Microsoft promised that its Lumia range would cover the low end, business and enthusiast segments but while the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL and Lumia 650 should cover the low-end segment as well nothing has turned up for business users.

This was odd, given that business users want phones that play nice with their networks, something that Redmond should do much better than Google or Apple.

Microsoft’s CFO Amy Hood told the UBS Global Technology Conference that business versions of the Lumia were coming. She said:

“We launched a Lumia 950 and a 950 XL. They’re premium products, at the premium end of the market, made for Windows fans. And we’ll have a business phone, as well.”

There were no details, but we have been hearing rumours of a Surface phone being sighted on benchmarks. It was thought that his would be a Microsoft flagship, but with the launch of the Lumia 950/950 XL, it is possible that this Surface phone could be aimed at the business user. The word Surface matches nicely with Microsoft’s Surface Pro branding.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/will-microsoft-debut-a-lumia-business-phone-next-year.html

Over the last few months both have been busy with new releases. Nvidia has its GeForce GTX 950 and GTX 980 Ti, while AMD put its first HBM-powered cards in the Radeon R9 Fury X, Fury and the super-small R9 Nano into the shops.

According to JPR, overall GPU shipments are up quarter-over-quarter – with AMD’s overall GPU shipments up 15.8 per cent. But before AMD fanboys get all excited by a surprise return to form from AMD, JPR said that that NVIDIA “had an exceptionally strong quarter”. Nvidia saw an uptick of 21.3 per cent.

The PC market as a whole increased by 7.5 per cent quarter-over-quarter but decreased 9 per cent year-over-year. Nivida’s discrete GPU shipments were up 26.3 per cent according to JPR, while AMD’s discrete GPUs spiked by 33 per cent.

AMD’s mobile GPU shipments for notebooks increased by 17 per cent, while NVIDIA had 14 per cent.

In an address on day two of Microsoft’s Future Decoded event in London, Kevin Ashton showed examples of supposed IoT devices such as the wine bottle that tells you if you’re drunk and the toothbrush that tells you if you’ve brushed your teeth.

Describing Kickstarter as “where bad ideas go to get funded”, he talked about the true nature of IoT and its roots in machine-to-machine communication that’s neither accessed nor processed by humans.

“This information isn’t going on a spreadsheet or a pivot table,” he explained. “It’s a sensor on a device in the world sending data to another device which makes a decision which feeds out into the world.”

In short: “We don’t collect data. Machines collect data from sensors and we turn the world into data.”

The perfect example of this is the mobile phone. “We call a phone a phone for legacy reasons,” he said. “A phone is just an app on your device. You probably use Candy Crush or Angry Birds more than you use it for actual calls. What a smartphone actually is, is a wireless sensor platform.”

He said that historically the UK has been at the forefront of internet developments, so it’s only right that the country takes a leading role in the evolution of the IoT.

Citing self-driving cars as a good example of the IoT at work, he predicted that by 2030 such vehicles will be the norm, and that the question should not be “Are self-driving cars safe?” but “Are human-driven cars safe?”, pointing out that 3,000 people are killed on the roads every day by human-driven cars, and so far at least, there have been no serious accidents involving autonomous vehicles.

Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/are-some-iot-gadgets-pointless.html

These are devices like smart thermostats that allow users to remotely control household temperatures or LED lights that can be switched on and off from a smartphone. Basically it is the same thing as the IoT concept in the residential setting.

Navigant Research, global revenue from shipments of residential IoT devices is expected to total more than US$330 billion from 2015-2025. That is a lot of talking fridges and Internet connected underware.

Neil Strother, principal research analyst with Navigant Research said that the IoT is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without any edge pieces, with the number of pieces growing exponentially into the billions.

“Communicating devices in the IoT traverse a wide range of industries and sectors-virtually all areas of life can expect to see some form of this connected world.”

Despite the many drivers for the residential IoT market, there are at present multiple protocols and standards that are creating an interoperability barrier, he said.
Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, and others are all vying for market viability, which is creating confusion for consumers and stalling overall adoption, he said.

Courtesy-Fud

In its third report this year, Quick Heal warns that Apple users in particular better brace themselves for impact as more and more malware writers who’ve earned their stripes targeting Android users turn their attention to iOS.

“As the number of iPhone owners rises across the world, iOS has become a new potential target for Android malware authors and hackers. It is expected that Android malware will soon be altered to attack iOS users as well, and jailbroken iOS devices will be the first wave of targets for these attacks,” explained the firm (PDF).

“Recently, the ‘XcodeGhost’ malware was found on the Apple App Store and this is just the beginning of such attacks.”

In a section on wearables, Quick Heal predicts hackers will increasingly target fitness trackers, something that other security researchers have already warned about.

A lot of space in the report is reserved for Android-flavoured threats, and users are offered advice on protecting themselves such as if there is an option to use a password over a touch sign-in, then you ought to take it.

“A group of researchers have discovered a serious security flaw in the Android Lollipop version running on devices right now. This flaw allows attackers to bypass the lockscreen of an Android smartphone by using a massive password and thereby exposing the homescreen,” it explains.

“The attack essentially works by opening the in-built camera application and afflicts people using a password to protect their Android device and lock their screen.”

The most significant Android threat is a rascal called Android.Airpush.G, which claims 30 percent of the bug pool and is the kind of adware thing that makes you want to take a hammer to your phone screen. The second most prominent issue is Android.Reaper.A, which can haul in a large data harvest when in place.

Quick Heal is not the only security company in town, and a post on the Symantec website also seems set to put the fear into the Apple user community. That post, read it here – if you dare, says that the Mabouia ransomware is capable of causing a problem for Mac and PC users alike.

Fortunately, Mabouia is a proof-of-concept attack that a researcher shared with both Apple and Symantec. Symantec says that the PoC effort achieves at least one first.

“Mabouia is the first case of file-based crypto ransomware for OS X, albeit a proof-of-concept. Macs have nevertheless already been targeted by ransomware in the form of browser-based threats,” it explained.

“For example, in 2013, researchers at Malwarebytes discovered browser-based ransomware that targeted Safari for Mac users through a malicious website. The website directed Windows users to a drive-by download, while Mac users were served JavaScript that caused Safari to display persistent pop-ups informing the user their browser had been “locked” by the FBI for viewing illegal content.”

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/will-the-xcodeghost-malware-wreak-havoc-on-ios-devices.html

Ericsson, whose like-for-like sales are down 7 percent so far this year and were roughly flat over the previous three years, said the partnership means new areas of revenue as it will boost its addressable market, mainly in professional services, software and the resale of Cisco products.

“We are the wireless No. 1 in the world,” Ericsson Chief Executive Hans Vestberg told Reuters.

“Cisco is by far the No. 1 in the world when it comes to IP routers. Together we can create innovative solutions.”

The companies said in a statement they would together offer routing, data center, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities.

“The strategic partnership will be a key driver of growth and value for the next decade, with each company benefiting from incremental revenue in calendar year 2016 and expected to ramp (up) to $1 billion or more for each by 2018,” they said.

Ericsson expects full-year cost synergies of 1 billion Swedish crowns ($115 million) in 2018 due to the partnership and said it would continue to explore further joint business opportunities with Cisco.

Source http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/ericsson-and-cisco-join-forces-in-network-partnership.html

Redmond had earlier said that Windows would block SHA-1 signed TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates from January 1, 2017, but is now mulling moving up the date to June.

There have been concerns about the algorithm’s security as researchers have proven that a forged digital certificate that has the same SHA-1 hash as a legitimate one can be created. Users can then be tricked into interacting with a spoofed site in what is called a hash collision.

In October, a team of cryptoanalysts warned that the SHA-1 standard should be withdrawn as the cost of breaking the encryption had dropped faster than expected to US$75,000 to $120,000 in 2015 using freely available cloud computing.

Programme manager for Microsoft Edge Kyle Pflug wrote in his blog that Redmond will coordinate with other browser vendors to evaluate the impact of this timeline based on telemetry and current projections for feasibility of SHA-1 collisions.

Mozilla said in October that in view of recent attacks it was considering a cut-off of July 1, 2016 to start rejecting all SHA-1 SSL certificates, regardless of when they were issued, ahead of an earlier scheduled date of January 1, 2017.

Courtesy- http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/microsoft-to-block-sha-1-hashing.html

But they are being resisted by the banking industry, which sees no need to invest further in PIN technology, already used with debit cards, resulting in halting adoption and widespread confusion.

A small band of retailers with the clout to call the shots on their branded credit cards is leading the charge. Target Corp is moving ahead with a chip-and-PIN rollout, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc plans to do the same.

But Wal-Mart said it faces obstacles because its credit card partner, Synchrony Financial, is not yet able to handle PINs on credit cards. Synchrony declined comment.

Broadly, U.S. banks are unprepared or resisting the change.

The impasse comes after many consumers got their hands on new credit cards embedded with so-called EMV chips in advance of an Oct. 1 deadline that required retailers to accept chip cards or be liable for fraud losses. EMV stands for EuroPay, MasterCard and Visa.

But only about a third of merchants are actually using the chip technology, according to analyst estimates. The number may not pick up until early next year, if at all, because the retail industry typically halts upgrades during the crucial holiday shopping season.

“PIN issuance will remain a niche,” said Julie Conroy, credit-card analyst with Aite Group.

Banks favor using chip cards verified by old-school signatures, even though chip-and-PIN usage has led to lower fraud over the decade they have been used in Europe and elsewhere.

“The PIN is definitely a must,” said Lance James, chief scientist with cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint. “It’s one extra step that provides true two-factor authentication.”

But bankers say PINs provide little benefit beyond the advantage of using chips in combating the estimated $7 billion-plus in annual U.S. card fraud.

EMV chips thwart criminals who use stolen data to create counterfeit cards, a category that Aite estimates accounts for 37 percent of that fraud. Banks say that PINs only provide additional fraud protection when criminals seek to use lost or stolen cards, a situation that Aite estimates accounts for only 14 percent of fraud.

Banking groups say there are better approaches than PINs for verifying customers and have asked retailers to embrace tokenization and encryption to prevent theft of credit card numbers.

“PIN is a static data element that would not have a meaningful impact on overall payments fraud,” said Electronic Payments Coalition spokesman Sam Fabens.

Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/confusion-continues-to-reign-with-u-s-chip-pin.html