Apple likes to talk up its focus on security and privacy, but iPhone owners have unknowingly been targets of an indiscriminate and severe hacking campaign for at least two years. Google’s Project Zero team , which used websites loaded with unpatched exploits to install malware on iPhones that could track user locations, steal files, and more. Apple patched the flaws after they were reported, but we’re only now finding out the scale of the attack. According to Google, its researchers discovered the malicious websites in early 2019. Currently, the team believes the network of hacking sites had been operating for more than two years, attracting thousands of visitors per week.
AMD saw its share of the graphics market surge in Q2 2019, with total shipments larger than Nvidia for the first time in five years. At the same time, Nvidia retains a hard lock on the add-in board market for desktops, with approximately two-thirds of total market share. And while these gains are significant, it’s also worth considering why they didn’t drive any particular “pop” in AMD’s overall financial figures for Q2. First, let’s talk about the total graphics market. There are three players here: Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. Because this report considers the totality of the graphics space, and 2/3 of systems ship without a separate GPU, both AMD and Nvidia are minority players in this market.
Labor Day weekend is finally here, and what better way to enjoy the fruits of your labor than by buying yourself an electric treat! After combing through numerous deals available online, we’ve compiled the following list of excellent deals to help you make the most of your hard-earned cash and your long weekend. Dell’s XPS 8930 desktop comes with an Intel Core i7-9700 processor with eight CPU cores that can operate at clock speeds as high as 4.7GHz. The system also comes with 16GB of DDR4 memory and one of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card that can run games with medium graphics settings.
No one, as far as I can tell, really likes post-processed motion interpolation, also called motion smoothing or the “Soap Opera Effect” (SOE). It can work well for certain kinds of broadcasts, like sports, but its benefits in this arena are outweighed by the generally disliked, overly smooth presentation everywhere else. Unfortunately, modern TVs often ship with motion interpolation enabled, and most consumers aren’t aware of the feature or how to turn it off. If a new push from the UHD Alliance is successful, it’ll be easier to disable the option in the future. Motion interpolation refers to the process of generating and inserting new frames of animation between the existing frames that were actually captured by the camera.
Self-driving cars may be the future for most cities, but Amsterdam is about one-quarter water thanks to its extensive canal network. So, maybe autonomous boats are worth exploring? MIT has been working with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) to create just that. When we last checked in on the so-called “Roboat” vessels, they had just learned to while floating on water. Now, MIT reports Roboats can in just a few minutes. Each individual Roboat is a fully fledged vessel, but the idea is not to have you hop on a single boat and use it as a taxi.
Development of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) stretches all the way back to the mid-90s. No one at the time could have anticipated how long it would take to get the monstrously complex instrument built, but we’re in the home stretch now. Engineers at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Redondo Beach, California have . It’s not quite ready for launch yet, but it’s finally starting to look like the renders we’ve seen for years. The James Webb Space Telescope is NASA’s successor to Hubble, which is still working after more than a quarter-century. However, that telescope hasn’t had a service mission since the Space Shuttle was retired, and some of its components are .
Microsoft has announced that it will publish the technical implementation details of the exFAT standard and allow support to be integrated into the Linux kernel at a future date. This is a major change for Microsoft, which once weaponized its FAT patents. While Samsung has published a GPL driver for exFAT back in 2013, patent encumbrances have prevented the driver from being distributed as part of Linux. That can now change, if the driver is included in future versions of the Linux kernel. But as Phoronix , discussion on the mailing list has been critical of the pre-existing driver code, which was tagged for inclusion in the kernel following the Microsoft announcement.
Regardless of whether you’re an aspiring of seasoned developer, choosing which programming language to learn next can be a daunting task. There are simply too many to choose from, and each language seems to be uniquely suited for a specific task. But if you haven’t already learned Python, look no further. This in-demand language is one of the most powerful and versatile coding languages in the world, and the will get you up to speed for over 95% off its usual price at just $34. With a whopping 70 hours of in-depth content led by coding pros, this bundle walks you through both the fundamentals and more advanced elements of this in-demand language.
Pluto is still a planet, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. The announcement puts him in good company with noted human astronomer Jerry Smith (above right) who staked out a similar position on our solar system’s smallest and most distant dwarf planet. Smith was unavailable for comment, but Bridenstine was willing to speak out on the controversial topic anyway. While attending a FIRST robotics event in Colorado, Bridenstine stuck up for the diminutive orb. My favorite soundbyte of the day that probably won't make it to TV. It came from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. As a Pluto Supporter, I really appreciated this.
