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The security services aren't going to like this Apple doubles-down on encryption in new APFS file system Apple is deepening support for encryption in its PCs, laptops and devices with the introduction of Apple File System (APFS), a new file system that will replace the existing HFS+ file system from next year.APFS has been "engineered with encryption as a primary feature", according to Apple, adding extra encryption features into the file system that will make it easier for users to encrypt files. However, it may also reignite disputes with law enforcement and security agencies over backdoors for encrypted communications and...

In a press call to journalists, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth (accompanied at times by a rather excitable Labrador) explained that shortly after the Snap release several Linux developers, particularly from Arch and Gentoo, approached Canonical with an idea to make Snap a more universal system. Snap, originally developed for Ubuntu's mobile flavor of Linux, is a way of packaging an application with all the dependencies it needs to run in isolation. This means it's easier to run on any device, and the main operating system doesn't risk suffering a Total Inability To Support Usual Performance (TITSUP) if an application gets...

At WWDC 2016 Apple announced a new app called Breathe as part of its watchOS 3 for the Apple Watch. The app focuses on helping users stay stress free by deep breathing. It reminds users to do breathing meditation and even helps them via haptic guiding. Now, a developer called Ben Erez has claimed that Apple has ripped off his app with the same name available on Apple Store for over a year. “We’ve had the same concept, same spelling, similar functionality in the App store for phone and watch for over a year. We built the app because the...

Apple has released previews of its upcoming mobile and desktop operating systems, introducing several new features as well as opening up some built-in applications to third-party app coders. Apple's desktop operating system is dropping the OS X moniker in favour of macOS, Apple said at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco today. The Siri digital assistant will make it into the next version of macOS, which has been dubbed 'Sierra'. Siri on Sierra can be used to find files and documents, calendaring and messages. Search results from Siri in the macOS notifications centre can also be copied and...

An Australian research project has devised a way to use salt baths to boost battery life while improving performance and safety, offering the potential to create long-lasting energy storage for electric cars and electronic devices. Researchers from the CSIRO, RMIT and the Queensland University of Technology found that a simple salt bath improved the performance of lithium batteries considerably. Researchers Dr Adam Best, Dr Anand Bhatt and doctoral candidate Andrew Basile discovered that treating electrodes in a bath containing ionic liquids and lithium salts reduced the breakdown of the battery electrolyte during operation. Basile told iTnews the treatment provided several...

Apple’s brand new operating system for its laptops and desktop computers, macOS, will ship in the fall for all customers. A beta for developers will be released later today. There’s a host of new features, including Auto Unlock, Continuity Clipboard, Apple Pay, Siri for Mac and more. A public beta will be offered in July. Apple® today previewed macOS Sierra™, a major update to the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, with new features that make the Mac® smarter and more helpful than ever. Siri® is now on the Mac with brand-new capabilities to help with the things users do...

Last week, AT&T launched a new loyalty program dubbed AT&T Thanks, offering rewards to customers, especially those who bundle together wireless and pay-TV services from the company. This morning, Citi fired back at the Death Star, alleging that AT&T is stomping all over Citi’s “ThankYou” trademark. For several years, Citi has had trademarks protecting its “ThankYou from Citi” credit card rewards program, while AT&T more recently filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its “AT&T Thanks” mark. That AT&T mark was published for opposition this week, and it looks like Citi has a problem with it. Citi has...

Greetings - My young business is being given an opportunity to set up new interior wireless access for two small restaurants along with point of sale access and I could use some advice and pointers on the best equipment to use and the best way to set up that equipment. Thanks in advance, I always get good advice from the folks here on FR.

Firefox has gone nuts by rejecting the certificates from many legitimate websites including YouTube and Gmail. The instructions say to go to Advanced and create an exception for each website. This is still a problem because some websites cannot be added and others only last for one time only. I have been to the Settings tab and there is no security setting that I can find that addresses this issue. IE doesn't have this issue at all, just Firefox. Thanks for any suggestions? Internet Explorer doesn't have

One thing that really annoys us about Windows 10 is Microsoft’s aggressive upgrade strategy. Steve Jobs famously said “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Microsoft must think this is true for Windows 10. And so its developers keep finding new ways to trick Windows 7 and 8 users into upgrading because surely they will like Windows 10 once the see it. Or they’ll just surrender. ... Microsoft acts as if its goal for 1 billion Windows 10 users supersedes the company’s responsibility for its existing Windows customers. This reckless battle has unintended consequences that...

During its conference tonight, Bethesda revealed three new piece of DLC for Fallout 4, the third of which, called "Nuka World," will be the game's final DLC.

Ransomware Now Comes With Live Chat Support Victims of a new version of Jigsaw now have access to live chat operators to help them through the ransom payment process, Trend Micro says. Getting hit by ransomware is nasty business at any time. But victims of some new variants of a ransomware sample called Jigsaw should count themselves a tad luckier than others. The purveyors of the malware have considerately introduced a new live chat feature that gives victims a way to directly contact their extortionists and negotiate a ransom payment. Instead of requiring customers to go to dark web sites,...

The abacus-shufflers of analyst firm IDC have revised their 2016 PC sales forecasts downwards. The firm now says PC shipments “... are forecast to decline by 7.3% year over year”. That's “roughly two per cent below earlier projections as conditions have been weaker than expected.” The firm names “weak currencies, depressed commodity prices, political uncertainty, and delayed projects” as the weaker conditions impacting sales. Windows 10 isn't helping matters either, because lots of people are availing themselves of free Windows 10 upgrades rather than buying a new PC. The firm also says that “while a large share of enterprises are...

First U.S. testing of a man-carrying drone planned for later this year in Nevada Alexandru Micu June 8, 2016 The Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems has granted permission to Chinese drone company EHang to test its on-demand, passenger-carrying aerial vehicle inside state boundaries. This marks the first time a passenger-carrying drone has ever been tested anywhere in the United States. Chinese company EHang received testing rights for its EHang 184 model inside the state of Nevada on Monday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. The vehicle is an autonomous human sized drone, which EHang was very happy to hail as the...

Nobody believed him. His family told him to get help. But Timothy Trespas, an out-of-work recording engineer in his early 40s, was sure he was being stalked, and not by just one person, but dozens of them. He would see the operatives, he said, disguised as ordinary people, lurking around his Midtown Manhattan neighborhood. Sometimes they bumped into him and whispered nonsense into his ear, he said. “Now you see how it works,” they would say. At first, Mr. Trespas wondered if it was all in his head. Then he encountered a large community of like-minded people on the internet...

Typoslab gains pay-by-the-month option, with bundled support and training First Microsoft turned Office into software-as-a-service. It's currently transforming Windows into Windows-as-a-service. And now it's decided that its Surface Pro typoslab should become Surface-as-a-service, to help businesses buy more of the hybrid machines. Surface-as-a-Service, or "Surface Membership" to use its proper name, lets you choose from Surface Book, Surface Pro 4 and Surface 4 hardware. An online configurator lets you design the machines you want (complete with keyboards and pens) and choose a 18, 24 or 30 month membership plan. Joining the club also gets you Microsoft's Complete for Business Extended...

What happens when you type: "Three black teenagers" into a Google image search? Twitter user @ibekabir reposted a video showing someone doing just that, and thousands of social media users responded - because most of the resulting images were police mug shots. By contrast, a Google image search for "Three white teenagers" throws up photos of happy, smiling groups of friends.

Microsoft has released Insider Preview Build 14361 for Windows 10 on PC and Mobile with a huge boost for building microservices and cloud. You can now run Docker natively on Windows 10 with Hyper-V containers, to build, ship and run containers using nano server in technical preview five of Windows Sever 2016, that’s due in the third quarter. Nano Server is a remotely administered server operating system for cloud and data centre lacking local log-on and that only works for 64-bit. A new version of the Docker engine for Windows has been built, too, which improves DockerFile syntax. Elsewhere, the...

Redmond will support it inside Azure and send code back to the FreeBSD Foundation Microsoft has published its own distribution of FreeBSD 10.3 in order to make the OS available and supported in Azure. Jason Anderson, principal PM manager at Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center says Redmond “took on the work of building, testing, releasing and maintaining the image” so it could “ensure our customers have an enterprise SLA for their FreeBSD VMs running in Azure”. Microsoft did so “to remove that burden” from the FreeBSD Foundation, which relies on community contributions. Redmond is not keeping its work on FreeBSD...

First off, I have never started a thread so I hope I'm doing this right. Let me know if this is done properly. I am a big fan of the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. It give the ground elapsed time for each flight. That lead me to wonder what clock time a given event happened. For the computer literate out there in FReeper land, is there a program available where you plug in a given ground elapsed time and it converts to clock time? Or, the launch and return times and dates is plugged in and the elapsed time could...