, Optane SSDs don't play well in in-memory applications like SAP HANA. In theory, the Memory Drive feature could be used so the Optane SSDs mimic DRAM, which can ultimately be used by in-memory applications. Intel is in talks with major in-memory application providers to build usage of Optane SSDs, Myers said.

Companies are increasingly backing Optane, Myers said. Facebook has been trying out Optane for more than a year, but hasn't reported results. IBM has incorporated Optane storage in its Bluemix cloud service, but hasn't talked about benchmarks.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is going to offer Optane SSDs as a media option in 3PAR arrays. The current latency for all-flash arrays is about 400 microseconds to 1 millisecond, and with 3D Xpoint/Optane it will come down to 200 microseconds, said HPE's Eduardo Duarte, 3Par product manager, in a video at the Discover trade show in London in December.

Optane compatibility will also be validated for VMware's vSAN virtualized storage environments. Alibaba also has committed to using Optane in its database and machine-learning infrastructure, Myers said. Intel is also talking with Microsoft to validate Optane for Windows Server storage environments.

In addition, a range of companies including Lenovo, Nutanix and Dell Technologies have confirmed that they will come out with hardware based on Optane.

Based in C and similar to Swift, Gravity offers portable code for iOS and Android

The embeddable language can be used for mobile and desktop development

Gravity, an embeddable, lightweight programming language written in C, is an option for mobile application development while backing multiple programming variants.

Supporting data-driven, functional, object-oriented, and procedural programming, Gravity was built for Creo Lab's Creo design tool for the Mac, but it's a standalone product, developer Marco Bambini said. Currently in beta, open source Gravity enables developers to easily write portable code for iOS and Android. It also supports desktop and embeddable development.

A class-based concurrent scripting language with syntax similar to Swift, Gravity can be compiled on any platform using a C99 compiler, according to the project description. The compiler and virtual machine combined add fewer than 200KB to the executable on on a 64-bit system.

Bambini sees Gravity as complementary companion to Swift and Java development for mobile platforms. The language was supported by a pair of open source projects. The inspiration for closures comes from the  Lua programming language; specifically from the "Closures in Lua" document, while the  Wren concurrent scripting language inspired fibers, upvalues handling, and some parts of the garbage collector.

How much are vendor security assurances worth after the CIA leaks?

Software vendors will fix these vulnerabilities, but users should remember that there are always zero-day exploits out there

Following the recent revelations about the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s cyber espionage arsenal, software vendors reiterated their commitments to fix vulnerabilities in a timely manner and told users that many of the flaws described in the agency’s leaked documents have been fixed.

While these assurances are understandable from a public relations perspective, they don’t really change anything, especially for companies and users that are the target of state-sponsored hackers. The software they use is not less safe, nor better protected, than it was before WikiLeaks published the 8,700-plus CIA documents last Tuesday.

The leaked files describe malware tools and exploits used by the CIA’s cyber divisions to hack into all major desktop and mobile operating systems, as well as into networking gear and embedded devices like smart TVs. The documents don’t contain the actual code of those tools and some of the supposedly more telling descriptions have been redacted.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that his organization will share unpublished details with software vendors so that the vulnerabilities can be patched. But even if WikiLeaks does that, it’s important to realize that the information only represents a snapshot in time.

The most recent date string in the documents is from early March 2016, potentially indicating when the files were copied from the CIA’s systems. Some of the exploit listings suggest the same.

For example, the page describing exploits for Apple’s iOS contains a table that has them arranged by iOS version. That table stops at iOS 9.2, which was released in December 2015. The next significant update, iOS 9.3, was released in late March 2016.

One kernel exploit, codenamed Nandao, which was obtained from the U.K.’s GCHQ, is listed as working for iOS versions 8.0 to 9.2. Does that mean that it doesn’t work on iOS 9.3 or even more recent versions of the operating system? Not necessarily. It’s more likely that the table stops at 9.2 because that was the latest version of iOS when the CIA files were copied.

Moreover, it’s highly unlikely that Apple can tell if this and other exploits have been patched or not without additional details. The only description for “Nandao” is that it’s a heap overflow memory corruption vulnerability, and there’s no indication for which kernel component it’s actually located in.

“Unless Apple obtained full details and/or the exploits as well as performed a thorough root cause analysis, Apple can’t be sure that newer versions aren’t affected,” Carsten Eiram, chief research officer at vulnerability intelligence firm Risk Based Security, said via email.

That’s also the case for flaws affecting other software. Eiram’s company was able to confirm that some have been patched, but some still work in the latest versions of the programs they affect, like a DLL hijacking flaw in the Prezi Desktop presentation software.

“Users shouldn’t just presume newer versions aren’t affected simply because they’re not mentioned in the dumps,” Eiram said.

And even if all these flaws eventually will be disclosed to vendors and patched, it doesn’t mean that the CIA doesn’t have newer zero-day exploits. Its exploit acquisition efforts haven’t stopped in March 2016.

The agency had exploits for unpatched vulnerabilities when its internal documents were leaked and it’s very likely that it has similar exploits for the latest versions of popular programs and operating systems at this moment.

It’s important to realize that there are always zero-day exploits out there, and not just in the hands of intelligence agencies. A similar leak in 2015 from Hacking Team, an Italian company that makes surveillance software for law enforcement, revealed that the firm was regularly buying zero-day exploits from hackers.

Numerous hacker groups have used zero-day exploits in their attacks over the years, some so frequently that they probably have large stockpiles of unpatched flaws. There are also private brokers that pay huge sums of money to acquire such exploits and then resell them to their customers, which includes law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

“This leak is mostly just confirming suspicions about the capabilities of such agencies more than surprising us,” Eiram said.

According to Eiram, the software industry can better prevent developers from introducing vulnerabilities in their code and can build features to make exploitation harder and reduce risks. But there’s no magic wand for getting rid of all vulnerabilities in the foreseeable future. If anything, annual statistics show that the number of software vulnerabilities is actually on the rise.

“For that reason, it is always good for users to keep in mind—without developing full-blown paranoia—that when navigating the digital world there is always someone out there who can compromise your system if they really wanted to,” Eiram said. “A bit of logic, skepticism, and security awareness goes a long way, both in the physical and the digital world.”

Users and companies who are likely to be the target of cyberespionage attacks should take a multilayered approach to defense that goes well beyond applying vendor patches and takes the existence of zero-day exploits into consideration.

Pivotal, Google team up for Kubernetes cloud management

Project Kubo provides release engineering for the container management platform

Pivotal and Google have launched Project Kubo to apply Pivotal's Bosh tool for deploying and managing cloud software to Google's Kubernetes container orchestration platform.

Currently in an alpha release stage, Kubo instantiates, deploys, and manages Kubernetes clusters on any cloud. Pivotal has been working on the project with members of the Google Cloud platform team.

Kubo can be used with existing production applications written in specific languages, and it can access platform primitives. Bosh, featured as part of Cloud Foundry, provides an open source tool chain for managing large-scale distributed services. It offers a combination of a virtual machine build tool, configuration and health management, and logging. Bosh has been used to build consistent, self-healing environments with zero downtime, Seroter said.

Kubo will enable operational efficiencies with joint Cloud Foundry and Kubo deployments. It depends on Cloud Foundry to provide routing to the Kubernetes cluster, documentation states. A specialized Bosh director manages VMs for the Kubo instance, which handles VM creation, health checking, and resurrection of missing or unhealthy VMs.

MapR unveils platform for IoT analytics at the edge

MapR Edge is a new small footprint edition of the MapR Converged Data Platform geared for capturing, processing and analyzing data from internet of things devices at the edge

At Strata + Hadoop World in San Jose, Calif., Tuesday, MapR Technologies took the wraps off a new small footprint edition of its Converged Data Platform geared for capturing, processing and analyzing data from internet of things (IoT) devices at the edge.

MapR Edge, designed to work in conjunction with the core MapR Converged Enterprise Edition, provides local processing, aggregation of insights at the core and the ability to then push intelligence back to the edge.

“You can think of it as a mini-cluster that’s close to the source and can do analytics where the data resides, but then send data back to the core,” says Dale Kim, senior director, Industry Solution, at MapR Technologies.

“The use cases for IoT continue to grow, and in many situations, the volume of data generated at the edge requires bandwidth levels that overwhelm the available resources,” Jason Stamper, analyst, Data Platforms & Analytics, 451 Research, added in a statement. “MapR is pushing the computation and analysis of IoT data close to the sources, allowing more efficient and faster decision-making locally, while also allowing subsets of the data to be reliably transported to a central analytics deployment.

[ Related: MapR helps developers leverage analytics with microservices ]

Many core IoT use cases, like vehicles and oil rigs, operate in conditions with limited connectivity, making sending massive streams of data back to a central analytics core impractical. The idea behind MapR Edge is to capture and process most of that data at the edge, where the data is created, then send summarized data back to the core, which then aggregates that summarized data from hundreds or thousands of edge IoT devices.

MapR Technologies calls this concept “Act Locally, Learn Globally,” which means that IoT applications leverage local data from numerous sources for constructing machine learning or deep learning models with global knowledge. These models are then deployed to the edge to enable real-time decisions based on local events.

[ Related: MapR and Outscale partner on big data PaaS ]

To make it work, MapR Edge integrates a globally distributed elastic data fabric that supports distributed processing and geo-distributed database applications.

MapR Edge capabilities include:

• Distributed data aggregation. Provides high-speed local processing, useful for location-restricted or sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII), and consolidates IoT data from edge sites.
• Bandwidth awareness. Adjusts throughput from the edge to the cloud and/or data center, even with environments that are only occasionally connected.
• Global data plane. Provides global view of all distributed clusters in a single namespace, simplifying application development and deployment.
• Converged analytics. Combines operational decision-making with real-time analysis of data at the edge.
• Unified security. End-to-end IoT security provides authentication, authorization and access control from the edge to the central clusters. MapR Edge also delivers secure encryption on the wire for data communicated between the edge and the main data center.
• Standards based. MapR Edge adheres to standards including POSIX and HDFS API for file access, ANSI SQL for querying, Kafka API for event streams and HBase and OJAI API for NoSQL database.
• Enterprise-grade reliability. Delivers a reliable computing environment to tolerate multiple hardware failures that can occur in remote, isolated deployments.

MapR Edge deployments are intended to be used in conjunction with central analytics and operational clusters running on the MapR Converged Enterprise Edition. It is available in 3-5 node configurations and optimized for small form-factor commodity hardware like the Intel NUC Mini PC. MapR Edge deployments can store up to 50TB per cluster.

Jack Norris, senior vice president, Data and Applications, MapR Technologies, notes that MapR has all the data protection capabilities of MapR Converged Data Platform.

“There’s redundancy built in,” he says. “High, availability, self-healing, all the capabilities of the MapR technology are extended to the edge device.”

“Our customers have pioneered the use of big data and want to continuously stay ahead of the competition,” Ted Dunning, chief application architect, MapR Technologies, said in a statement Tuesday. “Working in real-time at the edge presents unique challenges and opportunities to digitally transform an organization. Our customers want to act locally, but learn globally, and MapR Edge lets them do that more efficiently, reliably, securely and with much more impact.”

This story, "MapR unveils platform for IoT analytics at the edge" was originally published by CIO.

Nginx JavaScript is ready for prime time

The Nginx Plus R12 server can be programmed using NginScript, a JavaScript-based tool

Nginx has upgraded its web server and load balancer to take advantage of its JavaScript implementation.

The company on Tuesday debuts Nginx Plus R12, the commercially supported version of its technology. This release moves NginScript, a JavaScript-based programming tool, to general availability for production use. Developers can choose NginScript for traffic handling, via a familiar JavaScript syntax. The code can be embedded in Nginx Plus for actions on HTTP, TCP, and UDP traffic.

"JavaScript programmers can actually do the same thing you can do in Lua," which has been used for programming the Nginx server, said Chris Lippi, vice president of products for Nginx. JavaScript is more pervasive than Lua, so users get an expanded programming talent base to choose from for hiring purposes.

NginScript in Nginx Plus 12 features enhancements for ECMAScript 6 math methods and constants, as well as additional string methods. Nginx co-founder Igor Sysoev talked in late 2014 about the company's JavaScript intentions; with the R12 release, those ambitions come to fruition.

R12 also features configuration sharing via a sharing script for pushing configuration from a master Nginx Plus instance to peers. This process is used for backups and verifies the validity of the configuration on remote peer. Enhanced caching, meanwhile, is enabled via Stale-while-Revalidate and Stale-if Error cache extensions. Cache revalidation is done in the background to keep users from being delayed by a round trip to the original server.

To improve health checking, traffic can be delayed to new servers in a load-balancing pool until a health check passes. Servers are added via the API or DNS interfaces, and a slow-start capability enables servers to be gradually introduced to the pool. Nginix also offers greater visibility into application performance, including server response times, error codes for TCP/UPD services, and shared memory zone utilization. These metrics can be viewed via the server's live activity monitoring dashboard, or they can be exported in JSON format into another monitoring tool.

When upgrading to R12, the on-disk cache will be invalid and Nginx Plus automatically refreshes the cache as needed; old cache entries are deleted. Also, connections to upstream servers can be queued if servers are overloaded; the queue directive must be placed after any load-balancing directives. Third-party dynamic modules installed from the Nginx repository will be automatically updated during the upgrade; any third-party modules users built will require manual updates.

Intel races ahead in autonomous cars with $15.3 billion Mobileye buy

With Mobileye, Intel adds to its technology stack for autonomous cars

Intel has shifted its self-driving car efforts into high gear with a $15.3 billion deal to acquire computer vision and collision-avoidance company MobileEye.

With the deal, announced Monday, Intel gets its hands on technology for machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for driver assistance systems and autonomous driving.

Mobileye develops a full package of software and chips designed for use in autonomous cars.

The deal is expected to close in nine months and calls for the combined global autonomous driving organization, which will consist of Mobileye and Intel's Automated Driving Group, to be headquartered in Israel and led by Amnon Shashua, Mobileye's co-Founder, chairman and CTO.

The acquisition of MobileEye will be merged with Intel technologies like Xeon processors, FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays), 3D Xpoint memory and 5G modems in autonomous cars said Brian Krzanich, Intel's CEO.

Intel wants to get its technology into cars, but has lacked a power-efficient chip and autonomous driving software that could form the central brains of an autonomous car. Mobileye fills that gap, and now the challenge will be to combine Mobileye's technologies with Intel's current product offerings.

Intel offers car computers like Go, which are highly customizable with FPGAs, but Mobileye could change the design of its automotive hardware systems.

Mobileye is developing a new assisted driving platform with a chip called EyeQ5 -- which has MIPS processors -- that should be in autonomous cars by 2020.

Cars are becoming data centers on wheels, Intel says, and it expects that by 2020 self-driving vehicles will generate 4,000GB of data per day. The company estimates that the vehicle systems, data and services market opportunity will be worth up to $70 billion by 2030. 

As the PC market cools down, Intel has started chasing the autonomous-car market. Intel had already announced that it will work with BMW Group and Mobileye to build a fleet of about 40 autonomous cars that will hit U.S. and European roads by the second half of 2017.

Intel has already acquired a handful of companies developing self-driving car technologies and last year said it would  invest $250 million over the next two years to develop autonomous cars.

The combined Intel-Mobileye organization will support both companies' existing production programs and build on relationships with automotive manufacturers, suppliers and semiconductor partners to advanced driving assist, highly autonomous and fully autonomous driving technology, Intel said.

Intel may also have to smooth relations with one previous Mobileye customer. Mobileye's assisted driving system was used in cars made by Tesla, which pushed the blame for a series of accidents onto Mobileye. Mobileye denied its technology was responsible, and a war of words with Tesla broke out. The relationship between the companies ended, and Tesla is now developing its own platform for assisted driving.

(With additional reporting by Agam Shah in New York)

Fears arise that Trump has dropped ball on H-1B reform

Critics must now rely on the "Trump effect" to hold back offshoring

President Donald Trump's administration has signaled that it has no immediate plans to change the H-1B program. Critics are roiled. They wanted Trump to act before April 1, the day the U.S. accepts visa applications for the new year.

But no one knows for sure. New rumors circulate that Trump will act, maybe next week, but the White House won't say.

The IEEE-USA said Friday that Trump's inaction on the H-1B visa "will cost American jobs." The group now believes that action before April is unlikely, and that may be because of something Sean Spicer, the press secretary, said this week.

Spicer was asked at a press briefing Wednesday if there was any plan to "revamp the H-1B program by April 1." Spicer said the president was focused on border security.

Regarding the H-1B program, Spicer said: "There is a natural desire to have a full at -- a comprehensive look at that." He gave no hint as to when that might happen.

Trump repeatedly called for reform during his campaign and after, the IEEE-USA points out.

"By Trump not yet keeping his promise, American tech workers will continue to lose their jobs and their ability to take care of their families," said IEEE-USA president Karen Pedersen, in a statement. "This is in direct contrast to what he told us all last year."

Industry analysts, however, see what's unfolding a little differently. They do believe that the Trump administration is impacting IT services, even indirectly.

"It is clear that many firms are postponing or canceling offshoring activity, as they wait to see what happens on the political front," said Peter Bendor-Samuel, the CEO of outsourcing consultancy and research firm Everest Group. This is actually "accelerating the adoption of the new digital models which do not require offshoring."

"No U.S. firm wants to be tweeted about," said Bendor-Samuel.

Clients -- firms that buy IT services -- are nervous about the environment, said David Rutchik, executive managing director at Pace Harmon, an outsourcing management consulting firm.

Senior-level corporate executives, including CEOs, are concerned. They are worried about news coverage, or worse, being "called out on Twitter" by Trump for outsourcing jobs, said Rutchik. "They are afraid of what it may look like politically."

This may be hurting the bottom line of some IT services firms.

For the top five Indian services firms, Everest is forecasting revenue growth declining in constant currency from 8.7% last year to 6.3% this year.

Rutchik said public companies will still be under pressure to deliver cost savings and may outsource nonetheless, but he expects system that automat processes to also gain in adoption.

The analysts say political uncertainty is prompting IT services firms to hire more U.S. nationals to reduce reliance on visa workers.

The political climate is "telling the providers that they need to step up their focus on building out capabilities and resources in the U.S.," said Rutchik.

The U.S. distributes the H-1B visas by lottery shortly after April 1 -- if it receives more petitions than the cap. Last year more than 230,000 petitions were received. Critics had been hoping that that Trump might change the visa distribution from a pure lottery to a system that gives preference, for instance, to non-dependent H-1B firms, those with less than 15% of their workers on a visa.

That change would have put India-based firms in the back of the H-1B distribution line, but IT services such firms as Accenture and IBM, which are not H-1B dependent, would have been unaffected.

Trump may still take action on H-1B visas apart from the lottery, says Bendor-Samuel. As an example, he points to the administration's recent action to suspend fast-track premium processing for six months.

"Providers are not home free this year and face increased resistance to their model regardless of the delay in the actual law changes," said Bendor-Samuel. "The net effect is that they will be able to utilize H-1B, but at a greater expense and to a lesser degree."

But the IEEE-USA believes that IT outsourcers get as many as 50,000 of the 85,000 H-1B visas. "Rather than using H-1B workers themselves, outsourcing companies rent their workers to third-parties at below-market rates. American workers, after training many of these new employees, will lose their jobs," said Pedersen.

This story, "Fears arise that Trump has dropped ball on H-1B reform" was originally published by Computerworld.

Facebook tool cuts through React complexity

Facebook and Expo teamed up to make the Create React Native App tool for creating Android and iOS apps with no build configuration

Facebook attempts to make it easier to get started with its React Native framework, launching the CRNA (Create React Native App) tool for building mobile apps with no build configuration.

Introduced Monday, CRNA was co-developed by Facebook and Expo, formerly Exponent. The tool, deemed stable for general use, was inspired by the design of Create React App for building React JavaScript apps sans build configuration.

"Many developers struggle with installing and configuring React Native's current native build dependencies, especially for Android," said Adam Perry, Expo software engineer. "With Create React Native App, there's no need to use Xcode or Android Studio and you can develop for your iOS device using Linux or Windows." The tool works with the Expo open source mobile development tool, which builds atop React Native. Expo loads and runs CRNA projects written in JavaScript without compiling native code.

Noting that many React Native apps must compile Java or Objective-C/Swift dependencies, Perry said the Expo app includes APIs for camera, video, contracts, and other uses while bundling libraries like Facebook authentication. If developers require a native code dependency not bundled by Expo, they will likely need their own build configuration for it.

CRNA supports Create React App's ejecting capability for leaving the setup environment. "You can run NPM, run eject to get a project very similar to what react-native init would generate," said Perry. "At that point you'll need Xcode and/or Android Studio just as you would if you started with react-native init, adding libraries with react-native link will work, and you'll have full control over the native code compilation process."

React Native lets developers build UIs with JavaScript and React. It has been called a game-changer in hybrid mobile application development, bridging JavaScript and platform APIs with Java or Objective-C calls that produce native iOS or Android UI components on the device.

Google outs Android security update for March, factory images and OTAs are up

Google outs Android security update for March, factory images and OTAs are up

It's that time of the month again, namely the first Monday. And that's when Google normally releases the details about the latest Android security update. Things are no different today, with the company making the revised security bulletin available for those eager to dive into the minutiae of all the patches that make up the March security update.

Additionally, factory images and OTA zip files incorporating the new fixes are up for grabs for supported Pixel and Nexus devices.

The respective build numbers are NOF27B for the Pixel and Pixel XL (except for Rogers customers, who should get NOF27C), N4F26T for the Pixel C, Nexus 9, Nexus 5X, and Nexus 6P (except for Verizon customers, who get NUF26N), and N6F26U for the Nexus 6. For some reason there are no updated builds for the Nexus Player at this time.

The over-the-air rollouts of these updates should commence shortly, but if you're impatient you might want to go the OTA zip sideloading route, since Google has a history of dragging these things out for weeks.

Nokia 3, 5 and 6 all feature VoLTE support

Nokia 3, 5 and 6 all feature VoLTE support

Nokia, or rather its new HMD Global owner, turned a lot of heads at this year's MWC and understandably so. The legendary Finnish brand came back with a bang and one that extends beyond the publicity stunt that is the resurrected Nokia 3310.

Premium looks and materials, a decent value-conscious balance of specs and a focus on a pure Android experience, all at a fairly reasonable price point - there is a lot to like about the new Nokia smartphone lineup. We have no doubt that the Nokia 3, 5 and 6 will all be enjoying quite a bit of popularity in the foreseeable future.

To make the deal even sweeter, HMD confirmed all three devices do support VoLTE. The information comes in an email from HMD and was a needed clarification. Even though both the Snapdragon 430 and Mediatek MT6737, powering the handsets, support VoLTE, there was no mention of it on the Nokia website, so questions of software-level support lingered.

The Huawei P10, P10 Plus and P10 Lite go on pre-order in the Netherlands

The Huawei P10, P10 Plus and P10 Lite go on pre-order in the Netherlands

We already spotted the Huawei P10 on a shelf in Barcelona, up for pre-order, along with the offer of a free Huawei Watch 2. It turns out Spain isn't the only country already running an early-bird sale for the phone and one of our readers informed us that a few stores in the Netherlands are doing the same.

T-mobile, bol.com and Mediamarkt are among them and besides the basic Huawei P10, the latter has already listed the P10 Plus and P10 Lite on its website. All three models are available in black, gold and silver (well, white on the Lite, to be precise) and should start shipping on March 17, for EUR 349, EUR 599 and EUR 749, respectively.

To sweeten the deal even further, if you opt of the basic or Plus model before March 23, you also get a Leica Sofort Instant Camera for free. The retro-cool Polaroid-style camera has a MSRP of about EUR 289 on its own, so it's a pretty generous gift.

Thanks for the tip Andreas Constantinou

Source (in Dutch)

Samsung Galaxy Note8’s codename and model number revealed

Samsung Galaxy Note8’s codename and model number revealed

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are close to making their debut at the end of this month. But this piece of news is regarding the Galaxy phone that will come out after the S8 duo.

According to SamMobile, the Samsung Galaxy Note8 will be codenamed “Great”. Given this name, we are expecting that Samsung will make something that will honorably succeed the Galaxy Note7.

Samsung Galaxy Note7

Model numbers were also revealed by the source. The Galaxy Note8 will carry the model number: SM-N950F for an international-unlocked variant. Much like the Galaxy S7 and Note7 models, the S8 model number would have a different letter at the end, depending on each market and carrier.

SamMobile also reports (though not 100% confidently) of the fate of all those returned Galaxy Note7 devices, stating that Samsung is working on a refurbished Galaxy Note7 for Samsung’s home market. The model number could be SM-N935 (Grace R).

Given that the S8 and S8+ are quite different from the S7 and S7 edge, we’re excited to see what Samsung does with the Galaxy Note8, though if last year was any clue, we could see the S8’s internals in the Note8 as well.

Source | Via