Monday, July 1, 2013

TechEye

TechEye

Link to TechEye - Latest technology headlines

Virgin rebuffs adult content opt-in claims

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 06:38 AM PDT

A spokesperson for Virgin Media has said reports it plans to block, by default, any legal adult content are inaccurate, and that a Sunday Times article that says so is "fundamentally wrong".

The Sun published a report that says BT, Virgin, Arquiva and Nomad had signed up to an opt-in agreement to access adult content by 2014. "Eight million households currently using Virgin Media and TalkTalk's internet services will have to opt in to receive explicit material by 2014," it read.

But a spokesperson for Virgin said: "Last year, all ISPs committed to a code of practice whereby all customers, new, and soon existing, would have to choose whether to use the parental controls we provide".

"It's not default blocking and no customer will not know parental controls have or have not been activated," the spokesperson said, adding that Virgin Media confirmed it would be introducing a 'whole home' package later this year to work across all devices.

How effective even an opt-in for adult content option would be is up for debate.

A cursory Google search reveals streams of Yahoo Answers pages from kids trying to get around parental restrictions. When there's a will, there tends to be a way, especially when young people are often streets ahead of their parents in being tech-savvy. 

New version of Linux kernel appears

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 03:08 AM PDT

Linux messiah Linus Torvalds released the new Linux 3.10 kernel over the weekend.

Version 3.10-rc7 is the last release candidate of the latest kernel and is packed with the most changes in years.

It appears that there were some 11,900+ changes, but Torvalds said that despite the large number of commits, it's all boringly straigthforward.

He said that the bulk of the patch is made up of drivers while the rest is evenly split between arch updates and "misc".

Despite the size of the patch there are no major new subsystems this time around, although there are individual new features

Torvalds said that the large number of changes meant that he was thinking of releasing another RC dry run first but, decided against the idea and went ahead with official Linux 3.10 commit.

There is a whole lot of things that come along with version 3.10 and the kernel has been eagerly anticipated.

These include bcache block layer cache which will allow for caching through the use of SSD cards.

There is also support for "full dynamic ticks" that would lessen the timer interrupt's trigger frequency to just one interrupt per second from up to a thousand (depending on kernel configuration). This will in turn reduce the interrupt processing load of the kernel. This enhancement is more for the High Performance Computing (HPC) market.

Linux 3.10 will come with interfaces that would addressing of the Unified Video Decoder (UVD), which is a part of Radeon HD graphics cards. Userspace drivers for video accelerator are also planned for the next major Mesa 3D release. 

AMD has no plans for smartphone chips

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 03:03 AM PDT

Although there was much speculation about AMD’s upcoming heterogeneous ARM server chips, and its frugal Jaguar core, it seems the company won’t be entering the consumer application processor space after all.

AMD senior VP and general manager of global business units told Gulf News that the company is not focused on smartphones and has no plans to enter the smartphone market.

However, AMD still thinks mobile devices like tablets and hybrids are important, but they use slightly bigger chips, namely Temash SoCs.

“We will continue to look for key opportunities. The traditional PC market is really changing as we see a lot of new form factors. The PC business is our key but we will look for opportunities that will help us grow,” Su said.

Su stressed that gaming is a major focus for AMD so the company wants to slug it out in the CPU and GPU markets instead. She added that gaming is one space where AMD can differentiate from the competition.

Su also added that the company’s APU strategy is working. Over the past couple of weeks AMD announced new Richland, Kabini and Temash products and it got strong feedback from customers.

AMD’s custom chips based on the new Jaguar core are also at the heart of new PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Su expects that custom chips will account for about 20 percent of AMD’s business by the end of the year. 

Nokia to buy Nokia Siemens Networks

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 02:59 AM PDT

Struggling Finnish mobile company Nokia has written a $2.2 billion cheque to buy Siemens out of its Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) partnership.

The move is surprising as many thought that Nokia would be sitting on all the cash it could, as its deal with Microsoft fails to take it to the heights it anticipated.

While Nokia is not doing that well, the network gear specialist NSN has been posting profits in the past few quarters.

Nokia said it expected to close the transaction, subject to regulatory approval, during the third quarter of this year.

Nokia Siemens Networks will become a fully owned subsidiary of Espoo, alhough Nokia hasn't yet announced what the restructured entity will be called.

Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser told Dow Jones Newswires, a while ago, that 2013 was the year his company would help "NSN to move into a better place" although it is strange that this was the place he had in mind, although we've seen Nokia's HQ and it is very nice.

Now he is saying Nokia's new acquisition is "an attractive opportunity to actively shape the telecom equipment market for the future and create sustainable value."

Nokia CEO and ex Microsoft man, Stephen Elop, spoke highly of NSN's recent financial growth.

Key secure telephony applications wide open

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 02:55 AM PDT

Key core security components of several secure telephony applications, including the Silent Circle system developed by PGP creator Phil Zimmermann have some important security flaws.

Writing in his blog Mark Dowd of Azimuth Security said there are some problems with the GNU ZRTPCPP library.

Apparently the flaws have already have been addressed in a new version of the library and Silent Circle has implemented a fix too, but it requires people to update their software, smartish.

ZRTPCPP is a library that implements the ZRTP protocol that Zimmermann and others developed to establish secure sessions over a pre-existing connection.

Silent Circle is a cryptographically secure mobile phone application, and several other products implement the ZRTPCPP library.

The three holes will mean that an attacker has the ability to get remote code execution. Dowd said that the bugs can be exploited by remote, unauthenticated users. We guess he means the NSA. 

EU politicians furious at US cyber spying

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 02:51 AM PDT

The cosy relationship between the US and Europe is being battered like an elderly cod in a Loughborough chippy after revelations that the land of the free was engaged in high-tech spying of friends and foes around the world.

According to Der Spiegel, the NSA bugged EU offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, prompting outrage from EU politicians.

Der Spiegel also reported that the US agency taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany in a typical month, much more than any other European peer and similar to the data tapped in China or Iraq.

It also uses data from internet hubs in south and west Germany that organize data traffic to Syria and Mali.

EU high representative Catherine Ashton told Reuters that US authorities were immediately contacted about the report.

Apparently the EU used "strong language" to display its displeasure at the US antics.

The US authorities said that they are checking on the accuracy of the information released and will come back to them as soon as... oh look, a badger with a handgun.

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius was quoted as saying that these acts, if confirmed, would be completely unacceptable.

So far the US has said it will not comment, but pointed out that everyone spies on each other and it is a bit silly for everyone to act all surprised about it.

The Guardian, citing a September 2010 NSA document, named EU missions and the French, Italian and Greek embassies, as well as a number of other American allies, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey as targets.

German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said the US' spying brought to memory actions among enemies during the Cold War.  It would appear that the US sees its allies as enemies.

If EU representations in Brussels and Washington were tapped by the American Secret Service, it can hardly be explained with the argument of fighting terrorism, she said in a statement.

Germany's federal prosecutor's office is already looking at the idea of filing criminal charges.

It will start to look very embarrassing for German chancellor Angela Merkel who last month defended governments' monitoring of Internet communications, and said that the US' cyber-snooping had helped prevent attacks on German soil.

Martin Schulz, president of the EU Parliament, said that if the reports proved true then it would have a "severe impact" on relations between the EU and the United States.

Talks for a free trade agreement between Washington and the EU are likely to be stalled until the United States explains itself.

After all, you cannot negotiate over a big transatlantic market if there is the slightest doubt that partners are carrying out spying activities on the offices of negotiators. 

Apple sticks with Samsung

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 02:43 AM PDT

Apple is being forced to kiss and make up with its enemy Samsung even while the pair are locked in an abortive trademark battle.

The Wall Street Journal has noted that Apple's efforts to find a company other than Samsung have faced all sorts of problems.

After years of technical delays, Apple finally signed a deal with TSMC to make some of the chips starting in 2014. But the process had been beset by glitches preventing the chips from meeting Apple's speed and power standards.

While Apple managed to stop buying iPhone screens from Samsung and has reduced iPad-screen purchases, it looks like Samsung will remain the primary supplier for chips through next year.

It has taken a while for Apple to wake up to the fact that its dependence on Samsung limits Apple's ability to bully decent deals out of its suppliers.

Part of the dependence is based on Apple and Samsung working closely in development for years on custom built chips.

Apple sources say it is proving difficult to replicate  that relationship with someone else.

The deal with TSMC is a milestone but it is a long way from being as efficient as the relationship with Samsung.

TSMC was not as amenable to Apple's strange ways. Apple demanded to invest in TSMC, or to have TSMC set aside factory space dedicated to Apple chips. TSMC chairman Morris Chang rejected that because he wanted to maintain its independence and manufacturing flexibility.

For its part, Samsung has reason to keep the Apple relationship going. Cupertino is still Samsung's biggest customer for components.

Apple's component orders from Samsung were $10 billion last year and over half of that was for the Samsung made processor.

Another difficulty for Apple is that Samsung has its fingers in a lot of pies. Apple hoped to lean on Sharp to provide it with the new iPad's high-resolution displays.

Sharp had missed the launch deadline as it struggled to mass-produce displays using a new technology and Apple used Samsung instead. Then in March, Samsung agreed to buy a three percent stake in Sharp and to buy more LCD panels from it.

This meant that if Apple wanted to bang on Sharp's door again it would have to deal with Samsung as a Sharp shareholder and customer. Apple would have no bargaining power with Sharp.

All this means that Apple is stuck with Samsung for a long time to come and the assumption is that it is a marriage of inconvenience which favours the South Korean supplier. 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)