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LG just might have outed one of Apple’s sharpest screens ever. In an article published on March 31 about next-generation 8K displays, the Korean electronics giant claimed that Apple will be releasing an ‘iMac 8K’ later this year.

According to a post on the LG Display website, 8K is the highest resolution that the human eye is capable of seeing. It is so sharp that you won’t notice pixelation with the naked eye, and Japanese research indicates that 8K (7680 x 4320) might be as detailed as real life. That level of detail not only makes for realistic media consumption, it’s also extremely helpful for professionals who work with large photos or detailed designs to get up close to their work.

However, there still isn’t much content that is available for 4K displays, not to mention 8K panels. According to our photo editor, professionals may need to soften images to keep them from looking unnaturally sharp. If 8K does become the standard in the future, people like make-up artists may have to re-learn how to do their jobs, since TVs will show more detail than before, and they’d have to do more blending.

We’re not sure who LG’s sources are, or if such a product even exists, since Apple hasn’t said anything yet. But given Apple already has a 27-inch 5K iMac available and that TV makers have begun showing off prototypes of 8K screens, it’s possible that an 8K iMac is headed our way. LG is also one of Apple’s display partners, so it’s possible that it has inside information.

BY MARTA LÓPEZ

NOVEMBER 13, 2015

http://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/malware/famous-virus-history-friday-13th/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nftc13_EN&pk_mail=58d80117-4d24-4146-b9af-0051e84bd85e

Let’s keep remembering and recalling more viruses that have caused the biggest headaches for users.

The virus Jerusalem, also known as Friday the 13^th, was created in Israel in 1988 to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the creation of the Jewish state.

To activate the virus, the calendar only had to hit Friday the 13^th and all the programs and files that were being used would be infected and eliminated.

There wasn’t a specific method to spread the virus, but that it was done through normal systems like floppies, CD-ROM or attachments in emails.

How It Works?

–  Infects files with extensions of COM, EXE or SYS and increases in size whenever the file is executed

–  It reduces the memory available on the computer

–  Causes your computer system to slow down

–  Every the Friday the 13th the virus is activated, and eliminates computer files that are used that day

How to Fix It?

As always, recommendations for preventing these types of infections are to keep your operating system and antivirus updated.

[]

Were you infected by this virus or any of its variants?

COCOA, Fla. — Surveillance video could be the best clue police have to solve a shooting in a Cocoa neighborhood.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a moisture farmer from Tatooine was able to blow up a planet-destroying Death Star with a single shot down a narrow pipe (well, and with the Force). You would have thought that the Empire would have bolstered protection for the reactor in its replacement Death Star, but no — entire ships were able to fly right to the core to blow it up too (once the shield generator was taken out).

The mega-clouds that are increasingly replacing data centers may also have such fatal flaws that could blow them up.

Take Office 365. Time has proven that it’s not infallible. There have been several major outages in the past two years, as well as many minor outages. The causes have varied, so there’s been no common fatal flaw discovered thus far.

For example, a December 3 outage in Europe had nothing to do with Office 365 itself but caused five hours of turmoil of customers, affecting, according to news reports, 1 percent of Outlook users on the desktop and 35 percent of Outlook users on the Web. And users were also unable to get into SharePoint, Power BI, Intune, and Yammer.

The issue occurred in Azure Active Directory: A configuration error caused authentication failures for Web protocols. We now know that Office 365’s dependency on Azure is one of the weak spots in the service.

IT admins can easily see and understand the connection between server applications and Active Directory. For example, on-premises Exchange requires Active Directory to authenticate users and protocols. So if you’re having issues with DNS, connectivity, or any number of other things, your messaging environment will not work if it cannot communicate with Active Directory.

As Exchange MVP Tony Redmond has detailed, Exchange Online has a similar dependency on Azure Active Directory for authentication — and thus the same weakness.

Microsoft, while not apologetic about the outages, said it plans to make a variety of improvements to the service — mainly improved testing and fallback options — as well as better communication to users of service status.

While you wait for Microsoft — or any mega-cloud provider —  to make the perfect, indestructible cloud with amazingly transparent communication to its users, you can adopt third-party continuity offerings (like Mimecast) and monitoring offerings (like ENow’s Mailscape).

Do your research and find the ones that are right for you. And may the Force be with you.

Source: InfoWorld

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3015246/cloud-computing/beware-the-death-star-flaw-in-office-365.html

Mozilla launched Firefox 43, which includes a 64-bit version for Windows and a stricter option for blocking trackers in the recently launched Tracking Protection feature.

64-bit Firefox

Back in 2012, Mozilla decided to quietly kill the 64-bit build of Firefox (at the time still in the testing stage). The reason Mozilla gave at the time was that many Firefox plugins didn’t have a 64-bit version, and if they did, it usually didn’t work well and crashed too often.

Mozilla didn’t think it had the necessary resources to focus on fixing all of those problems at the time, so it killed the project. However, this led to major backlash from vocal Firefox users, which eventually convinced Mozilla to resume work on a 64-bit version for Windows.

This was never a problem for Linux or Mac OS X, where most of those third-party plugins wouldn’t work anyway. Because Mozilla decided to drop support for most NPAPI plugins by the end of 2016, it now seems like the right time to bring back the 64-bit version of Firefox for Windows.

The 64-bit version brings some benefits for users, too, including increased security through a more effective address space layout randomization (ASLR), making it harder for malicious websites to exploit browser vulnerabilities. It should also bring better performance, and users will be able to run web apps that are bigger than 4 GB of RAM (such as cloud-based development tools or more advanced 3D web games).

Strict Tracking Protection

Firefox 43 also allows users to block even more trackers when using the Private Browsing mode with Tracking Protection enabled. The additional option for blocking trackers, called “strict protection,” blocks all known trackers as opposed to only some of them, as the “basic protection” does. However, users should be warned that some sites may break when this feature is enabled.

Additional Improvements

The new version of Firefox also received API support for .m4v video playback, an on-screen keyboard that appears when users select input fields on Windows 8 or greater, and it gives users the option to choose search suggestions from the Awesome Bar. Firefox 43 was also supposed to receive the first implementation of the Electrolysis sandboxing architecture, but it looks like that was delayed.

Source: tomshardware

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/firefox-43-64-bit-strict-protection,30768.html

by Jonathan Strickland

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/how-to-know-if-your-computer-is-infected.htm

We all know computer viruses — and other kinds of malware — can cause problems ranging from irritating to catastrophic. Some malware replicates itself until it fills up all available space on your hard drive, turning your computer into a brick. Other kinds corrupt data on your machine or make your computer unstable. A few will even attempt to use your e-mail programs to distribute the malicious code to everyone in your contacts list. And there’s always the possibility a cracker — that’s a malicious hacker — will use malware to get remote access to your computer.

No one wants to own a computer infected with a nasty virus. That’s why it’s very important to practice safe computing habits and to install reliable anti-virus software. You can avoid most malware just by paying attention and staying away from a few common traps. If your anti-virus software is up to date, you should be in pretty good shape.

But once in a while, computer viruses get beyond our defenses. Maybe our anti-virus software is out of date or has been compromised by a particularly clever bit of code. Perhaps we clicked on a link by accident and activated a virus. Or someone else used our computer and downloaded some malware by mistake.

How do you know if your computer has been hit by a computer virus? If your anti-virus software is robust and up to date, you’ll likely receive a message as the application scans your computer. That makes detecting the virus a breeze. But what if your software is out of date or the virus has managed to deactivate the anti-virus program? Are there signs you can watch out for that might indicate a virus?

As a matter of fact, there are several signs that could indicate the presence of malware on your computer. We’ll take a closer look [next].

Signs of a Computer Virus

Assuming your anti-virus software hasn’t alerted you to the presence of a virus, here are some indicators of malware on your computer:

If your computer has become unstable, that’s a sign that something’s wrong. Some malware messes with important files that keep your computer running properly. That could cause your computer to crash. If your computer crashes when you try to run a specific application or open a particular file, that tells you that something has corrupted the data. It could be malware.

Does your computer seem to run much more slowly than it used to? This could be the result of malware as the malicious code begins to drain your computer’s processing resources. If you aren’t running a resource-heavy application but your computer is very slow, you might have a computer virus.

Strange messages indicating that you can’t access certain drives on your computer are another sign that something is wrong. In a similar vein, applications that won’t run or files that won’t open may also be the result of infection. Other indicators include hardware (like printers) that no longer respond to commands. While none of these guarantee the presence of a virus, they do suggest that something is wrong with your machine.

If you notice that file sizes are fluctuating even if you aren’t accessing those files, that’s another sign of a computer virus. And finally, if you access menus and their appearance is odd or distorted, you could be the victim of a malware attack.

It’s important to remember that computer viruses are one potential cause of problems like the ones we’ve listed here, but that they aren’t the only cause. If you believe your computer has been infected by a virus, don’t panic. Follow the steps we suggest in How To Remove a Computer Virus. You might lose some data in the process but you shouldn’t lose everything.

[ ]

FALSE ALARMS

While surfing the Web, you might encounter alarming pop-up messages claiming a virus has been found on your computer and that you should download software to get rid of it. Be careful! These messages are often scams that trick you into downloading software that can hurt your computer or spy on you. If the message didn’t come from your own anti-virus or anti-spyware applications, don’t trust it!

Sources

• Dittrich, David. “Lifecycle: Preventing, detecting and removing bots.” March 20, 2005. (March 19, 2009) http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid14_gci1068906,00.html
• “Signs of viruses: Are you infected?” Sept. 20, 2006. (April 20, 2009) http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/indicators.mspx
• Quarantiello, Laura. “Computer Virus Warning Signs.” Internet World Stats. (April 20, 2009) http://www.internetworldstats.com/articles/art027.htm
• Robertson, Jordan. “How to tell, what to do if computer is infected.” AP News. March 15, 2009. (March 17, 2009) http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TEC_INSIDE_A_BOTNET_CHECKLIST?SITE=ILEDW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Mozilla has released a new content blocker for the iPhone and iPad, continuing its push to provide users with privacy options for their Web browsing.

Called Focus by Firefox, the app released Tuesday works a lot like other blockers for Apple’s mobile platform: users download the app from the App Store, and open it to select the sort of content they want to block. After that, they just enable it as a content blocker in their phone or tablet’s settings.

Focus allows users to block several different types of code that track their behavior across websites, including ad trackers, analytics trackers and social trackers.  The app will block the same content as Firefox’s Private Browsing with Tracking Protection feature on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.

That means ads that don’t track users will be allowed through Focus, giving advertisers and publishers a way to make money off those people who have the app enabled. The list of blocked ads is primarily provided by Disconnect, a company that makes a browser extension focused on blocking trackers.  It is open source, publicly viewable and doesn’t allow or require companies to pay in order to get their ads unblocked.

“We made Focus by Firefox because we believe content blockers need to be transparent with publishers and other content providers about how lists are created and maintained, rather than placing certain content in a permanent penalty box,” Mozilla Chief Legal and Business Officer Denelle Dixon-Thayer wrote in a blog post. “We want this product to encourage a discussion about users and content providers, instead of monetizing users’ mistrust and pulling value out of the Web ecosystem.”

Another interesting component of the Focus announcement is that Mozilla is providing the app free of charge, and says that it doesn’t monetize the blocker through other means. It’s another sign of one of the interesting things about Mozilla as a browser-maker: the organization doesn’t operate an advertising network like its largest competitors, and so it can afford to make a stand about tracking users.

Interestingly, Focus works in Safari on iOS but not Firefox, since Apple doesn’t allow third-party browsers to use the Content Blocker functionality. Firefox’s Vice President of Product Nick Nguyen wrote in a blog post that Mozilla is looking into how it can bring similar functionality to its browser on Apple’s mobile platform.

Mozilla has gone from avoiding Apple’s mobile platform to supporting it wholeheartedly. The organization previously refused to offer Firefox for iOS because Apple doesn’t allow third-party browsers to use their own rendering engines. That policy stance changed this year when the company launched its browser for Apple’s platform, and carries on with this announcement Tuesday.

These moves may be driven in part by Firefox’s dwindling market share. By providing users more control over how their data is shared with advertisers, Mozilla may attract people who want to take a principled stand with their browsing to its applications.

Source: InfoWorld

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3012622/web-browsers/surprise-mozilla-just-launched-an-ad-blocker-for-ios.html

AMD launched its Fiji GPU—the company’s newest design—about six months ago. It fared well, besting Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti gaming card at 3840×2160 across our benchmark suite. But AMD’s management knows that there’s still a lot of work to do. Most of the Radeon lineup is based on much older silicon, and although those GPUs remain competitive through strategically timed price cuts, they’re also showing their age. For instance, Nvidia’s second-gen Maxwell processors dating back over a year support HDMI 2.0, whereas all of the 300-series Radeons are limited to HDMI 1.4.

That’s going to change in 2016. Over the next few months, AMD plans to divulge more details about its next-generation architecture, including improvements made to the graphics processing, fixed-function media blocks, memory subsystem and compute capabilities. For now, though, the emphasis is on a beefier display controller and what it enables. Not only will the next-gen GPU incorporate HDMI 2.0a, but it’ll also get DisplayPort 1.3.

New Standards

HDMI 2.0 increases the interface’s maximum pixel clock to 600 MHz (from 340 MHz in version 1.4), pushing peak throughput to 18 Gb/s (from 10.2 Gb/s). That’s enough bandwidth to facilitate 4096×2160 at 60 Hz. HDMI 2.0a builds on the 2.0 specification by adding support for HDR formats. You can expect HDR to be a big bullet point in the company’s next-generation GPUs as a result of its augmented display controller.

As mentioned, Nvidia’s Maxwell-based GPUs support HDMI 2.0; they cannot be retrofitted to support 2.0a. Additionally, only certain models include HDCP 2.2 support for playback of protected 4K content. Although none of AMD’s current processors incorporate HDCP 2.2, its next-gen GPUs will.

The DisplayPort 1.3 specification is even more aggressive than HDMI. Its High Bit Rate 3 mode pushes up to 8.1 Gb/s per lane, or a total of 32.4 Gb/s. With that much available bandwidth, the output options start looking pretty wild. How does 5120×2880 at 60 Hz sound? Or 4K on a 120 Hz panel? Those aren’t hypotheticals; AMD expects single-cable 5K screens by mid-2016, and 2160p120 displays supporting dynamic refresh rates (FreeSync) by the end of next year.

Doubling Down On FreeSync

Although it took longer for the FreeSync ecosystem to coalesce around AMD’s vision, the technology is certainly building momentum.

The addition of low-framerate compensation in its Radeon Software Crimson Edition driver should ameliorate the tearing/judder issues previously experienced on FreeSync-capable systems that dropped below the display’s minimum dynamic refresh rate. In short, the feature employs an algorithm that monitors application performance. Should the output fall below the variable refresh floor, frames are inserted to maintain smoothness (with V-sync on) and reduce tearing (with V-sync off). LFC is automatically enabled on existing FreeSync-capable displays with maximum refresh rates greater than 2.5x their minimum.

The corner case where performance drops too low didn’t affect our FreeSync Vs. G-Sync event, because the Asus MG279Qs we used had a 35 Hz minimum that was never breached. Rather, the issue identified by several of our readers was the panel’s 90 Hz VRR ceiling, above which they experienced tearing with V-sync turned off. Even this should become less of an issue moving forward, though; Nixeus recently launched its NX-VUE24, a 1920×1080 monitor with a 30 Hz to 144 Hz variable refresh range. We haven’t tested it yet, and the 24” TN-based panel doesn’t sound like our ideal solution. But by bringing it up, AMD clearly knows it needs to push for VRRs that match G-Sync’s capabilities.

As it looks to expand refresh ranges, AMD is also trying to make FreeSync more accessible by enabling the technology over HDMI. According to David Glen, senior fellow in the RTG’s display technologies group, scaler vendors MStar, Novatek and Realtek are already onboard. How is AMD accomplishing this when HDMI does not support variable refresh? “The HDMI specification permits something called vendor-specific extensions,” Glen stated. “They are fully compliant with the HDMI standard. We’ve used this aspect of HDMI to enable FreeSync over (the interface)… If at some future time the HDMI spec allows variable refresh rate, our graphics products, we fully expect, will be able to support both the HDMI standard method and the method we’re introducing now.”

Compatible monitors are expected to share the graphics hardware’s flexibility. Acer, LG and Samsung are already announcing a combined eight models supporting FreeSync over HDMI, ranging from 1920×1080 to 3440×1440. Although we don’t have specifics on the panel types being used, AMD’s David Glen told us to expect availability starting in Q1 2016.

The bad news, of course, is that existing FreeSync-capable displays with HDMI ports probably won’t acquire this functionality. Although it doesn’t sound like there’s anything preventing firmware updates with the vendor-specific extensions, AMD’s Glen suggests that it’s more likely we’d see current models revised to include the feature.

On the GPU side, FreeSync over HDMI will work on any Radeon card capable of variable refresh over DisplayPort, including the full lineup of GCN 1.1- and 1.2-based processors. Tahiti, Pitcairn, Cape Verde and their rebranded derivatives aren’t compatible.

High Dynamic Range Is A Go

The consumer electronics industry is in the throes of embracing high dynamic range as “the next big thing” for reproducing more lifelike images, and AMD wants everyone to know that it’s onboard as well.

Getting there is going to take a lot of effort. Content needs to be mastered, distributed and displayed differently than what we’re accustomed to. This time next year, we’ll hopefully see LCD-based screens able to hit 2000 nits of luminance—a big improvement over the 471 cd/m² attained by the brightest UHD monitor we’ve reviewed thus far. But even that’s a far cry from the BT.2020 color space.

Still, Kim Meinerth, senior fellow and system architect, assured us that AMD put significant effort into building a display pipeline that supports the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers’ 10-bit ST 2084 electro-optical transfer function, which is much better at mimicking human vision than today’s BT.1886 curve.

Existing Radeon R9 300-series cards can be made to support HDR gaming and photos with 10 bits per channel at 1080p120, 1440p60 and 2160p30. Playing back HDR content at 2160p60 is going to require HDMI 2.0a or DisplayPort 1.3, though, and for that you’ll need to wait for AMD’s next-gen GPUs. Not that we’re holding our breath—Meinerth expects the bring-up for mass market HDR-capable displays in the second half of 2016.

For what it’s worth, Nvidia’s GM2xx processors can also be made to support HDR gaming and photos at 10 bits per component, though it remains to be seen how the company sets itself up against AMD in 2016.\

Source: tomshardware.com

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-freesync-over-hdmi-hdr,30711.html

Netflix announced today (Apr. 7) its first batch of Netflix Recommended TVs — smart TVs that Netflix certifies as making the streaming service better than ever. But before you run out and buy a whole new television set to get the most out of the ubiquitous TV and movie provider, consider that Netflix Recommended TVs don’t add much to the streaming experience.

Via its blog, Netflix shared news of the first-ever Netflix Recommended TVs: Sony’s line of Android HDTVs, LG 4K UHD TVs with the webOS 2.0 operating system, and Roku TVs from Hisense, Insignia and TCL. In a nutshell, the Netflix Recommended program evaluates how well a smart TV works, from start-up time to ease of accessing apps.

Here’s the important thing to remember, though: Netflix evaluates smart TVs primarily on how well they run Netflix, not on their overall performance with all content. For example, if a TV’s remote control has a dedicated Netflix button, that feature that could help the TV earn a Netflix Recommendation. Furthermore, the Netflix Recommended TV certification does not appear to take video or audio quality into account.

What exactly does a Netflix Recommended TV get you? While Netflix cites features like Instant On functionality, which wakes your TV up ready to go, like a smartphone, not every Netflix Recommended TV has this feature. Still, Instant On is a feather in a prospective TV’s cap, as is an easy-to-navigate apps section, which puts less time between turning on the TV and tuning into Netflix. LG’s webOS 2.0 also features improvements that supposedly help Netflix launch faster than on competing models. Netflix describes what it looks for in TVs with a video in the company’s blog post.

Easy access to Netflix and intuitive app menus are good features, but the lack of certification doesn’t mean a smart TV is bad or won’t be fine to watch Netflix on. No matter which smart TV you end up purchasing, its manufacturer has probably taken great pains to ensure that the most popular streaming service runs like clockwork.

Source: Toms Hardware

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/netflix-recommended-tvs-hype,news-20747.html

Advanced Micro Devices currently commands less than two per cent of the world’s server CPU market, but next year it plans to start recapturing its share from Intel Corp. with new Opteron microprocessors based on “Zen” micro-architecture. According to a media report, AMD’s next-gen server chips offer unprecedented amount of cores and should be pretty competitive.

AMD’s highest-performing Opteron microprocessors due next year will integrate 32 cores with simultaneous multithreading technology, according to a report from Fudzilla. Each core will feature 512KB L2 cache (16MB L2 cache in total) and the whole chip will also sport 64MB of unified L3 cache. The central processing unit is also projected to have eight DDR4 memory channels capable of handling 256GB of memory per channel.

At present it is unclear whether the upcoming many-core AMD Opteron products will be monolithic, or will use multi-chip-module (MCM) design like today’s server processors from AMD.

The upcoming AMD Opteron processors will rely on brand-new platform with a new core-logic set. The chipset is projected to support PCI Express 3.0, Serial ATA, four 10Gb Ethernet controllers and so on.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Source: http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/next-gen-amd-opteron-chips-to-feature-up-to-32-cores/