IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 2/11/2015

South Korean woman survives a robot vacuum hair-ial assault
Robot vacuums have been around for quite some time, with offerings from Roomba, LG and Samsung encompassing the offerings over many different department stores. If you've purchased one of these for yourself and enjoy napping on the floor, as do many South Koreans, you may want to be fully aware of your newly-found vicious floor predator.

Spanning several drama-filled minutes, a South Korean woman was recently assaulted by her robot vacuum cleaner - eventually managing to switch it off and notify authorities, who came to her aide and managed to pry the poor innocent woman's hair from the robots vice-like grip.

We've been warned of robot attacks in the past, this could be just the beginning. However on a more serious note - don't sleep on the floor when your robot vacuum is active, especially if you've got long hair.

This article is filled with sarcasm, the attack did happen - however we don't think that robots are trying to kill us, yet.


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Ridig tubing done differently - Math Military takes on carbon fiber
It seems that basically any large-scale build in this day and age is not complete without a full rigid-tubed liquid cooling loop. Besides wacky color schemes and cutting numerous holes in your chassis, what else can you do to truly set your system apart from the rest?

Math Military Modding has developed their own special method of water cooling design - real carbon fiber tubes. The images you can see are part of the latest update on the ASUS Strix modding project and help symbolize the projects goal, which is to be designed and built from the ground up - allowing for a scratch-built and completely custom project.

The carbon fiber tubes have been purchased from FlashRC and will be circulating coolant around the system. It looks very interesting and is quite light - but is it worth the cost or will it perform properly? That's up to you to decide.

Besides this crazy tubing option, it seems that EK Water Blocks have made their way into yet another stunning custom project.

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The ex-ESC Gaming CS:GO team have had Valve's lifetime bans lifted
Yesterday we reported on numerous French and Polish CS:GO players being handed life-long Valve bans due to alleged match-fixing issues. The Polish ex-ESCGaming team were hard hit by this ruling as they were destined to compete in a major tournament within one week of the ban taking place.

Thanks to information provided by HLTV, the Poles appealed the ban, asking Valve exactly why the ban took place and further requesting for evidence to be supplied. To which, a representative from Valve replied: "The ex-ESC players were restricted from participating in Valve-sponsored events because their historical account activity matched allegations of misconduct." Without any solid evidence in place, the ruling was immediately revoked - "However, further investigation has clarified their role in the matter, and the restriction has been lifted."

Is this a little worrying to anyone else? Valve has seemingly placed a life-long ban on these professional players, thus killing their careers and income completely and have done so without any concrete evidence in place?

The ban being lifted means that they can now compete for the last available Katowice spot in a few days time.


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EA ponders a future in which tablets are more powerful than consoles
The tablet market is constantly changing, and each generation features newer and faster hardware being deployed in the mobile products. It's possible EA wants to try to win over casual tablet gamers and turn them into console and PC gamers, and that will require something beyond simple casual games that are racking up increased usage.

Most mobile games have focused on the casual sector, but that could change depending on how far hardware develops. EA and other game studios are trying to create gaming products so they can be used away from PCs and game consoles, and that could mean better developed, more immersive software titles in the future.

"What gets us the most excited is the power, the computing power, of mobile devices and the speed at which that's growing," said Blake Jorgensen, CFO of Electronic Arts, speaking during the 2015 Technology, Internet & Media Conference. "What that might mean is that a tablet, three or four years from now, has more power than what a typical console has. And that will open up a whole new set of people to console-style games that are much more immersive, much deeper, much more character-driven than simply a static mobile game that you might play for a small burst of time while you're waiting for the bus."


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Chipotle apologizes after cyberattack leaves Twitter page defaced
Popular fast casual restaurant Chipotle has issued an apology to its Twitter followers, after being hacked over the weekend. Insensitive tweets were published to more than its 634,000 followers, including racist messages aimed at President Obama - before Twitter could suspend the account. A separate tweet claimed the company would be shutting restaurants before the end of the year.

We apologize for the very offensive messages sent out from our account earlier tonight. We were unfortunately hijacked temporarily. -Joe
- Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) February 8, 2015

The attack also reportedly hit the official Chipotle website, which led visitors to a different website.

"Our Twitter account was hijacked overnight for about two hours during which a series of offensive tweets was posted to the account," said Chris Arnold, communications director of Chipotle. "We apologize for the nature of the posts that were made during that time, and we are now conducting an investigation to try to determine what happened and who might have been involved."

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New York plans to conduct cybersecurity audits of insurers
In the aftermath of the Anthem data breach last week, the New York Financial Services Department said it plans to conduct cybersecurity audits of insurance companies. The "regular" and "targeted assessments" will be a part of its examination process, and enhanced regulations should keep New York insurance members safer from future data breaches.

The Anthem data breach could affect upwards of 80 million people, as personal information was taken during the sophisticated cyberattack.

"We're still in the process of finalizing and determining the enhanced requirements, but we are moving quickly and expect to begin putting them forward in the coming weeks," said Matt Anderson, spokesman of the New York Financial Services Department, in a statement published by Reuters. "These requirements are specific to New York, but we're of course always willing to discuss these issues with other states."

Cybersecurity has drawn significant interest on a federal level, but states are often left to create audits and oversight on their own.


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Woman uses mobile payment app to steal $2,500 from restaurant
Donna Prouty, 57, is accused of stealing more than $2,500 in credits from a restaurant, accessing the restaurant's mobile payment account. Her husband allegedly allowed her to use the app to transfer funds from the restaurant's bank accounts into her own personal accounts.

The Maryland District Court Commissioner has charged Prouty with theft, theft scheme, and several counts of unauthorized use of a credit card.

Restaurants and other businesses hope that accepting mobile payments will make it easier for customers to pay - but mobile security remains a critical issue. It's unknown what service the restaurant uses to collect mobile payments, however, this type of issue must be solved to prevent similar security breaches.


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Anonymous calls ISIS a 'virus,' promises to disrupt group online
The Anonymous hacker collective is taking aim at ISIS in Syria and Iraq, launching attacks to disrupt the group's social media accounts. As part of its #OpISIS campaign, Anonymous has taken down hundreds of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media accounts linked to ISIS - used to spread propaganda and woo potential recruits.

"ISIS: We will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails and expose you," Anonymous pledges. "From now on, no safe place for you online... you will be treated like a Virus, and we are the cure. We own the Internet. We are Anonymous; we are Legion; we do not forgive, we do not forget. Expect us."

In addition to listing Twitter and Facebook accounts - of both compromised accounts and possible targets - Anonymous has revealed email addresses, IP addresses, VPN connections and websites used by the extremist group.

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Expert: Trying to keep companies, data secure from cyberattack is hard
The recent data breach suffered by Anthem is further proof that companies are under cyberattack - and find it difficult to keep up with increasing numbers of sophisticated attacks. Many corporations understand they face cybersecurity threats, but can do very little to prevent crippling data breaches.

"For any given unit of time that goes by, the probability of an organization being compromised is trending to 100 percent," said John Hering, co-founder of the Lookout security firm, in a statement to CNBC. "We need to move to a world where security is not reactive, but proactive and predictive."

Financial institutions and medical companies typically have more stringent security protocols in place, but still find it difficult to prevent attacks. Late last year, JPMorgan Chase suffered a data breach that affected millions of customers, with phishing attacks and other threats targeting compromised victims.

Data breaches leave customers and members vulnerable to cyberattack, with their personal information available to cybercriminals - and companies struggle to recover from attacks, while fixing security gaps to prevent future attacks.


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Resident Evil HD is Capcom's fastest selling digital game title
The Resident Evil HD remaster from Capcom is the fastest selling digital game title launch in company history, also breaking the PlayStation Network one-day digital title download figure. Capcom didn't provide sales numbers, but the $20 remaster clearly was a good decision.

Resident Evil was originally released for the Nintendo Gamecube in 2002, but Capcom decided to release a game refresh for the PC, Microsoft Xbox 360, Xbox One, Sony PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

"It's been great to see so many positive comments from fans that have enjoyed this new release," said Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, Capcom Japan producer. "The team here at Capcom Japan have worked hard to bring the game to the latest generaton of consoles and we are thrilled at this news on its performance."

Capcom is working on Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and a Resident Evil 7 could be in the works.


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Gartner: Companies must understand IoT business opportunities
At least 40 percent of organizations understand the Internet of Things (IoT) has great potential over the next three years, with 60 percent even more optimistic for longer-term adoption, according to a report from the Gartner research group.

To help embrace connected technology, companies must work to ensure they have employees trained - and prepared - for a growing number of connected technologies, which will be used in the workplace and by customers.

"Only a small minority have deployed solutions in a production environment," said Nick Jones, VP and distinguished analyst of the Gartner research group. "However, the falling costs of networking and processing mean that there are few economic inhibitors to adding sensing and communications to products costing as little as a few tens of dollars. The real challenge of the IoT is less in making products 'smart' and more in understanding the business opportunities enabled by smart products and new ecosystems."

There are significant privacy and security concerns related to the IoT, and companies will need to be prepared to address these matters.


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American CS:GO League ESEA to give away $600,000 in 2015
It's been a busy few months for American-based gaming tournament provider ESEA. Not only has it announced an expansion to the Asia Pacific Region, there has also been lengthy investigations investigated and bans of numerous competitors from their leagues due to match-fixing and betting scandals.

In recent news, ESEA announced a massive prize pool of $600,000 throughout 2015 - including three total seasons. The breakdown is as follows:

• Season 18 - $200,000
• Season 19 - $200,000+
• Season 20 - $200,000+

Season 18 will be wrapped up between April the 17-19 live at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Dallas, Texas.

This prize pool expansion news comes alongside reports that Faceit, another CS:GO tournament provider, will be offering up $275,000 throughout the course of 2015.

These tournament announcements, alongside continued micro-transaction and tournament support from Valve have seen CS:GO undergo a full revival - becoming easily the most popular competitive FPS on the globe.


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Popular CS:GO website HLTV reports security breach
HLTV.org is arguably the home for all Counter-Strike 1.6 and CS:GO news, updates, reports, event coverage, announcements, professional player analysis and more. In a recent blog post they've reported a security breach has taken place.

Thankfully there is no user-stored financial information on this website, so all that has been compromised is your personal profile - however if you're like many and use the same password for multiple websites, you might want to act quickly.

The post went on to explain that the admins "have auto logged out everyone, so no sessions can be stolen that way, so that is why you are prompted to re-login the next time your session expire." HLTV recommends that all users change their passwords immediately.


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Metallicacid takes it back a notch with 'Redefined'
Not too long ago, we covered this crazy concept case from the future produced by MetallicAcid Custom PCs. He's decided to scale it back a little this time, releasing a new custom-PC project called 'Redefined'.

This system sets out to hide as much as possible from public view, seeing shields made to cover almost every single component bar the video card, the top of the RAM and some lovely sleeved cables.

All located within a Corsair Carbide case, this build features custom painting, exterior modded add-ons and even some engraving. If you're a fan of something simplistic and a little bit quirky, we suggest you take a look at the pictures below, or catch up on the official MetallicAcid Custom PCs Facebook page.

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The Witcher 3 will offer 'dark' mode, where death is permanent
As we get closer to CD Projekt Red's massive The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, we're finding out more juicy details on the game. The developer is introducing a new "Dark" mode to the game, which will have permanent death.

Not only that, but it will provide the toughest enemies in the game, but once you die anywhere in the campaign, that's it - you're taken right back to the beginning of the game. CD Projekt Red quest designer Philipp Weber told VG247: "Usually normal is easy, and easy is-well, you can be on your phone while playing. If you die five minutes before the ending, it's over. There are actually people who have already done it".

Weber compared The Witcher 3 to Dark Souls and Skyrim, saying that the Normal difficulty is quite similar. But when talking about the new Dark difficulty, he said that it is off the charts. So if you want to play with some serious wagers in The Witcher 3, you might want to choose Dark.

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Plextor M6e Black Edition 128GB PCIe SSD Review

Introduction

After testing Plextor's new M6e Black Edition 512GB and 256GB products, we've found that the excitement from this series wears off as we move down the product line. All three capacities read sequential data back at the same rate, 770 MB/s, and the sequential write performance trails off as the capacity shrinks. The 512GB writes sequential data at 625 MB/s, but that number drops to 580 MB/s on the 256GB model. The M6e Black Edition 128GB that we're testing today sinks sequential write speeds to just 335 MB/s, which is lower than all of the premium SATA 6GB/s products on the market today.

Plextor is targeting gamers with the new PCIe 2.0 x2 M.2 interface SSD, but we have to question why a gamer would want such a small premium priced SSD in the first place. It's not a secret that games have grown in recent years. Digital delivery systems such as Steam and Origin have unbound games from the limits of optical media. These days, it's common for game patches to top 5GB, with full installations of some games taking over 40GB of storage capacity.

The only way for a modern gamer to survive with a 128GB SSD is to pair the drive with another storage solution to hold large game files. In my home, that means an iSCSI bond to a NAS over a high-speed Ethernet connection, with a cache SSD sitting in front of several mechanical disk drives. For most of us, a dual drive solution means a SSD for the operating system, and a mechanical HDD to hold game files as the D: drive.

We wonder if a premium priced PCIe SSD with only 128GB of capacity even makes sense when it fails to match the performance of a budget SSD on the market today, much less a SandForce-based drive released three years ago that you most likely already own.

Specifications, Pricing, and Availability

Today we're focusing on the M6e Black Edition 128GB model, but we will go over the other model specifications here as well. The fastest in Plextor's trio of new products is the 512GB capacity, followed by the 256GB capacity, and finally the 128GB capacity we're testing today. All three drives use Toshiba's A19 (second generation 19nm MLC flash), and all three drives use the same number of flash packages. The variable is the number of flash die per package. The more die, the higher the level of interleaving, which is the method that makes SSDs faster than single die speed.

All three M6e Black Edition SSDs read sequential data back at 770 MB/s. The sequential write speeds are staggered based on the amount of interleaving. The 512GB model writes sequential data at 625 MB/s, the 256Gb model at 580 MB/s, and the 128GB model we're testing today writes at 335 MB/s. The two larger drives write sequential data faster than is possible with SATA 6Gb/s, but the smallest capacity model falls within the range of SATA 6Gb/s products. That performance doesn't go over well since there are SATA 6Gb/s products on the market that write data faster than the M6e Black Edition 128GB, and sell at a lower price.

Newegg just listed the M6e Black Edition prices this evening, and this is the first review in the trio that I have pricing information available. The 512GB model will launch at $529.99, the 256GB model for $299.99, and the 128GB model we're testing today will launch for $199.99. Newegg estimates these products will ship February 12, 2015, and you can preorder the products as of today.

If you land on Newegg's Black Edition product page, you will notice an error in the warranty terms. Newegg shows a three-year warranty, but Plextor covers this series with a five-year warranty.

The difference between the M6e sold last year and the new Black Edition is a firmware upgrade; the M6e stopped at FW 1.04, and the Black Edition ships with 1.05. The Black Edition also gets an improved PCB on the adapter card that allows users to supply power through a SATA power plug, and also attach the computer case's HDD activity LED to a new connector.

The largest improvement on the new Black Edition is the heat sink that helps dissipate heat from the SSD. There is a thermal transfer material pad between the SSD and the heat sink, which effectively increases the surface area cooled by the system fans inside of the computer case. Last but not least, the M6e Black Edition introduces PlexTurbo 2.0 to the M6e product family. The software works on updated M6e products as well, but is just coming to the market with the new models.
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