Back in 2015, Microsoft launched its first laptop, the Surface Book 2. At the time, the device sported a novel design aesthetic, with a curved hinge that served as a docking port as well as a distinctive visual cue. The Surface Book was also unusual compared with other 2-in-1 designs at the time, which typically packed the entire “computer” into the display and used the bottom keyboard as either a simple port hub or a port hub with a connected battery. The Surface Book broke with this by also integrating a GPU into the base. Now, Microsoft has updated the design with a new chassis and hardware.
Microsoft has released the new Fall Creators Update, the latest in major upgrades for . Many of the additions this time around are fairly small; the company’s twice-yearly cadence for features requires frequent small updates as opposed to major changes. Still, there are some improvements and new capabilities worth discussing. First of all, Windows 10 now supports mixed reality, which is the company’s combined name for augmented reality and virtual reality. It’s not a great word for marketing–“mixed reality” doesn’t really convey the nature of the platform, because it doesn’t define what’s being mixed–but it’s what Microsoft and some other vendors are running with.
From the moment Apple unveiled the , there’s been concern over whether demand for the new device would pull sales away from the iPhone 8/8 Plus, and leave Apple scrambling to fill orders with what was initially intended as a halo product. We saw a similar situation with the iPhone 5s and 5c, when Apple launched the budget device expecting to gain market share, only to see a majority of its customers stampede towards the iPhone 5s instead. This is, on the one hand, a ridiculously good problem to have, and I imagine certain executives at Apple are crowing all the way to the bank.
Almost exactly two years ago, a well owned by the Southern California Gas Company began dumping huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. The leak wouldn’t be capped until February 18, 2016, and would eventually release 107,000 tons of methane and 8,000 tons of ethane. SoCalGas didn’t exactly cover itself in glory with its concern for residents during this time period; the company didn’t admit that a major gas leak had occurred until October 28. Later investigations demonstrated the pipes in question were old–technically it was a blowout, rather than a leak. They were also not sheathed in concrete, and lacked safety valves, since only pipes within 100 feet of a road or park or 300 feet of a home were required to have safety valves.
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Last week, the phone manufacturer OnePlus was caught collecting an extensive amount of data on its Android smartphones. The company has now said that it will cease these practices in response to user feedback, and that future users will be explicitly presented with the option to opt out when they first activate a device. The initial investigation into OnePlus’ behavior began earlier this year, when software engineer Christopher Moore was completing the 2016 SANS Holiday Hack Challenge. He proxied the internet traffic , a OnePlus 2, using OWASP ZAP, “a security tool for attacking web applications.” After seeing a domain he didn’t recognize (open.oneplus.net), he began investigating the situation further.
BERLIN–Where the US is moving methodically toward offering more electric vehicles, Germany is racing ahead on e-mobility: electrified cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, buses, and the infrastructure to make charging as close as the nearest lamp post. It makes sense to look beyond electric cars-only in densely populated Europe with narrow streets and limited parking. Unlike North America, with currently abundant fossil fuels, Europe depends on outsiders for much of its energy. Here are some intriguing mobility products and technologies I saw, primarily in Berlin (main photo) near the Euref Campus that houses dozens of startups, car tech and other, as well as industry giants like Cisco, Deutsche Bahn (German railways), General Electric, and Schneider Electric.
Conventional wisdom has long held that locking down your router with WPA2 encryption protocol would protect your data from snooping. That was true for a long time, but maybe not for much longer. A massive security disclosure details vulnerabilities in WPA2 that could let an attacker intercept all your precious data, and virtually every device with is affected. The vulnerability has been . It’s not specific to any specific piece of hardware or device–it’s a flaw in the WPA2 standard itself. KRACK bears some resemblance to standard “man in the middle” attacks by impersonating an existing network.
Pizza Hut customers who were defrauded in the past two weeks by false credit card usage can thank the (popular?) pizza chain for the privilege. The company was hacked on October 1st and 2nd, but waited nearly two weeks to inform customers that their private data had been compromised. The company finally began notifying users on Saturday. The breach appears to have been total, with hackers making off with names, billing zip codes, delivery addresses, credit card numbers, CVN numbers, and email addresses–everything you’d need, in other words, to help yourself to someone else’s data and personal information. Anyone who ordered a pizza via Pizza Hut’s mobile app on October 1 or October 2 was potentially affected.
