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Imagine downloading Game of Thrones - all seasons, in HD - within a single second. That's what a next-generation optical transmission system developed by University College London scientists could do. Their system can handle a rate of 1.125 terabit per second - that's 50,000 times faster than the average "superfast" broadband connection in the UK. The team set the record for the fastest ever data rate for digital information. The infrastructure itself isn't revolutionary. The system uses optical fibres, which are already used to carry binary code as light signals through thousands of kilometres of wire. What has made the...

54 models affected. Toshiba has issued a recall for Li-Ion battery packs sold with certain models of its laptops and notebooks due a risk of the device catching fire. The hardware company yesterday advised customers to immediately turn off their PC and remove their battery to check whether their device was affected. The vendor is offering free replacement battery packs for customers with affected units. Around 54 different PC models are affected, sold nationally from retail stores like Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi from June 2011 to September 2015. A full list can be found here. "There is a risk...

Unmanageable deadlines and disastrous IT wrecked this top US retailer's attempt at international expansion. The moral of the story: IT drives the enterprise. Business school case studies tend to fall into two categories: epic wins and oh-my-gosh-how-could-they-possibly-have-been-so-stupid epic failures. This article discusses a real-world billion dollar story that falls into the second category. As epic failures go, this one is worthy of the history books. . . EVERYTHING WENT TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY WRONG . . .

Oracle has released new Java installers to fix a well-known security issue (CVE-2016-0603) that also affects a plethora of other applications, from Web browsers to antivirus products, and from file compressors to home cinema software. The problem is called DLL hijacking (or DLL side-loading) and refers to the fact that malware authors can place DLLs of the same name in specific locations on the target's filesystem and have it inadvertently load the malicious DLL instead of the safe one. DLL hijacking is a very well-known issue This type of attack is very old and has been known to many software...

I've been watching late night movies lately, especially spy spoofs. I like twists and misdirection. The most obvious example was when James Bond learned that Goldfinger really was not trying to take the gold out, but to make Ft. Knox useless. Try explaining that to your boss James.....he would hand you a tin foil hat. But it was genius. Several years ago I argued at length with a friend about the yellow cake story out of Iran. I had read that the British intelligence community, that Bush quoted, had revealed that the Iraqi government was buying nuclear material. Well, everybody...

A San Francisco startup has created a $15 computer. Pine 64 is now taking pre-orders for its Quad core 64-Bit expandable single board supercomputer, which will ship in May. The product can be combined with a keyboard and mouse to function as a full Android 5.1 computer. The company recently raised $1,731,465 on a Kickstarter campaign that had a goal of $31,416.

Microsoft and its hardware partners have revealed the list of Intel Skylake-based PCs that will lose support after 18 months if the computers are downgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 7 or 8.1. The software giant along with Dell, HP, Lenovo and NEC today outlined a list of 100 PCs that will fall victim to a policy change outlined by Microsoft earlier this month. The company previously said it would support downgrades to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 until January 2020 and January 2023. But on January 16, Microsoft backtracked on its pledge for newer hardware featuring Intel's Skylake processors....

Are there any Linux gurus here? I've looked around online and asked some questions in various forums, but I'm not getting anywhere. I've found explanations of how to set it up, but no examples. I have yet to get it working. I am trying to configure an environment with several Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 virtual machines. All of these machines need to be NTP clients of my NTP server. The NTP server uses MD5 authentication, and I need to have the Linux clients authenticate the NTP traffic. Can someone please post a working "ntp.conf" and "keys" file so that...

I was a big fan in the early 80's. I had a week long correspondence with him in the mid 90's. I loved reading his Chaos Manner column in Byte magazine along with Garcia s circuit cellar. It was a great mag. I've been rereading some of his works lately and just reminiscing. Jerry Pournelle s Iron law: ...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach...

Microsoft's first Patch Wednesday update for the year has taken care of multiple vulnerabilities rated as critical. No known exploits are available for the vulnerabilities, but Microsoft recommends that users apply the patches through Windows Update as soon as possible. Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 see two common vulnerabilities and exploits (CVEs) fixed - CVE-2016-0002 and CVE-2016-0005 - as part of a cumulative update. Supported version of the Windows client and server operating systems are all affected by the vulnerabilities, which Microsoft rates as critical and exploitable. Microsoft's new Edge browser in Windows 10 is also being...

The Novena Heirloom is a limited edition custom enclosure system I built for use with the open-source Novena computer designed by Bunnie Huang and Sean Cross. It was crowd funded in cooperation with Portland, Oregon-based Crowd Supply. Several prototype concepts were developed for the campaign. After consulting with Huang, we decided to forgo an easel design in favor of a more traditional clam shell laptop. The requirement for user access to the internal components argued for a removable keypad and drove the final result. The thrust of the design concept is informed by, and hopefully serves as homage to, the...

I have an idea for a brilliant, sarcastic Conservative phone app called "Happy Safe Space Filter" that would be a wonderfully hot ticket with Conservatives, and/or Sarcastic Teenagers. It could either be a freebie for the Cause, or in true Capitalist fashion, would probably sell well at 99 cents. (The joke works I a lot of ways, but would include a little body copy crediting Conservatives.) I claim the idea and would be willing to give it up for 10% of gross. It is a pretty simple thing. If you have App writing experience, please message me here on Free...

Revolutions in warfare, though they may be predicted by theorists, are often unnoticed by governments and their military establishments -- until it is too late. On November 11, 1940, during the Battle of Taranto, torpedo planes from the British aircraft carrier Illustrious sank the Italian battleship Conte di Cavour. It was the first time in history that an aircraft carrier sank a battleship....

The era of the $5 computer has arrived.The latest version of the Raspberry Pi is even being given away free with a magazine. Not a subscription. Just buy the single issue of Magpi and you get a free computer.The devices have hobbyists and entrepreneurs excited about the possibilities of Pi. Raspberry Pi Zero $5 computer unveiledThe Next Thing unveils $9 computer, CHIP Ben Z. Cooper is using one as the brains behind a spectacular light show at Vancouver's VanDusen Gardens."You wave your hand in the air and control a whole grove of maple trees lighting up," Cooper told CBC News...

Astra Taylor's iPhone has a cracked screen. She has bandaged it with clear packing tape and plans to use the phone until it disintegrates. She objects to the planned obsolescence of today’s gadgetry, and to the way the big tech companies pressure customers to upgrade. Taylor, 36, is a documentary filmmaker, musician and political activist. She's also an emerging star in the world of technology criticism. She's not paranoid, but she keeps duct tape over the camera lens on her laptop computer - because, as everyone knows, these gadgets can be taken over by nefarious agents of all kinds. Taylor...

State AG sues major tech support provider alleging deceptive scam By Connie Thompson Wednesday, December 16th 2015 State investigators just sued one of the rising stars in the tech-support industry claiming part of the operation is based on a scam. The company, called iYogi, is accused of tricking people into paying for tech support services they don't need. According to investigators iYogi engaged in a different twist on the notorious tech support scams where someone call you claiming your computer has problems. What's significant in this case is workers don't call you, you call them. And iYogi is one of...

The consumer electronics industry has always fascinated me. I spent my first ten years as an analyst covering the telecom industry, which historically has had very good margins. But, when I started covering the consumer electronics industry, I was struck by the fact the vast majority of players in that market make razor-thin margins, if they’re profitable at all. Even more striking is Apple, which might be described accurately, if incompletely, as a player in the consumer electronics market, makes telecom-like margins while competing with those barely profitable vendors. And just as interesting is the fact that, as players that...

What do Common Core and Obamacare have in common, other than the enthusiasm they engender in the White House and widespread disappointment they generate outside of it? Both programs have fatal computer glitches. "New Hampshire-based company Measured Progress, which developed online Common Core tests used in Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota, has acknowledged a major glitch in the tests' rollout," Chris Neal reported in School Reform News. "Technical malfunctions, such as servers crashing during testing, resulted in only 37 percent of Nevada students being able to take their exams." "Meanwhile, Montana and North Dakota only managed to test 76 percent...

Fellow Freepers, I am looking into getting my son (13, soon to be 14) a build-it-yourself computer kit. He has ripped apart a couple of old laptops, but they don't have compatible parts. I am looking for a kit that he can use to learn to put together a working cpu that is usable and can be loaded with an operating system. I see a couple available on Amazon, but one looks too simplistic and the other is too complicated. When it comes to hardware and operating systems, I am very much a novice. I welcome your insights. Thanks so...

Our team has recently monitored and analysed a new stack of drive-by campaigns which aim to spread the Angler exploit kit by injecting malicious code into compromised web pages. Because of the mechanisms involved and the attackers’ objectives, the campaign is prone to achieve large distribution and affect a big number of PCs and their users. The campaign is carried out by installing a cocktail of malware on the compromised PC. The first payload consists of the notorious data thief Pony, which systematically harvests all usable usernames and passwords from the infected system and sends them to a series of...