Sunday, April 24, 2016

IT News Head Lines (HardOCP) 25/04/2016





Running Windows 10 Mobile On An In-Car Display
Sorry officer, I was just trying to finish up this Excel sheet.



If you own a car with an HDMI port in your display, you might be able to hook up a Windows 10 Mobile phone and have it work on that screen. Windows Central reader Matthew Johnson alerted us to his experiment on Twitter with a Pioneer in-car display. As you can see from the image, connecting the phone to its HDMI-in port seems to work. Johnson notes that the display is not a touchscreen, so he can't actually access Windows 10 Mobile directly on his car, but it does show that Windows 10 Mobile's Continuum feature could be used in some vehicles with the right hardware inside.

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Feds Drop iPhone Unlocking Case After Perp Remembers His Password
I think this is the best one yet. So did the defendant actually momentarily "forget" his passcode, or did a fed give him that idea?

Feng's phone is an iPhone 4s running iOS 7, an older version with far less protections than the iOS 9 iPhone 5c in the San Bernardino case. That means it's so old it could have been unlocked using a widely-available $200 forensic tool, completely negating the need to ask Apple for help. The All Writs Act, a 227-year-old law that was used to compel Apple's cooperation in both cases, requires that the government first exhaust all other possible methods. But in the New York case, it seems the government overlooked several possibilities—including, apparently, asking Feng for the passcode after he was convicted.

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Merchants See Dip In Fraud Thanks To Chip Cards
Chip cards seem to be making a positive difference. Counterfeit transactions have supposedly decreased as much as 18% from merchants who have updated their systems.

Among the 25 merchants who were suffering the most instances of counterfeit fraud at the end of 2014, five that began processing credit and debit cards equipped with the new EMV technology saw those infractions fall 18.3% as of the final quarter of 2015, says Stephanie Ericksen, vice president of risk products at Visa. Meanwhile, five of those merchants who were not yet equipped to handle chip-enabled cards saw an increase in fraudulent transactions of 11.4%. "We're seeing EMV is having a positive impact on counterfeit fraud,'' Ericksen says. "Merchants who implement chip, their counterfeit fraud is going down, while those still finalizing plans, their counterfeit fraud is going up.''

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Consumer Complaints About Broadband Caps Are Soaring
This article shines a light on Comcast, which is being accused of protecting legacy TV revenues from Internet video with its new pricing plans.

Consumer complaints to the Federal Communications Commission about broadband data caps rose to 7,904 in the second half of 2015 from 863 in the first half, notes a new report by the Wall Street Journal. The Journal filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency to obtain the data on complaints, which have spiked as a growing number of fixed-line broadband providers apply caps and overage fees to already pricey connections. According to the Journal, the FCC has received 10,000 consumer complaints about data caps since 2015.

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Xbox 360 Production Has Ended
After being around for over a decade, Microsoft has finally pulled the plug on the good ol' 360.

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has announced Microsoft will no longer be making Xbox 360 consoles. "Xbox 360 means a lot to everyone in Microsoft," wrote Spencer. "And while we've had an amazing run, the realities of manufacturing a product over a decade old are starting to creep up on us. Which is why we have made the decision to stop manufacturing new Xbox 360 consoles. We will continue to sell existing inventory of Xbox 360 consoles, with availability varying by country."

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CERN Releases 300TB Of Large Hadron Collider Data
CERN has begun releasing data dumps for all of you wannabe particle physicists or data hoarders out there.

CERN just dropped 300 terabytes of hot collider data on the world and you know you want to take a look. Kati Lassila-Perini, a physicist who works on the Compact Muon Solenoid (!) detector, gave a refreshingly straightforward explanation for this huge release. "Once we've exhausted our exploration of the data, we see no reason not to make them available publicly," she said in a news release accompanying the data. "The benefits are numerous, from inspiring high school students to the training of the particle physicists of tomorrow. And personally, as CMS's data preservation coordinator, this is a crucial part of ensuring the long-term availability of our research data."

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Amazon Prime Video Now Has Four Times As Many Movies As Netflix
Netflix, however, has more shows, and you could also argue for its value when you look at its exclusive content, most of which is pretty well rated.

Research last month showed that since January 2014, the number of titles available on Netflix in the US has shrunk by 31.7%. This was particularly pronounced in movies, where Netflix's selection had gone down by over 2,000 titles. Netflix now actually has 4 times fewer movie titles than Amazon Prime Video, one of its major competitors (which recently rolled out a standalone option), according to research by Barclays.

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Opera Bakes Free, Unlimited VPN Directly Into Desktop Browser
Something tells me that a free VPN can't possibly be good, particularly in regard to privacy.

The launch is the result of Opera's acquisition of North American VPN company SurfEasy last March. The two companies kinda integrated back in September with version 32 of the Opera browser, but users were prompted to install the SurfEasy extension. It's also worth noting here that other third-party providers, such as perennial favorite TunnelBear, have long provided VPN add-ons for Opera. But by making it a default feature, Opera goes some way toward making privacy a core facet of the browser.

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Galaxy Note 6 Could Feature 5.8" Curved Display, 4,000 mAh Battery
I still think curved displays like the Edge are gimmicky, but I do like the sound of that battery. The Note 6 is also expected to be IP68 water resistant and possibly include an iris scanner.

The other interesting tidbit in this leak is the battery size of the Note 6. The source doesn't exactly know the battery capacity but suggests a 4,000 mAh battery might power the device. With a larger body, it wouldn't exactly be hard to fit in a 4,000 mAh battery inside the Note 6, especially if Samsung makes the device thicker than its predecessor (a move that helped the company fit the large batteries inside the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge).

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Amazon Blocking Non-Prime Members From Buying Certain Video Games
I like how Amazon's response to this is to just buy a Prime membership.

Amazon has extended its "Prime-Exclusive Items" initiative to block non-Prime members from being able to purchase certain video games. The change was spotted by customers this morning, with the PS4 versions of GTA 5, Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin's Creed Syndicate now only available to Prime members, along with the PS4 and Xbox One versions of FIFA 16, Far Cry Primal, Battlefield Hardline and more. If you aren't a member of Amazon Prime, you will now see a box with a blue border on the right of the page "identifying the item as Prime-Exclusive", and will not be able to add the item to your basket.

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Gearbox Confirms Borderlands 3 Will Be Its Next Game
Wait, you mean it won't be Aliens: Colonial Marines 2?

"It's no secret, obviously there's going to be another Borderlands," Gearbox CEO and president Randy Pitchford said. Battleborn art director Scott Kester said he will be the art director on Borderlands 3. "We don't even know if we're going to call it that. We could call it Borderlands 4 for all we know," Pitchford added. Gearbox chief creative champion Mikey Neumann, who also provides the voice of beloved mechanic Scooter, will be writing it.

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Latest Windows 10 Preview Includes Updated Start Menu, Windows Ink
The latest insider preview is a "major" one for PC. Aside from Start Menu improvements and Ink, tablet mode and search functionality have also been updated.

We have merged the most used apps list and the All apps list into a single view and elevated it to the top level of the UI to reduce clicking and scrolling. You can now access all your apps with one click on the Start menu. We have also moved important functionality such as Power, Settings, and File Explorer so that they are always visible in the left rail in the Start menu, and updated the Recently added section so that it will now show 3 entries instead of just 1, and can be expanded to see the entire list of new apps.

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DOOM Will Have Advanced Video Features
Most of you will remember that we were more than a bit surprised last week when we realized there was no tab or menu for advanced video features in the DOOM Open Beta (here). Well, Bethesda must've heard our cries because today they posted a detailed list of advanced features that will be in the retail game at launch.

Manually Lock Framerate (un-locked by default)
Lights Quality
Chromatic Aberration Toggle
Shading Quality
Post Process Quality
Particles Quality
Game F/X Quality
Decal Quality
Directional Occlusion
Reflections Quality
Depth of Field Toggle
Decal / Texture Filtering
Motion Blur Quality / Toggle
Sharpening Amount
Lens Flare Toggle
Lens Dirt Toggle
Texture Atlas Size
Show Performance Metrics
Resolution Scaling
UI Opacity
Film Grain
Rendering Mode
FOV Slider
Simple Reticle
Show First-person Hands Toggle
Use Compute Shaders
Vsync (support or triple buffering)

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Thermaltake Core W100 Super Tower Chassis Review
The W100 SUper Tower Chassis is not small and it is not cheap. It even comes fully unassembled. It does however look to fit the needs of the most hardcore water cooling enthusiasts however. The W100 is likely the most versatile case we have ever reviewed in terms of fan and radiator compatibility.

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Available Tags:Windows , iPhone , His , Xbox , Amazon , Opera , Galaxy , Thermaltake

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