Monday, August 24, 2015

LG's latest 10-inch Android tablet comes with a sharper screen

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/24/lg-g-pad-ii-10-inch-android-tabelt//

G Pad II

Still (still?) looking for the Android tablet that fits your lifestyle? Maybe LG will capture your imagination, / wallet with a G Pad sequel that cranks up the processor speed (now a quad-core Snapdragon 800) while pairing it with a battery that's actually smaller (7,400mAh) than its name-based predecessor. It's now got a sharper 10.1-inch 1,920 x 1,200 display and while there's an LTE option, there's only a single color choice: Brilliant bronze. We'll ignore those with third-place connotations from the outset, but it otherwise sounds like pretty inoffensive Android tablet. LG says that price (even though it's noted in the press release that it will cost the same as its predecessor) and launch dates will be detailed locally when it launches across Asia, the US and Europe. The company added that we'll be able to paw at it at IFA in Berlin early next month. Wurst things have happened.

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Source: LG

Tags: android, gpad2, gpadii, ifa, ifa2015, lg

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Friday, August 21, 2015

MIT figured out how to 3D print using glass instead of plastic

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/21/mit-figured-out-how-to-3d-print-using-glass-instead-of-plastic//

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled a new 3D printing method on Friday that employs transparent glass as precursor instead of plastic. The method, called 3DGP, works basically the same way that conventional 3D printing does though the team found that they could modulate the light transmission, reflection and refraction qualities by precisely varying the thickness of the print.

The system uses a pair of heated chambers stacked atop one another; the 1900-degree F upper chamber acting as a Kiln Cartridge and the lower chamber serving to anneal the constructed structures. Researchers at MIT Media Lab collaborated with the school's Mechanical Engineering Department, the MIT Glass Lab and Wyss Institute to create the 3DGP. The team believes that method could eventually lead to better quality and less expensive fiber optics.

GLASS from Mediated Matter Group on Vimeo.

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Via: SlashGear

Source: MIT

Tags: 3Dprinting, glass, MIT, plastic

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Thursday, August 20, 2015

Playdate: Walking blindly into 'Everybody's Gone to the Rapture'

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/20/playdate-everybodys-gone-to-the-rapture//

Welcome back to Playdate, where Engadget runs through the latest games while broadcasting them live on Twitch. If you're feeling a bit of déjà vu that's entirely natural; you have been here before. Whereas JXE Streams was our awkwardly named show while we figured out what was going to happen with streaming moving forward, well, we've figured out what we're doing with streaming moving forward. Mostly. Hence us going back to the moniker we started with last year. Think of this as a vote of confidence from us that we're moving toward consistency and normalcy for our broadcasts. It's a good thing!

And what better way to do that than by exploring the mystery of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture? Tune in at 6 pm ET/ 3 pm PT (barring any jank) as Sean Buckley and myself plod through developer The Chinese Room's latest game absolutely blind. Neither of us have played it before, read any reviews or know really anything about the game other than it looks absolutely stunning thanks in no small part to the developer's use of Cryengine. Oh, and as an extreme juxtaposition, we're breaking Rapture's tranquility to give away five codes for the incredibly frantic Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 multiplayer beta on PlayStation 4. There may be a haiku contest involved so get your syllable-counting fingers ready.

So, join us here on this post, twitch.tv/joystiq or the Engadget Gaming homepage and follow along as we try to figure out exactly what happened and how to get to The Rapture.

We're streaming Everybody's Gone to the Rapture through OBS at 720p on PS4, so rest assured that the game looks much prettier in your house and on your TV.

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Source: Twitch

Tags: beta, callofdutyblackops3, cryengine, EverybodysGoneToTheRapture, gaming, giveaway, hd, hdpostcross, playdate, PlayStation, ps4, sony, streaming, thechineseroom, twitch

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Monday, August 17, 2015

LG bets that OLEDs are the future of displays

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/17/lg-invests-billions-in-oled//

LG's 105-inch OLED TV

It's no secret that LG has been fond of OLED screens as of late, but the company is now proving that it's committed to those organic displays for the long haul. It's investing the equivalent of $8.5 billion into developing OLED technology over the next three years for everything from TVs to cars to wearables. LG only describes this as a bid to "pioneer this untapped OLED market" and "keep the competitors at bay," but it's not hard to see a few reasons why it'd pour cash into this relatively exotic technology -- and it's not all about one-upping Samsung.

The move is certainly necessary for cars and wearables, where flexible OLED is important for putting displays on less-than-flat surfaces. However, LG is also doing this to resist the race-to-the-bottom trend in screen pricing, especially in the TV space. Like 3D and 4K, OLED gives LG a reason to ask a premium for that giant TV or banana-shaped smartphone -- it doesn't have to compete as much on price. That effect will only last for so long -- OLED TV prices have fallen rapidly in the past few years -- but it could keep LG ahead of the pack (or at least, near the front) for a little while longer.

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Source: Bloomberg

Tags: display, hdpostcross, lg, lgdisplay, oled, smartphone, television, tv, wearable

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This drone can steal data while hovering above your office

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/17/hacking-drone//

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It's the job of a security researcher to figure out how the company they are working for could be compromised. Apparently that now means using a drone sniff out vulnerabilities a few dozen feet off the ground. The Aerial Assault drone houses a raspberry Pi running Kali Linux, a distro built specifically for penetration testing (also known as pen testing) of networks and devices. Once in the air, the spy drone can detect insecure devices and networks and store that information locally or beam it back to the pilot.

The Aerial Assault drone is built on top of open source technology so researchers can purchase and adjust it to work in a way that suites their needs. Because it uses GPS, in addition to hanging outside of skyscrapers collecting unencrypted data, it can also be sent out to multiple buildings in areas that would be inaccessible by a person. For example; a courtyard in the middle of a complex or building behind a very large fence with razor wire.

While the craft is intended for researchers, there's always the possibility that someone with fewer scruples could purchase it and use it to steal data from an individual or company. So if you're feeling a bit safer about your system because you're 30 floors up, think again. The $2,500 drone should be on sale in the next few days at Wall of Sheep. If you're super impatient, you can hit up the site's sales team via email.

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Tags: AerialAssualt, DefCon, Drone, PenTesting, security, Wallofsheep

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Saturday, August 15, 2015

Finally, A Convincing 3D Display That Doesn't Require Glasses

Source: http://gizmodo.com/finally-a-convincing-3d-display-that-doesnt-require-gl-1724239441

Viewing 3D content without glasses or goggles has proved to be one of the toughest things for interface designers to achieve—it never really looks right. At this year’s SIGGRAPH, a group of researchers presented a display that creates a 3D human in stunning detail using a cluster of 216 projectors.

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AMD's R9 Fury X is a beast, but 4K gaming is still a waste

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/14/amd-r9-fury-x-irl//

Since the rise of 3D graphics cards, the inexorable trend in PC gaming has been around getting bigger, better and faster. That led to a culture of PC gamers obsessing over frame rates and doing whatever it took to push their hardware as much as possible. But now that even relatively affordable graphics cards can hit a silky smooth 60 fps at 1080p, there's only one big mountain left to climb: 4K gaming. And that's exactly what a powerhouse card like AMD's new Radeon R9 Fury X ($650) is poised to tackle. The only problem? 4K gaming still isn't worth your time and money.Slideshow-312778

The Radeon R9 Fury X is the sort of thing that's built expressly to make PC gamers salivate. While the card itself is relatively minimalist with a jet-black design, once it's turned on you get a blingy glowing "Radeon" logo and LEDs that show off how hard the GPU is working. But, most impressively, the card also has an external water cooler attached, which takes the place of a rear fan in your computer case. It's not the first video card to ship with water cooling, but it's an impressive setup nonetheless (although it will make installing the card a bit more complex). It's also worth noting that the R9 Fury X's direct competitor, NVIDIA's GTX 980 Ti, ships with air cooling. That's a sign of much more power-efficient hardware. (I would have liked to compare the two cards directly, but I'm still waiting on review hardware from NVIDIA.)

While the R9 Fury X can achieve speeds of up to 1050MHz out of the box, its water cooling setup could lead to some decent overclocking potential down the line. I didn't want to risk harming my loaner card from AMD, but initial overclocking attempts by AnandTech led to modest (75Hz) gains. With some more tweaking, though -- especially going beyond the limits AMD implements in its desktop software -- I wouldn't be surprised if you could reach higher speeds. Then again, given how fast the card is already (it also packs in 4GB of "high-bandwidth memory" RAM), you might not want to bother with the whole mess of overclocking.

On my gaming rig -- which consists of a 4GHz Core i7-4790K CPU, 16GB of 2400Mz DDR3 RAM and a 512GB Crucial MX100 SSD on a ASUS Z97-A motherboard -- the R9 Fury X didn't break a sweat when gaming in 1080p with every setting on high. No surprise there (and if that's all you're looking for, consider the plethora of sub-$300 cards out there). But once I started testing out games in 4K (with a Samsung UE590 monitor loaned by AMD), the card truly started to shine. Both The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Batman: Arkham Knight got around 35 fps on average with high-quality settings, and while that might not sound like much, the fact that they're both beyond 30 fps is a decent show of progress from last year's cards. It means you can actually play those games in 4K without any noticeable stuttering.

But enough of the numbers: How do games look in 4K? For the most part, pretty darn great. For The Witcher 3, in particular, I was able to make out even finer detail in character models, their clothing and the overall environment. But I also quickly realized that minor bump in fidelity wasn't worth the drop from the 1080p 60 fps I was used to, which looks a lot smoother. Moving The Witcher's Geralt of Rivia around the game's incredibly detailed environments was less jerky and more life-like than in 4K. Basically, It's hard to get used to lower frame rates when 60 fps was the ideal I was striving toward for years. There were also occasions where games dipped below 30 fps, which was hard to stomach on a $650 video card. [Check out 4K screenshots from The Witcher 3 here.]

Slideshow-312789

On a broader level, 4K isn't really worth the investment for most PC owners; 4K monitors are still relatively expensive, starting at around $400 to $500 for 27-inch models (1080p screens are around half that), and their panels typically aren't as high-quality as lower resolution screens. Some 4K monitors only offer 30Hz refresh rates, which limits your gaming to 30 fps and leaves little room for graphics upgrades down the line. (The monitor I'm using advertises 60Hz 4K, but I've been unable to reach that with multiple cables.) And, perhaps most damning, Windows 7 and 8 still isn't well-suited to 4K screens. You'd have to upgrade to Windows 10, which offers much better high-resolution scaling, for a decent 4K experience.

I found that gaming at a 2,560 x 1,440 (WQHD) resolution was the best compromise between fidelity and frame rate. It's sharper than 1080p (which runs at 1,920 by 1,080), and the R9 Fury X was able to reach 60 fps in that resolution easily. You'll still pay a premium for WQHD displays, but models like the Dell UltraSharp U2715H (which our friends at The Wirecutter recommend as the best 27-inch monitor) sport high-quality IPS panels, so they'll look a lot better than many 4K monitors. Plus, 2,560 x 1,440 on a 27-inch monitor is also a usable resolution for desktop work -- no microscope required.

At this point, 4K gaming feels like the worst aspects of PC gaming: expensive and counterintuitive, with radically diminishing returns. It's a badge of honor if you have a system that can actually play games in 4K, and nothing more. It could eventually become commonplace for gaming, especially as VR headsets demand more pixels, but for now you'd be better off trying to get the highest frame rate you can with a lower resolution.

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Tags: 4K, amd, ArkhamKnight, engadgetirl, hdpostcross, irl, R9FuryX, TheWitcher3, videocards

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Thursday, August 13, 2015

This Robot Builds Other Robots, Learns From Failures, Builds Better Robots

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-robot-builds-other-robots-learns-from-failures-b-1723663476

Darwin probably didn’t expect basic principles of evolution to apply to machines, but here we are: Researchers have created a “mom” robot that independently reproduces “children,” passing beneficial features along to the next generation.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Samsung's 256-gigabit chip puts multi-terabyte flash drives in your PC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/10/samsung-256-gigabit-flash-chip//

Samsung 850 EVO SSD

Think that Samsung's 2TB solid-state drives are pretty capacious? They're just the start of something bigger. The Korean tech giant has started manufacturing the first 256-gigabit (32GB) 3D vertical flash memory, doubling its previous capacity record. The new tech should turn multi-terabyte SSDs into practical options for your home PC, and help phone makers cram more storage into tight spaces. You might get more bang for your buck, to boot -- Samsung's manufacturing is 40 percent more productive, so you likely won't pay twice as much for twice the headroom. The company plans to make this 256-gigabit flash through the rest of 2015, so you'll probably see it crop up in a lot of products (from Samsung and otherwise) over the months ahead.

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Source: Samsung Tomorrow

Tags: flash, samsung, ssd, storage, v-nand, vnand

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Monday, August 10, 2015

Motorola is the next to patch Android's big video security flaw

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/08/motorola-patches-stagefright-flaw//

Moto G third-generation

Chalk up one more big Android phone maker racing to patch its devices against that nasty Stagefright video security flaw. Motorola has explained that it will not only fix the vulnerability in phones from 2013 onward (such as the original Moto X and the Droid line), but make sure that its latest hardware is secure almost from the word go. Both the Moto X Style and Moto X Play will be secure on launch, while the recently-shipped third-generation Moto G is getting its update "soon."

The company doesn't say whether or not it's hopping on the monthly security patch bandwagon. However, it does add that it's working with Google and carriers to "simplify the process" of getting that code into your hands going forward. Between this and expected fixes for phones from Google, HTC, LG, Blackphone creator SGP and and Sony, you probably won't have to worry if you're carrying a recent or reasonably well-known device. The real question is whether or not other brands and older (or lower-end) hardware will get the same kind of attention -- you don't want to remain at risk simply because you bought the 'wrong' model.

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Source: Motorola

Tags: android, droidmaxx, droidmini, droidturbo, droidultra, lenovo, mms, mobilepostcross, motog, motox, motoxplay, motoxstyle, patch, security, stagefright, update

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Old Intel chips are vulnerable to a fresh security exploit

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/08/intel-memory-sinkhole-flaw//

An old Intel Core i5 processor

If you have an old, Intel-based computer hanging around, you might want to get rid of it post-haste. Security researcher Chris Domas has discovered a vulnerability in the x86 architecture of Intel processors made between 1997 and 2010 (pre-Sandy Bridge) that lets an attacker install software in a chip's protected System Management Mode space, which governs firmware-level security. Yes, that's as bad as it sounds: an intruder could not only take more control than you typically see in attacks (including wiping firmware), but infect your PC even if you wipe your hard drive and reinstall your operating system. Domas has only tested against Intel-made CPUs so far, but AMD processors could be vulnerable as well.

A would-be hacker needs low-level OS access to get in, so you at least won't face a direct assault -- you need to fall prey to another attack before this becomes an option. However, this vulnerability might be difficult or impossible to fix in a timely fashion. While it's theoretically possible to patch a computer's BIOS (or on relatively recent systems, UEFI) to prevent these attacks, the chances of that happening are slim. What's the likelihood that your motherboard maker will support a product that's at least 5 years old, or that most people are both willing and able to apply firmware upgrades? Not very high, we'd reckon. Although the inexorable march of time will eventually take care of this flaw, the only surefire solution is to upgrade your computer.

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Via: PCWorld

Source: Black Hat, GitHub

Tags: core, cpu, intel, memorysinkhole, nehalem, pentium, processor, security

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Saturday, August 08, 2015

Researchers find major security flaw with ZigBee smart home devices

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/07/zigbee-security-flaw//

Hue bridge

Manufacturers of smart home devices using the ZigBee standard are aiming for convenience at the expense of security, according to researchers from the Austrian security firm Cognosec. By making it easier to have smart home devices talk to each other, many companies also open up a major vulnerability with ZigBeee that could allow hackers to control your smart devices. And that could be a problem if you rely on things like smart locks or a connected alarm system for home security. Specifically, Cognosec found that ZigBee's reliance on an insecure key link with smart devices opens the door for hackers to spoof those devices and potentially gain control of your connected home.

"Tests with light bulbs, motion sensors, temperature sensors and even door locks have also shown that the vendors of the tested devices implemented the minimum of the features required to be certified," Cognosec's Tobias Zillner writes. Even worse, he points out that there's no way for consumers to make their smart devices more secure. In the end, he blames the push for ZigBee to be easy to use as the big reason why companies have been lax with security.

For anyone who's had worries about the vulnerability of the connected home, Cognosec's findings basically present the worst case scenario for ZigBee. Since it affects a wide variety of devices, it's unclear how quickly manufacturers will be able to come up with a fix. We've reached out to the ZigBee Alliance, whose members include major companies like Samsung, Sony and ARM, and will report back with their response.

[Photo credit: Tom Raftery/Flickr]

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Cognosec

Tags: hacks, security, smarthome, Zigbee

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Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Hackers could take complete control of your computer if you use 'the Netflix for pirated movies'

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/hacker-proves-popcorn-time-is-not-safe-from-attack-2015-8

Popcorn Time Streaming App

Popcorn Time, the Netflix-like website for pirated movie content, may be vulnerable to a hack attack, TorrentFreak reports. This is according to a Greek security researcher named Antonios Chariton who published a blog post this past weekend.

Using a series of techniques, Chariton wrote that he demonstrated how "someone can get complete control of a computer assuming they have a Man In The Middle position in the network."

A 'man-in-the-middle' attack is when a hacker intercepts a data request between two machines. It is then able to swap the intended data for something malicious. So, if an attacker is able to execute one of these intercepting attacks, he or she can wreak havoc on the computer running Popcorn Time.

The attack is based on the clever way Popcorn Time avoids being banned by internet service providers (ISPs). The application is able to connect directly to the CloudFlare network. This, put in the simplest of terms, means that if an ISP wants to block the Popcorn Time program it would have to ban the entire CloudFlare website and not just the pirated content program. This is a smart way to avoid widespread ISP blocks.

The problem, however, is that the connection to CloudFlare is made over the HTTP protocol, and it's been shown that HTTP is just not secure.

Chariton didn't mince his words: "HTTP is insecure. There's nothing you can do to change this. Please, use HTTPS everywhere, especially in applications that don't run inside a web browser."

Because of HTTP's vulnerability, Chariton wrote that he was able to inject malicious code into a victim computer using Popcorn Time.

Popcorn Time penned a blog post responding to these claims. It assured users that they “don’t need to worry.” For one, man-in-the-middle attacks are “very unlikely,” and require a hacker gaining access into a victim’s personal network.

The site does admit that there are some security issues to be dealt with. It says it will release a fix to these shortly, but adds that what Chariton brought to light isn't as dire as it may seem.

SEE ALSO: The malware that's been holding gamers' files hostage for $500 is now even more destructive

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Toshiba's new flash chips hold twice the data

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/04/toshiba-flash-chips-double-capacity//

Judging by recent announcements, we're about to enter a golden age of fast, nearly unlimited storage for all the high-res selfies you can shoot. Following an announcement by Intel and Micron last week, Toshiba and partner SanDisk revealed their own 256Gb flash chips. Toshiba already has the smallest flash cells in the world at 15 nanometers, which it stacks in 48 layers to maximize density. The new chips add in 3-bit tech (first used by Samsung) to squeeze even more bytes in, helping it double the storage of chips it announced just a few months ago. The result will be faster and more reliable memory for smartphones, SSDs and other devices.

Intel and Micron announced 256Gb chips using different, 32-layer tech earlier this year, so they may beat Toshiba/SanDisk to the manufacturing punch. Consumers will be the main beneficiaries of the rivalry, in any case. Micron said the tech will eventually yield up to 10TB laptop drives at much lower prices per gigabyte than current models. It'll also result in cheaper and faster memory chips for smartphones and other mobile devices. Toshiba's in the process of building its new fab plant in Japan, and said the 256Gb chips will be available sometime in 2016.

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Source: Toshiba

Tags: 256Gb, BiCS, Flash, memory, NAND, SanDisk, SSD, Toshiba

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Hacks turn Square's reader into a card-stealing machine

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/03/square-reader-card-skimming-hack//

Square's reader on an iPad

As helpful as a Square Reader may be for purchases at trendy stores, you'll want to watch out -- in the right circumstances, they can also be used to steal your credit card info. Security researchers have discovered that you can physically disable the encryption the device uses to protect your financial info, turning the Reader into a tiny, portable card skimmer. There's also a way to record the signal created by your card when you swipe its magnetic stripe on an unmodified Reader, which theoretically lets evildoers charge your card without approval.

Square is quick to note that an altered Reader won't work with the official app, and that it's not possible to handle a stored swipe "more than once." However, this assumes that you're paying attention to the apps in use when you're buying goods. An enterprising criminal could develop unofficial software that looks legit, but hides skimming code underneath. While it's not very likely that you'll run into one of these tweaked scanners in the wild, it's worth keeping an eye on your credit card statement if that sketchy shop clerk breaks out a Reader to complete a sale.

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Via: Motherboard

Source: Black Hat, HackerOne

Tags: cardskimmer, mobilepostcross, peripherals, reader, retail, security, shopping, skimmer, skimming, square, squarereader

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