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Fallout 4: Vault-Tec Workshop will launch on July 26 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Bethesda announced the release date for the upcoming add-on in a post on its official site. Additionally, the studio said it will be sending out closed beta keys to select fans later this week. The Vault-Tech Workshop DLC allows players to build their own vault that can be decked out with various furniture, which will attract new inhabitants who can be trained and used to fight off any danger that may pose a threat to your vault.

Microsoft's July round of patches fixes a vulnerability that could be used to bypass the Secure Boot protection feature if an attacker simply adds a policy to the target Windows systems. Microsoft mandates Secure Boot on newer PCs designed to run Windows. The feature is implemented in the unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI) code that checks the Windows boot loader before it starts up the operating system, to ensure it is digitally signed by Microsoft. Secure Boot can, however, be bypassed completely by applying a Windows group policy, providing attackers with full access to systems thought to be locked down....

Microsoft security bulletins are released on the second Tuesday of each month.

Apple Faces Patent Lawsuit Over iPhone's Battery Technologies Tuesday July 12, 2016 12:04 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol Somaltus, LLC has filed a complaint against Apple today in an Eastern Texas district court, accusing the iPhone maker of infringing upon its 2010 patent related to complex battery technologies. The small Frisco, Texas-based firm also filed lawsuits against Asus, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba over the same patent. The lawsuit claims that the iPhone 6s and any similar devices sold by Apple infringe upon U.S. Patent No. 7,657,386, titled "Integrated Battery Service System," and seeks unspecified monetary damages or, alternatively, a...

Well it seems the battery gods have heard our call and bestowed upon us a miracle.Researchers at the University of California Irvine (UCI) may have discovered a way to drastically increase the life of modern day batteries. And the best part is that they stumbled upon this solution by accident.To be more specific, the discovery was made by fifth-year PhD student, Mya Le Thai. Mya was working on an electrolyte gel that was to substitute the electrolyte liquid currently found in batteries in an attempt to make it more affordable. But in a coincidental twist of fate (thank you...

Microsoft says Windows 10 is fresh yet familiar, which is a nice way of saying it's a do-over for people who didn't like Windows 8. But what an impressive do-over it is. In fact, Windows 10 surpasses Apple's upcoming OS X El Capitan in some key areas, like multitasking and personal assistance. It's not that El Capitan isn't a worthy upgrade for Mac owners; it finally offers split-screen capability, along with revamped apps and performance improvements. Windows 10 offers PC users just a bit more. After using both the near-final version of Windows 10 and the public beta of El...

Ethiopia has blocked social media sites across the country after questions from end-of-year university exams were posted online last month, sparking a national scandal. The online leak of national of the exam papers, which many have called an embarrassment for the government, forced the tests to be postponed. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Viber have been inaccessible in the Horn of Africa's most populous country since Saturday morning, and will continue to be so until the national school examinations are concluded on Wednesday, according to government officials. A government spokesman said the ban was aimed at stopping students taking university entrance...

End-to-end encryption vexing to some officials . Facebook says it has begun to offer users the option of securing their messages with end-to-end encryption, a service that soon may allow more than a billion account holders — potentially including jihad and other terror groups — to message one another below the radar of law enforcement surveillance. ... By implementing end-to-end encryption, Facebook aims to give its users a way of communicating over the network’s proprietary Messenger application in a manner intended to make correspondence undecipherable to anyone other than the sender and recipient, a possibility that alarms law enforcement officials....

Last of Steve Ballmer's old guard heads for the exit Kevin Turner’s departure as Microsoft’s chief salesman after 11 years marks the final passing of the Redmond old guard. Chief operating officer Turner - KT, as he was known - was a chief of the old-school corporate kind; sales, marketing and Microsoft’s stores all reported into Turner. His departure is part of a massive sales shake up that is doing away with the COO’s role. Judson Althoff, who was president of North America sales is now executive vice president of worldwide commercial sales, and the former head of sales and...

Microsoft has released build 14383 of Windows 10 Anniversary, for both PC and mobile, in preparation for its public launch on August 2nd 2016. Most "Insider" builds feature a watermark on the desktop, showing the version and build number, but that has gone in this build. "This is because we’re beginning to check in final code," said engineer Donar Sarkar in the announcement blog post, though we are promised more builds before release day. There are a bunch of fixes in this build but they are minor, as you would expect at this point in the release cycle. "We fixed...

Researchers in Russia are expected to reveal an emotional computer within a year and a half, which will be able to think like a person and build up trust, its creators say. The system, called 'Virtual Actor', is being created by the National Research Nuclear University in Moscow. Its name was given because one of the main functions it will serve will be as an actor, playing the role of a specific person. 'The researchers say it will understand the context of what is going on, as well as keeping up with unfolding events. The machine needs the ability to...

p>Since February, a number of Apple users have reported locked devices displaying ransom demands written in Russian.Earlier this week, a security professional posted a message to a private email group requesting information related a possible compromise of at least 40 million iCloud accounts.Salted Hash started digging around on this story after the email came to our attention. In it, a list member questioned the others about a rumor concerning "rumblings of a massive (40 million) data breach at Apple."How to respond to ransomware threatsThe message goes on to state that the alleged breach was conducted by a Russian actor, and...

NEW YORK, July 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Network-1 Technologies, Inc. (NYSE MKT: NTIP) announced today that Mirror World Technologies, Inc. ("MWT"), its wholly-owned subsidiary, agreed to settle its patent litigation against Apple Inc. ("Apple") pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,006,227 (the " '227 Patent "). Under the terms of the agreement, Apple will receive a fully paid up non-exclusive license to the '227 Patent for its full term, which expired in 2016, along with certain rights to other patents in Network-1's portfolio. Network-1 will...

Customers who have eaten at Wendy's restaurant and used a debit or credit card to pay for their food are being encouraged to check their statements and read more information on a cyber breach found at some franchise-owned restaurants. Alabama restaurants include five in Huntsville; two in Madison, and one each in Cullman, Decatur, Evergreen, Greenville, Guntersville, Jasper, Mobile, Rainsville, Scottsboro and Selma. Click for locations near you. Wendy's Company first reported unusual payment card activity in February 2016, and believes the activity may have occurred as early as October 2015. Then, on June 9, 2016, company officials reported that...

The phone is supposed to survive 30 minutes in 5 feet of water. In our testing, it didn’t. Commercials for the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge showed hip-hop’s Lil Wayne pouring Champagne over the phone and dunking it in a fish tank. The Active version of the S7, which is available to AT&T customers for $800 and up, is being marketed as equally water-resistant. While Consumer Reports generally doesn’t evaluate phones for this feature, we do perform an immersion test when a manufacturer claims that its product is water-resistant. When we recently evaluated the Galaxy S7 Active, it failed this test....

Protect yourself with two-factor authentication Salted Hash, a security blog from CSO, recently provided more details about the scam. Hackers first need to acquire a compromised an Apple ID by phishing, social engineering, data breach, or other method: From there, the attacker uses Find My iPhone and places the victim’s device into lost mode. At this point, they can lock the device, post a message to the lock screen and trigger a sound to play, drawing attention to it.In each of the cases reported publicly, the ransom demanded is usually $30 to $50. If a victim contacts the referenced email...

A second piece of Mac-specific malware has been discovered this week, one that could expose the passwords stored in the macOS Keychain. But once again, Apple's Gatekeeper security — when properly configured — will block the attack from succeeding. Researchers at security firm ESET have been examining a new strain of OS X malware from an unknown source, and have published a breakdown of the so-called "OSX/Keydnap" package. The malware is distributed as a .zip compressed archive, containing the package disguised as a text file or JPG graphic with accompanying icon. However, the file name has a trailing space, which...

I was wondering if anyone else here recently donated to Trump's campaign.... directly through his site. I did on 6/30 using my debit card, which I never use (except for things like this... the only other time I've used it recently was for a donation to Free Republic, but that was a couple months ago). I saw an unauthorized charge on my statement this morning... for $50 on someone's cellphone Starbucks app. so, I called the bank and cancelled the card and they'll reverse the charge of course.... but since this donation was my only use of the card in...

There could be a very serious problem with the past 15 years of research into human brain activity, with a new study suggesting that a bug in fMRI software could invalidate the results of some 40,000 papers. That's massive, because functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is one of the best tools we have to measure brain activity, and if it’s flawed, it means all those conclusions about what our brains look like

A malicious, criminal division of an otherwise legitimate Chinese tech company is behind a mobile malware distribution campaign that currently generates around US$300,000 a month, according to security researchers. Check Point this week published an in-depth threat analysis [pdf] following a five-month investigation into malware dubbed HummingBad, which was originally discovered in February. It is known to root Android devices, primarily for the purpose of generating revenue through fake ad clicks and fraudulent app installations. Check Point claims that Yingmob, a Chinese mobile ad server and analytics business, is developing and distributing the malware through a special corporate division of...