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Articles DC5n United States IT in english 141 articles, created at 2017-03-21 00:03 1 / 141 1.6 Don’t expect anything impressive from Samsung’s (7.98/8) Bixby... just yet Even though it’s one of the largest electronics firms in the world, Samsung doesn’t have a storied history of leading the way in the phone world. I’m not talking about the innovative hardware it develops internally – the constantly-impressive Super AMOLED screens that adorn its top-end phones are testament to that ability – but rather its modest record when it comes to defining the ‘next chapter’ in mobile. So when I read that Samsung was developing its own AI assistant last year, one to rival Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa, it felt very much like a case of ‘me too’. Samsung saw what its competitors had, and wanted in. That’s the first dangerous move: in a world where high-end phones are homogenizing in terms of features, there’s going to be intense scrutiny from both tech watchers and the wider media as to whether Bixby is a game-changer, not the potential of such a platform – and if Samsung’s AI play isn’t amazing from the outset then the reception from the public is likely to be dismissive. So why is Samsung bothering at all? It must have a great reason, because Bixby feels rushed out right now. The South Korean brand only purchased Viv, the AI platform created by a few of the founders of Siri, in October last year, and Samsung doesn’t seem to be too bullish about what Bixby will be able to do at launch. In fact, all the launch language seems to be about the future: how Samsung ‘plans’ to have an SDK that third-party developers will be able to use; how Bixby will ‘gradually’ be integrated with other appliances like air conditioners and TVs. Even the example of how it will be used on the smartphone, clearly the primary focus for Bixby within Samsung (given it was the mobile division that bought Viv, and the focus on that segment throughout Bixby’s launch) was diluted: being able to make a call by pressing a button and speaking, rather than having to navigate through multiple menus. That doesn’t seem at all futuristic or helpful when I can literally do that with an iPhone or Google Assistant-enabled phone… and I don’t even need to press a button. That idea of Samsung playing a dangerous game comes to the fore again when you consider that Bixby will be in direct competition with Google Assistant. Google has already reportedly asked Samsung to delay its AI assistant to help promote its own offering on the Nougat-enabled Galaxy S8 – so either that report wasn’t true or Samsung has decided to defy the request. This seems reminiscent of a time a few years ago when Samsung was putting significant weight behind its own services: Samsung Music, Samsung Video and its own apps portal, along with a competitor OS to Android in the shape of Tizen, which threatened the dominance of Google’s platform. The worry was that so few people were aware that their phone was powered by Android that Samsung could just switch to its own Tizen platform, complete with an app and content store, and Google would lose its biggest customer. However, a truce was brokered between the two, and now we see phones clearly badged as ‘powered by Android’, Samsung’s services have been shuttered, and Tizen is limited to TVs and smartwatches. And that’s what Bixby looks like right now – a bargaining chip in the game of big-brand brinksmanship, one that will enable Samsung to strike a better deal during the next round of partnership negotiations. This idea explains a lot: why Samsung wants to get such a platform out there before it seems ready, testing it in the market rather than bringing it out fully-baked and landing on watches, TVs and fridges as well as adding functionality to multiple apps on the phone, both native and third-party. However, just because it’s perhaps early in its life cycle, that doesn’t mean Bixby will be a poor attempt at AI – Samsung has clearly been working on such a service for a long time before it bought Viv, and that platform has been dubbed an improvement on Siri, “the intelligent interface for everything.” According to research by performance-based marketing platform Fluent, 77% of consumers either don’t care which AI their phone is running care, whether that’s Apple’s Home, Google’s Home, Amazon’s Alexa or Samsung’s SmartThings – so eventually all of the brands making hardware in the internet of things space will have to sign up. Even if Samsung hasn’t become the main player in the AI assistant space – which is possible, given how far behind its competitors it is (unless it’s got something truly spectacular up its sleeve for Bixby ) – its size means it’ll have something to offer a potential partner, rather than just having to kowtow to whatever the dominant platform provider wants. This could be good news for those who just want a decent phone, and don’t care about the machinations behind the scenes. Samsung will be forced to provide some attractive innovation on its AI platform, to offer something different to push machine-learning platforms forward. Let’s just hope Bixby sits quietly on the side of Galaxy S8, slowly gathering connections with other apps, rather than turning out to be a messy, conflicting AI nuisance that messes with Google Assistant. Samsung officially unveils new virtual assistant Bixby ahead of Galaxy S8 launch feedproxy.google.com Samsung promises its Galaxy S8 Bixby assistant will be 'fundamentally different' rssfeeds.usatoday.com Samsung Galaxy S8 name confirmed, coming next month with Bixby techradar.com Samsung Galaxy S8 assistant Bixby unveiled as Alexa rival techradar.com Samsung unveils Bixby voice assistant for upcoming Galaxy S8 itworld.com Say hi to Samsung Bixby, the new voice assistant in the Galaxy S8 yahoo.com Samsung Bixby wants to guide you through the Galaxy techreport.com Who is Bixby? We went to South Korea to meet Samsung’s new A.I. digitaltrends.com 2017-03-20 17:29 Gareth Beavis www.techradar.com 2 / 141 Transcript 1.6 for New details revealed about Samsung's new Galaxy S8 (4.42/8) phone Video New details revealed about Samsung's new Galaxy S8 phone In today's tech likes new details revealed about Samsung's new galaxy S eight reports say the devices may come in shades of black gray and silver. W priced between about 850 and 950 dollars depending on the sides the official unveiling is a week from Wednesday. I got news for Netflix binge watchers. Yeah the days of seeing the same control over and over again let me numbered. The company's pressing a button that lets users skip a show's title sequence. No word yet if the feature is here to stay and finish at some good news for people looking to buy Nintendo switched from GameStop the nation's largest video game retailer. Is getting more of them on Wednesday Nintendo also plans to double production. The console which retails for 300 dollars has been out of stock. Or ridiculously. Marked up summer selling on eBay for 4000 dollars so thank you know yet visitor writes. This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate. How Samsung’s Galaxy S8 measures up to Galaxy S7 and iPhone 7 feedproxy.google.com Samsung Galaxy S8 release date and everything you should know techradar.com Samsung officially unveils new virtual assistant Bixby ahead of Galaxy S8 launch feedproxy.google.com Say hi to Samsung Bixby, the new voice assistant in the Galaxy S8 yahoo.com Samsung announces Bixby, new AI assistant for Galaxy S8 techrepublic.com 2017-03-20 12:43 ABC News abcnews.go.com 3 / 141 1.3 Surface Book 2 release date, (1.16/8) news and rumors In October 2015, the Surface Book premiered as a hybrid device, one Microsoft called the “ultimate laptop.” Shipping with a detachable screen, stylus support, a dual-core Intel Skylake processor of your choosing and Windows 10 Pro, we had a hunch the company was right. Despite an appetizing list of hardware specs, the 2in-1 arrived with a few hiccups. There were some complaints surrounding the “Dynamic Fulcrum Hinge,” including a gap that's formed when the laptop is closed. The “Clipboard” tablet portion of the device has a low battery life, though that’s been largely mitigated with the introduction of the Performance Baseenhanced i7 variant, but, on the high end, the pricing is rather steep, too. So, you can tell that we're not the only ones already clamoring for improvements to an already promising formula. Enter the highly anticipated Surface Book 2, a would-be hybrid notebook Microsoft is so eager to announce that the original Surface Book has seen a drop in price. Although the original launched well over a year ago, there's been no official confirmation of a Surface Book 2. Instead, the Surface Book i7 debuted back in October alongside the Windows 10 Creators Update, the latter of which is slated for an April 11 rollout. With reports having arose last year that this new Windows software would overlap with Microsoft’s introduction of new hardware, we can cautiously surmise that the Surface Book 2 will touch down during the same window. That goes without mentioning word from DigiTimes that the Surface Book 2 will see a reveal in April, albeit without the convertible design. Given the source, that report should be taken with more than a grain of salt. If that same DigiTimes report is to be believed, a Surface Book 2 that’s no more than a traditional clamshell laptop could equate to a drastic price reduction. While the entry-level Surface Book of today would set users back a cool $1,299 (£1,449, AU$2,299), the Surface Book 2 is alleged by DigiTimes’s sources to come in at a more modest $1,000 (about £810, AU$1,300). We’ve neither seen nor heard any other rumors or leaks regarding the second Surface Book’s starting price. At any rate, expect it to be at least a little more expensive than Surface Pro devices to start. For as much as we've been smitten by the Surface Book, firmware issues aside, there will always be room for improvement. (That would be the case even if it had earned top marks from us.) From the screen size and resolution to the hardware inside, we have a few ideas for how Microsoft could craft an even better Windows 10 tablet. Display-wise, the current model sports a 13.5-inch panel with a 3,000 x 2,000 (267 ppi) resolution that's backed by an integrated Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU. The new model may utilize the same size screen but offer a more conventional 4K resolution: 3,840 x 2,160. This rumor is aligned with public information we've seen about Intel's Kaby Lake architecture, which will supposedly include a better graphics chip that improves playback of 4K video and 3D graphics. With a higher resolution should come a better way to actually detach the screen from the keyboard, assuming Microsoft doesn’t do away with that functionality altogether. After all, one of the most vocal complaints of the original Surface Book was its “muscle wire” locking mechanism. That scheme not only required power to function, but users must press and hold down a key until the hinge lets go of the tablet. It's software-based, too, meaning the process could be hampered by an unforeseen glitch in the system. Thus, if Microsoft opts to go the 2-in-1 route despite recent evident indicating the contrary, the Surface Book 2 needs a functional hinge that allows the keyboard to be detached whether the device is on or off. Of course, with an increased screen resolution comes the need for more power. It would make sense, given the conjectured release frame, to refresh the Surface Book with Intel's newest Kaby Lake processors. The Kaby Lake architecture supports up to quadcore processors as the default configuration with a thermal envelope of up to 95 Watts (W), meaning it shouldn't be a battery hog even with increased performance. What’s more, Kaby Lake offers native support of the faster USB 3.1 Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 specifications in addition to CPU/GPU performance enhancements. That said, the Surface Book 2 will need better battery support overall, as the original provides only 4 hours of activity in the Clipboard and only 8 hours of juice in the base (based on our tests). Customers eager to use the Clipboard on its own would no doubt be disappointed by the current battery’s inept sustenance while consuming 4K video. An improved battery would also be needed to support a built-in recharge dock for the Surface Pen. If a patent filing from October is to be believed, Microsoft may have an improved Surface Pen loop in the works that would not only holster the Surface Pen itself, but simultaneously charge it via the USB port on supported Surface devices. More power might also be needed for an updated, discrete GPU option, too. As previously stated, the current model has an option for a Nvidia GeForce graphics chip based on the Maxwell architecture, which has a thermal envelope of up to 75W. If Microsoft were to offer, say, an GTX 1050 graphics chip, the requirements wouldn’t skyrocket support would assuredly be in Nvidia GeForce power wattage and DirectX 12 the cards. This would fare well with gamers looking to take advantage of the latest API on their rotating laptop screen. What would make the Surface Book 2 really shine is if it were to be VR-ready. It’s not too far-fetched, either, considering Microsoft has partnered with companies like Acer to produce budget-friendly, Windows 10-specific head-mounted displays that aim to work flawlessly on low- to mid-range hardware. Despite a good deal of talk about when the Surface Book 2 will be released and what it will contain, there were several reports (albeit with dodgy reliability) speculating that the device – along with the Surface Pro 5 – would be released this summer alongside the Anniversary Update. Of course, said anniversary came like the wind and a Surface Book 2 didn't arrive in time to beat Apple's new MacBook Pro to market. Again, given that the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 were still in their youth at the time, releasing follow-up models that soon was unlikely. That's it for now. There are probably a few easter eggs hiding in the Windows 10 Creators Update builds for Insiders, but ultimately Microsoft's plans for the Windows 10 Creators Update are seemingly rather broad. As such, we wouldn’t count out a new laptop just yet. We're still betting on a spring 2017 release for Surface Book 2, and being that it’s spring now, the wait will hopefully be brief. Samsung Galaxy S8 release date and everything you should know techradar.com Apple Watch 3 release date, news and rumors techradar.com Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus release date, news and features feedproxy.google.com 2017-03-20 17:50 Kevin Parrish www.techradar.com 4 / 141 1.2 2017-03-20 Veritas, IBM Join Forces to Drive Data Management Further in the (1.16/8) Cloud IBM (NYSE: ) and today announced a collaboration designed to help enterprises working with increasing data volumes better manage, optimize and protect data across hybrid cloud environments. In addition, IBM has also certified NetBackup 8.0 to run on the to offer clients additional data protection for cloud-based workloads. NetBackup 8.0 has an anticipated availability of 2Q17 and will be available for order from the of services, providing mutual IBM and Veritas clients flexible, consumption-based pricing and customizable configurations. Through this model, customers will have the tools to rapidly provision or modify infrastructure more cost-effectively across the IBM Cloud. The agreement also calls for joint go-tomarket and support initiatives from both companies, designed to help customers accelerate their adoption of cloud services by leveraging the combined enterprise expertise of IBM and Veritas. “Enterprises demand availability, scalability and resiliency of their technology environments, whether on premises or in the cloud,” said Mike Palmer, executive vice president and chief product officer, Veritas. “The extension of our relationship with IBM provides customers with these benefits across hybrid cloud environments powered by IBM.” Today’s announcement builds on a longstanding relationship between IBM and Veritas that includes joint adoption of one another’s technology in order to address customer challenges. Last year, Veritas adopted IBM Cloud for the migration of its corporate IT environments for internal global systems. It also migrated its development and testing environment from on-premises systems to the IBM Cloud, giving Veritas developers the ability to quickly develop, test, deploy and manage new cloud-based applications and services. Similarly, IBM Resiliency Services includes Veritas NetBackup as an integral part of its managed Backup-as-a-Service offering. This close working relationship has fostered joint learning, allowing IBM and Veritas to improve clients’ cloud migration capabilities. “This agreement will provide our respective global clients with greater control of their data and greater management capabilities through the cloud,” said John Morris, General Manager, Cloud Object Storage, IBM. “Veritas is a great example of a company using IBM Cloud to innovate for both its business and its clients.” For the IBM InterConnect Press Kit, visit:. For more about Veritas, visit. 2017-03-20 IBM and Red Hat Collaborate to Accelerate Hybrid Cloud Adoption with OpenStack ibm.com 2017-03-20 IBM and PlayFab Apply the Power of IBM Watson to Unlock New Value for Game Developers ibm.com 2017-03-20 IBM Launches Bluemix 2017-03-20 IBM Announces New Container Service with Kubernetes to Pricing Model to Change Economics Fuel Highly Secure and Rapid of Cloud Storage Development of Cognitive Apps ibm.com ibm.com 2017-03-20 IBM and Galvanize Launch New Cognitive Curriculum on IBM Cloud for Developers and Data Scientists ibm.com 2017-03-20 IBM Accelerates Data Optimization with New Watson Discovery Capabilities ibm.com 2017-03-20 New IBM Cloud Integration Technology Blends MultiCloud Environments ibm.com 2017-03-20 IBM Taps Watson to Help Manage & Protect Business Devices ibm.com 2017-03-20 17:01 www.ibm.com 5 / 141 1.3 IBM InterConnect: IBM Blockchain, IBM Bluemix Container Service, new Watson tools, and multi-cloud (1.09/8) capabilities IBM is giving developers more tools to work with blockchains, multi-cloud environments, cognitive services, and financial services. The company, at its annual IBM InterConnect conference in Las Vegas this week, announced the release of the IBM Blockchain, an enterprise-ready blockchain service based on the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric 1.0. The new service is designed to give developers the tools necessary to build, manage and host security-rich production blockchain networks on IBM Cloud. It features protection from insider attacks, the highest certified level of isolation for a commercial system, secure service containers, tamper-responsive hardware security modules and an auditable operating environment. In addition, IBM is also releasing blockchain governance tools and open-source developer tools to help automate the steps it takes to build with Hyperledger Fabric. In cloud news, IBM announced a new integration service for multi-cloud environments, that enables users to access and use actionable business data from sources such as the cloud, messaging platforms and application software. “Companies are rapidly choosing to blend their existing infrastructure within multiple cloud environments, creating a hybrid cloud framework that continues to provide them with the speed and control they require to optimize their enterprise,” said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president of hybrid cloud and director of IBM Research. “By bringing together and integrating more data through an open cloud platform, we are providing our clients with the agility and control they demand while still giving them a more complete view of what is happening within their company.” The company’s newly announced IBM Cloud Service Virtualization solution will help automate compliance controls and data security for multicloud workloads. It features continuous monitoring; real-time reporting; geo-fencing at the hardware level; and granular access controls to reduce operational risks and configuration errors. In the company’s Watson area, it is releasing a new cognitive assistant to help IBM Watson users manage and protect their networks. The MaaS360 Advisor features machine learning and best practices for better management and protection. IBM is also training Watson on device enrollment, identify management and regulatory issues. In addition, IBM Watson is getting new and improved data analysis and discovery services on the IBM Cloud. The new functionality aims to help developers quickly gain insights into their massive amounts of data. A new Watson Company Profile, an experimental platform solution built with Watson Discovery, is also being introduced. “To date, we’ve only explored a tiny fraction of the world’s existing data. Watson represents a new partnership between technology and people, to revolutionize the way we discover things and make better decisions – all at incredible speed and scale,” said Beth Smith, general manager of IBM Watson AI. “With the advanced discovery capabilities of the Watson platform, IBM is shining a light on dark data by unlocking patterns, trends, and relationships in data that were previously invisible.” Developers are getting new tools for cognitive, blockchain and analytical technology with the launch of IBM Cloud for Financial Services. The tools are designed to reduce development and testing times; provide developers with APIs, data and content; and allow developers to build in customer insights, regulatory compliance analytics, security, privacy and compliance. Lastly, IBM announced a new container service on its cloud platform to build and manage secure cognitive apps. The Bluemix Container Service includes a user-centric experience; ability to automatically provision, update and monitor containers; and help developers build cognitive innovations with real-time security intelligence. It features Kubernetes clusters; native Kubernetes APIs; the choice to store and access data across multiple platforms and repositories; isolation and capacity controls; built-in security scanning; automatic load balancing; and insight into each container cluster’s performance. “Building microservices with containers helps developers to do what they do best – invent – by creating and stitching together different services that work in tandem,” said Jason McGee, IBM fellow, and VP of IBM Cloud. “Our service does this in a simple, straightforward way by using Kubernetes to automate critical parts of an app’s environment, while giving developers the ability to build in cognitive intelligence, blockchain and Internet of Things services.” Other news included a partnership with Red Hat to accelerate hybrid cloud adoption with OpenStack; new cognitive, cloud and data science training initiatives on IBM Cloud from Galvanize; a joint initiative with PlayFab to bring game developers more insights into player behavior; and a new collaboration with Veritas Technologies to help enterprises manage, optimize and protect data across hybrid cloud environments. 2017-03-20 IBM and PlayFab Apply 2017-03-20 IBM Announces New the Power of IBM Watson to Unlock Pricing Model to Change Economics New Value for Game Developers of Cloud Storage ibm.com ibm.com 2017-03-20 IBM Accelerates Data Optimization with New Watson Discovery Capabilities ibm.com 2017-03-20 14:55 Christina Cardoza sdtimes.com 6 / 141 1.1 Some electronics to be banned on some US-bound flights (1.04/8) The U. S. government is barring passengers on Royal Jordanian Airlines flights from bringing laptops, iPads, cameras and other electronics in carry-on luggage on certain U. S.-bound flights starting Tuesday, the airline said in a tweet Monday. The airline said cellphones and medical devices are excluded from the ban. Everything else, the airline said, would need to be packed in checked luggage. It is unclear what other countries and airlines the ban will apply to, how long it will be in place or what prompted it. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly phoned lawmakers over the weekend to brief them on aviation security issues that have prompted the impending electronics ban, according a congressional aide briefed on the discussion. The aide was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue and spoke on the condition of anonymity. A U. S. government official said such a ban has been considered for several weeks. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose the internal security discussions by the federal government. David Lapan, a spokesman for Homeland Security Department, declined to comment. "We have no comment on potential security precautions, but will provide any update as appropriate," Lapan said in an email. The Transportation Security Administration , part of Homeland Security, also declined to comment. Royal Jordanian said the electronics ban affects its flights to New York, Chicago, Detroit and Montreal. An aviation security expert said the policy would raise other safety issues. "There would be a huge disadvantage to having everyone put their electronics in checked baggage," said Jeffrey Price, a professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He said thefts from baggage would skyrocket, as when England tried a similar ban in 2006, and "some laptops have batteries that can catch fire and it's easier to detect it when it's in the cabin rather than burning in the hold. " However, there are also advantages to screening items in checked baggage instead of as carry-on luggage. Most major airports in the United States have a computer tomography or CT scanner for checked baggage, which creates a detailed picture of a bag's contents. They can warn an operator of potentially dangerous material, and may provide better security than the X-ray machines used to screen passengers and their carry-on bags. ——— Associated Press reporters Joan Lowy and Ted Bridis contributed to this report. ——— Koenig reported from Dallas. US authorities ban electronics larger than a phone from flights from 13 countries feedproxy.google.com 2017-03-20 16:32 By abcnews.go.com 7 / 141 1.5 Guest View: How to capitalize on Amazon Lex before it’s available to the general public (1.03/8) Amazon’s public preview of Lex, the natural language processing (NLP) platform used by the Amazon Alexa digital assistant, made a splash at AWS re:Invent. With it, developers can create mobile apps, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and chatbots that connect to Lex services, expanding Amazon’s NLP footprint beyond its own products, such as Amazon Echo. If you’re familiar with programming Alexa for the Echo, you can build apps now and easily port them to Lex at the official launch. The Lex natural language processor can convert both written and spoken human language into meaningful, guided interactions. Lex captures a user’s text or speech and compares it to sample data stored on Amazon, looking to identity key words. For instance, if I wanted to order a pizza, I may say, “I want to order a pizza,” or, “Order me a pizza.” Each request is different, and Lex requires me, the user, to provide enough sample questions so that it can recognize the request. If it’s missing any information – such as which toppings I want – Lex can prompt me further by sending text or voice queries. Once it has everything it needs, it can act on the request by invoking Lambda services. Amazon fittingly refers to this as “fulfillment.” Once Lambda fulfills the request, Lex sends an appropriate response to the client. The Lex API is REST-based, so it’s easy to use. It has two actions – PostContent and PostText – so the same bot logic on the Amazon side can be used to deliver text-driven or voice-driven interfaces, interchangeably. But Lex doesn’t do it all for you, and there are some limitations that can make it frustrating. How Lex parses natural language When a user interacts with Lex, Lex is gathering data from the user, which Amazon refers to as “slots.” For instance, if I want to watch a specific movie, I’ll say, ”Play the movie Batman.” Lex stores a collection of the movies I want to watch into the Lex Console. In this case, I need Lex to understand that I want to watch the movie Batman. As mentioned, Lex is missing some information, it can prompt for more. In my movie example, say I have multiple televisions in my house. When I say, “Play the movie Batman.” Lex can ask, “What room do you want to play the movie in?” This allows Lex to be more conversational, allowing a user to ask Lex to take user requests in multiple ways. While this approach works out well for simple tasks like ordering a pizza, however – because there are a limited number of sizes, crusts, and toppings I can have – it’s less successful when I have a few hundred movies to choose from. I’d need to enter each movie into a slot. So if you’re thinking about using Alexa to order from a product catalog or use dynamically changing data, Lex can’t do that effectively yet. This is where utterances come in Utterances are important because they give Lex an understanding of how a user may ask questions. The more utterances you have for an action, the better Lex can respond. For example, I may say, “Play a movie for me,” or be more specific and say, ”Play the movie Hunt for Red October in the living room.” Conversely, my son may say, “Can you play me a video?” My son and I both want to do the same thing, but Lex needs to be trained to understand that. This means I need to program some sample phrases into Lex to help Lex understand, known as “utterances.” The differences between specific phrases and ones that need more information must be added into Lex Console to help Lex understand all the permutations of a command. Finally, Lex needs to connect to something useful, and Lex’s entry point to backend services is Lambda. Amazon provides a slew of backend services for which Lambda provides the integration logic, as well as providing connectivity to third-party and enterprise services. In the pizza example, orders can be stored in DynamoDB or sent to an order delivery web service. In my movie example, Lex might communicate directly to an exposed web service. Still, this design has its limitations. While Lex is a great tool, it still takes work to get it connected to your apps. Lex would benefit greatly from the ability to create dynamic slots by storing slot data in DynamoDB. And as with a web or mobile user experience, it’s important to think about how users will engage with your bot and how they will ask it to do things. With the growing popularity of the Amazon Echo and voice-driven bots, it’ll be interesting to see where this technology goes. 2017-03-20 IBM and PlayFab Apply the Power of IBM Watson to Unlock New Value for Game Developers ibm.com 2017-03-20 12:00 Matt Trevathan sdtimes.com 8 / 141 0.6 Where's the line? Theme parks aiming to eliminate them (1.02/8) Universal is leading the theme-park charge into "virtual lines" that give visitors options for exploring a park or watching live entertainment instead of the tedium of looking at someone's back as you inch forward step by step to the thrill ride. "It's kind of a bit of a science experiment for all of us," said Jason Surrell, a Universal creative director said about the "queue-less" waits. "We've known for years that waiting in line is one of the biggest dissatisfiers in our guests' day. " Universal is also trying the concept at another attraction. Later this year, when Universal opens its new Volcano Bay water park in Orlando, visitors will be given wristbands that will alert them when it's their turn to get on a ride. "I think it represents the future of what we're going to be doing in themed entertainment," Surrell said. "I kind of joke that this is the first step on a journey that will eventually lead us to a generation that doesn't even know about theme park lines. It will be 'What do you mean, wait in a queue? What's that, Grandpa?'" Virtual lines are the latest evolution in theme parks' efforts to shorten or eliminate waits for rides, or if waits are necessary evils, to improve the experience of biding one's time. Almost two decades ago, those efforts were concentrated on elaborately-designed "pre-ride" lines such Universal's The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, which goes past an elaboratelydetailed "Daily Bugle" newsroom. A few years later came the ride reservations systems of the FastPass and Express Pass at Disney and Universal parks, respectively, in which ride-goers are assigned periods of time to show up for rides. But those reservations need to be made ahead of time, for the most part, and visitors can only make them on three rides a day. Universal opens that concept to everybody, not just advanced planners, with its two new attractions, while also offering entertainment during the wait. "Everybody is trying to do this, working not only on the rides but how to get you on the rides," said Dennis Speigel, who heads the theme park consulting firm, International Theme Park Services. "Universal is at the forefront right now. " The Jimmy Fallon attraction and the Volcano Bay water park take different approaches to virtual lines. At the Jimmy Fallon attraction, which opens next month, visitors enter an area made to look like the lobby of a Rockefeller Center building. Instead of getting in line, they can meander through the lobby looking at photos and memorabilia of past and present "Tonight Show" hosts and watch TVs playing clips of hosts Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon. Up a flight of stairs are a lounge with couches, half a dozen consoles with touch screens displaying "Tonight Show" videos and a theater stage. Visitors can hang out in the lounge area, charging their phones or talking while they wait. They can dance or take photos with an actor in the costume of Hashtag the Panda, a staple character from Jimmy Fallon's show or listen to a performance from "The Ragtime Gals," an incarnation of the barber shop quartet which is also a staple of the TV show. Visitors will be notified it's their turn to go on the ride either through a message on their phone app or a more old-fashioned color-coordinated scheme. Those visitors without the app will be given a colored ticket and when it's their turn, lights in the waiting area will flash their color and the singers will announce the color. Universal hasn't released many details about how virtual lines will work at Volcano Bay, other than to say a watch-like device named "TapuTapu" will be given to visitors. It will flash "Ride Now" when it's their time to go on a ride. Technology and our growing impatience with waiting are driving the move toward virtual lines, Speigel said. The proliferation of cell phone apps, along with the development of wristbands that emit radio signals, pioneered by Disney and able to track movement, made the virtual lines technically possible. America's growing impatience with waiting, from speed dating to Amazon Prime's deliveries makes it culturally imperative. two-hour "Nobody wants to stand in line. We want to be first," Speigel said. "It's just the way society is evolving. " Explore further: Best new theme park rides: Virtual reality, interactivity Where’s the line? Theme parks aiming to eliminate them washingtontimes.com 2017-03-20 17:53 phys.org 9 / 141 1.3 Instagram now lets you save live videos for later (1.02/8) Not long after introducing Stories to Instagram , the company added a live streaming feature akin to the one already available on Facebook. Problem is, once a livestream finished, it was gone forever. Stories to Instagram Now Instagram lets you streamers save their videos. Once a broadcast has ended, simply click on the Save button on the upper-right corner of the app. The video will still disappear from Instagram itself, but it will be saved onto your camera roll – though there’s nothing stopping you from posting it right back onto Instagram. Ever been to a tech festival? TNW Conference won best European Event 2016 for our festival vibe. See what's in store for 2017. LEARN MORE TNW Conference won best European Event 2016 for our festival vibe. See what's in store for 2017. LEARN MORE The video is can only be saved by the streamer, so you don’t have to worry about whatever embarrassing thing you did during a stream. Unfortunately, the feature only includes the video itself; comment, likes, and views are gone forever. It’s also worth noting you can only save a video immediately after its finished, so there’s no going back if you forgot to tap the button. But hey, it’s better than nothing. New: Save Your Live Video to Your Phone on Instagram New: Save Your Live Video to Your Phone on Instagram Read next: Impulse-buying crap you see on TV has gotten easier thanks to ZapBuy Impulse-buying crap you see on TV has gotten easier thanks to ZapBuy Apps Instagram Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. Instagram now lets you save your live video broadcast to your phone digitaltrends.com 2017-03-20 17:10 Napier Lopez feedproxy.google.com 10 / 141 1.1 Microsoft’s new tool means it’s never been easier to switch from Mac to Surface (1.02/8) Microsoft has released a new utility to help those on a Mac transfer all their files across with a minimum of fuss when switching to a Surface device. Surface As spotted by WalkingCat , a Twitter user who picks up on many Microsoft-related developments, the Mac to Surface Assistant hasn’t been officially announced by the company, but nonetheless can be downloaded here. WalkingCat here It’s a simple tool which lets you transfer data – such as photos, documents and all manner of files – from your Apple machine to your new Surface device, via an external drive. That’s something you can do by yourself, of course, but the utility makes it far more convenient to do so (and potentially far less intimidating for computing novices). Microsoft already has a support website (which has actually been active since way back in 2014 ) that talks the user through the process of transferring files from a Mac to Surface, so this is the next logical step in terms of easy migration. support website way back in 2014 That site, incidentally, also gives tips to Mac users on getting started with both Surface machines and Windows 10 , and help on hooking up a Surface with iCloud and an iPhone. Windows 10 iPhone It’s also worth noting that Apple has its own Windows Migration Assistant for helping PC users switch to a Mac. helping PC users switch to a Mac At the end of last year, Microsoft claimed that more people than ever were switching from Apple’s notebooks to Surface hybrids following what it called the ‘disappointment’ of the new MacBook Pro. Microsoft claimed new MacBook Pro Via: MS Power User MS Power User Maybe you’ll want to switch from a Mac to the imminent Surface Book 2 Surface Book 2 Microsoft makes the Mac-to-Surface data migration easier with its free new tool digitaltrends.com 2017-03-20 16:37 By feedproxy.google.com 11 / 141 1.5 Mass Effect: Andromeda is 2017's ultimate love/hate (1.02/8) relationship Though the official release date of Mass Effect: Andromeda isn’t here just yet, saying the game’s reviews and fan first impressions from the early access trial are looking less than stellar would be an understatement. We’re currently playing the game ourselves and have found ourselves torn. Mass Effect: Andromeda has many wonderful features and additions that we’ve greatly enjoyed exploring. However as good as they are these features are, they frequently either overreach or don't take full advantage of their potential. Sometimes, incredibly, it manages to be both of these issues at the same time. Seemingly taking inspiration from its changed morality system, Mass Effect: Andromeda is neither a Renegade or Paragon of a game – it’s not outrightly good or bad, it’s something in between. Like the friend with the heart of gold that constantly needs to be told, "I know you're better than this," it just doesn’t seem fair to let Andromeda's occasionally significant faults get in the way of its often successful attempts to do right. As a result, we’ve put together a compliment sandwich of sorts, celebrating BioWare’s neat additions to Mass Effect: Andromeda but acknowledging where they fall short or go way too far. First up is Andromeda itself. This latest addition to Mass Effect is leaving the familiarity of the Milky Way behind and taking it to the brand new Andromeda Galaxy. This means entirely new planets to explore and a chance to experiment with the game’s maps. BioWare seizes on this opportunity and it’s safe to say that as game worlds go, this is a stunning one. The planets are diverse with beautiful vistas and the game’s galaxy map is a pleasure to look at. Beautiful as it is, though, the galaxy map does trip up with self-indulgent transition animations between every single place you want to travel. Travelling to a new system in the galaxy? Transition animation. Travelling to a planet within that system? Another transition animation with an unnecessary and prolonged zoom-in before the camera chills the hell out and actually lets you interact with something. Yes, these animations are lovely to look at but you’ll grow tired of them pretty quickly. Particularly if you’re just trying to quickly move between several planets quickly. Once you’re on the surface of a planet, the first thing you’re likely to notice is that the maps are huge. Mass Effect: Andromeda places an emphasis on exploration though it stops short of being a sandbox game. Instead, Andromeda tries to strike a balance between linearity and open world gameplay. This is a welcome effort from BioWare it's easy to feel beleaguered by the recent onslaught of open world games touting procedural generation as the way forward. In Andromeda, each level has been hand-designed so you're never in an area for no reason, whether that's for a main story quest or one of the numerous side quests that populate the map. This is both a good and a bad thing; though you’re always going to have a sense of purpose and a main quest to follow, it’s easy to find yourself picking up dozens of side quests en route and completely losing focus. You’ll never find yourself on a planet for no reason but sometimes you’ll feel like you have too many reasons not to move to another one. The game does occasionally try to force you back on track. For example, on the planet Eos it’d be tempting to make sure you stay on the planet and cover absolutely every side quest there before moving on never to return but the game doesn’t allow this. Instead, the settlement’s mayor tells you top hop back on your ship, get your shit done elsewhere and he’ll tell you when he needs you. This is a productive way for the game to get in your way. A less productive example is when the game decides to change which quest you’ve opted to prioritize without telling you. We’re not sure whether this is a bug or just an unhelpful feature but we found that sometimes if we were engaged in a side quest and new main quest information came through, the game would without warning change the active quest. Timely interruptions are fine but forcing us away from what we’re already invested in is just annoying. A space game without a feeling of expansiveness would be a poor space game indeed, and Andromeda manages to capture a sense of scale without ever letting you feel like you're not moving forward. A new galaxy and timeline also means a new cast of characters and brand new alien races to interact with. Anyone that’s played Mass Effect before will be glad to see the return of the Turians, Krogans, Salarians, and Asari. There are also new races: the Kett, Angara, and the Remnant. Your relationship with the Kett is immediately acrimonious and ends up feeling kind of unsatisfying. Ultimately it just feels like the cartoonish Kett are there to offset any uncomfortable colonizing themes that may have arisen from invading a new galaxy. Still, at least there’s a whole new cast of characters to get to know. One of the best things about Mass Effect, and BioWare games generally, is forming deep relationships with your crew. Every Mass Effect game has fallen victim to moments of incredibly cheesy and dramatic dialogue but these moments have always been cancelled out by some genuinely wonderful interactions between the player and their crew that showcase skilled character creation and development. There’s plenty of questionable speeches and dialogue (actually sometimes it feels like there are more of these moments than ever but that could be us falling victim to our selective memories) but there are still great one-on-one moments to enjoy. From what we’ve played so far, every member of our crew has a personal story thread that we’d like to pull on and unravel but it feels like much more of a slog for some characters than others. Andromeda’s alien characters are much more interesting and fun to get to know than its human characters. Human characters, most notably Liam and Gil, often feel uninspired. Liam’s voice-acting is too flat to inspire engagement and Gil. . well. Not every Mass Effect character is there for you to like, obviously, that’s part of the fun. But it’s rare that we’ve ever felt a character is boring. Fortunately, there are more than enough interesting characters in the game to pull you along. It’s unfortunate that some of the characters are so uninspiring as Mass Effect: Andromeda’s new approach to dialogue actually makes you feel like you’re building a proper dynamic relationship with these characters. Mass Effect: Andromeda has dropped the Renegade and Paragon morality and dialogue system and replaced it with something similar to the dialogue wheel of Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s no longer a case of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and though this makes conversations more difficult to navigate in one sense it makes the characters you’re interacting with feel more like they’re complex beings rather than morality barometers. With this system it’s going to be hard to get everyone to like you but that’s enjoyably true-to-life. Though it's hard to get everyone to like you, it can also be hard to get anyone to hate you. Being unable to reach these extremes means that for a good chunk of the first hours of the game, you’ll feel like you’re not having much of an emotional impact on anyone, and it’s hard to get an immediate sense that something you’ve said in a conversation with a character has had any lasting impact. The more you get into the game and the more characters develop, though, the more you’ll appreciate this change. It’s a slow burning feature that does come into its own and encourages investment in character relationships. It makes it possible for you to feel like you’re developing platonic friendships as well as laying the groundwork for romance. More than any other Mass Effect game, this new dialogue system creates a sense that there’s more than one kind of ‘love’ and feelings aren’t binary. Depth in games is great but sometimes it can be overwhelming. Mass Effect: Andromeda gives you a lot of numbers and stats to keep track of and doesn't make it easy to do so. Though crafting weapons and armor isn’t essential to play the game well, Mass Effect: Andromeda’s crafting system is difficult to become invested in. It requires keeping track of three different kinds of research points (Milky Way, Heleus and Remnant) that can go into developing three different kinds of technology. To build up these research points you have to make sure you scan everything you can while you explore planets as well as collect every material you come across to facilitate development. Development requires lots of different materials and large quantities of them which can put a lot of pressure on your inventory and managing that is a pain. This is made worse by all the other stats the game asks you to contend with which range from skills points to profile levels to colony viability points. Throw in a confusingly laid out UI and you've got a recipe for frustration and confusion. The combat system in Andromeda builds on the system of Mass Effect 3 and improves upon it. The most obvious new addition is the jump jet. Not only does this make exploring the open game world more fun, it’s a great feature in combat as it makes Ryder feel much more agile and it’s a great way to quickly get to higher ground and the tactical advantages that offers. This feature combined with the intuitive cover system makes combat feel extremely fluid. A downside is that you don’t really have much control over what your squad mates are doing or the weapons they’re using this time around and sometimes you’ll really wish you did as they dart around you like excitable puppies. Admittedly, you don’t need that much control around your squad’s abilities as you did in previous Mass Effect games as you can change your own character's abilities much more easily this time. Rather than a class system, you’re now able to develop abilities from three trees: combat, tech, and biotics. Spending points across these trees will allow you to unlock and change between different profiles which augment the various abilities you’ve developed. This system is great as it gives you a great deal more freedom in fights and keeps things interesting. It does, however, encourage and reward generalization much more than specialization so those that like to focus on one combat style may find themselves less satisfied. For a game that puts a lot of focus on the idea of ‘coming in peace’, Mass Effect: Andromeda has managed to create a versatile and enjoyable combat system. Overall, from what we’ve played so far Mass Effect: Andromeda is a game that does a fair few things wrong but there’s also a lot it does right. BioWare has created an incredibly beautiful game world that really inspires a sense of exploration and discovery. It's hard to strike a balance between open exploration and linearity and though Andromeda does an admirable job you can sometimes feel bogged down by the number of side quests you're engaged in alongside the main quest. Though the game's new dialogue system makes things a little less black and white and really encourages investment in character relationships, it does burn slowly and some of the new characters just aren't interesting enough to hold your attention through this slow start. There are lots of interesting gameplay mechanics to become invested in, including research, development and making planets more viable for your people to live on but the stats you have to keep track of for this wide array of things on top of personal character stats can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, combat is simplified, fluid and fun which offsets some of that complexity. It seems unfair to let the bad cancel out the good but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to point it out for what it is. So far, we’re still enjoying our time in the Andromeda galaxy and though there’s been much that’s frustrated us, it’s not stopped us from wanting to explore further and that’s got to be to BioWare’s credit. Stay tuned for our full review of Mass Effect: Andromeda, coming soon. Mass Effect: Andromeda has performance issues on both Xbox One and the base PS4 extremetech.com 2017-03-20 16:14 By feedproxy.google.com 12 / 141 The best 4K TVs of 2017 1.8 (1.02/8) If you're looking to buy a new TV, then there's never been a better time to make the upgrade, and there's no better place to start your research than with our constantly updated list of the best 4K TVs. 4K has been offering four times the resolution of conventional HD panels for around for a couple of years now, but recent months have seen 4K content coming out in large quantities, and standards settle to the extent that you're not risking your set becoming outdated as next year's televisions roll around. Now as well as 4K resolutions you can also get hot new technologies like HDR , which offer whiter whites and blacker blacks for a much more vibrant picture. It's how these televisions handle all this tech that determines how highly we rate them. The world of TV buying can feel unapproachable when you're first getting into it, but give it some time and it will all make sense. Let's try and make your buying decision at least a bit easier with our picks for the best 4K TVs. Here's our current line-up, with details down below: 1. The Samsung KS9500 range 2. The LG E6 OLED series 3. Sony XBR-65Z9D 4. The LG B6 OLED series 5. The Sony X930D series As well as delivering some of the sharpest 4K pictures yet, the KS9500s also go further than any other TVs to maximise the impact of HDR No TVs in 2016 delivered pictures more downright spectacular than Samsung's KS9500s. Partly because no other commercially released TVs have ever delivered as much brightness, but also because Samsung has used a high-end backlighting system and a proprietary take on Quantum Dot color technology to ensure that the emphatic brightness is joined by excellent contrast and explosively rich but also gorgeously nuanced colors. Push all this technology to the max with today's highest quality sources - especially, the incredible images you can get from the new Ultra HD Blu-ray format - and you'll witness pictures the like of which just haven't been seen on a TV before. The KS9500s aren't perfect; the push for such extreme contrast from an LCD screen can sometimes cause backlight clouding around very bright objects, and the most accurate Movie preset can cause colour striping with UHD Blu-ray. There's no 3D support either. So extraordinary are the KS9500s' pictures at their best, though, that their flaws become seriously easy to forgive. The OLED TV technology so beloved of AV enthusiasts for the past few years is taken to bold new heights by LG's groundbreaking OLEDE6 series. For the sort of AV enthusiast who always preferred the contrast and subtlety of now defunct plasma screens to the more brightness focussed charms of LCD, OLED technology has long looked like the next big thing. And LG's stellar OLEDE6 models do nothing to dispel this notion. This is because it manages to combine OLED's currently unique ability to have every single pixel in its screen produce its own light and colour independent of its neighbours with a substantial leap in brightness versus any previous OLED generation. What's more, this HDR-friendly leap in brightness has been delivered without compromising the remarkable black level reproduction that's OLED's trademark. LG will need to improve brightness still further if it wants to avoid the loss of detail in really bright HDR areas the OLEDE6 models sometimes fall prey too, but for many AV fans the E6s' freedom from the sort of backlight flaws all LCD TVs suffer with to some extent will prove nigh-on irresistible. When it comes to 4K, size matters. A point this 75inch Sony monster rams home in emphatic style. At $5,500 Sony’s new flagship TV is eye-wateringly expensive. It uses the hard-to-love Android TV platform and it doesn’t sound as good as I’d like a flagship TV to sound. Yet despite all this, the 65Z9D was hands down our favorite TV of 2016, for reasons that become abundantly clear as soon as you fire it up and get to ogle its groundbreaking picture quality. The simple fact is that no previous TV has managed to deliver the full spectacle of 4K HDR while suffering so little with unwanted side effects - and the results are nothing short of transformative. The OLEDB6 series is the most affordable way to get your hands on LG's 2016 OLED TV technology. Which is all you need to know, really. The brilliantly simple attraction of the LG OLEDB6 4K TV range is that they bring you most of the OLED-based picture quality thrills that saw the OLEDE6 range bag a slot right near the top of this list for a much more affordable price. The thing is, the reasons the OLEDB6 models are so much cheaper than the E6 models are down to things like design, build quality, reduced audio performance and removing 3D playback from the spec list rather than massively compromised image reproduction. So it still delivers the unbeatable black levels, lovely rich colors, extreme contrast and pixel-level light control of its step-up OLEDE6 siblings. The OLEDE6 doesn't solve OLED's current issue of lost detail in very bright areas of HDR pictures, but it's as good as it gets with the SDR content we still watch for most of the time and remains the natural successor to the plasma TVs so beloved of AV enthusiasts. Sony's new Slim Backlight Drive technology helps the X930D series produce some of the most beautiful 4K and HDR pictures 2016 has to offer. With the XD9305 series, Sony has joined the other big brands this year in delivering some genuine, HDR-led innovation. In the XD9305's case this takes the form of the Slim Backlight Drive, which cleverly uses two edge-mounted LED light modules and dual light guides to essentially double how locally the XD9305 TVs can control the light in their images. The result is a contrast performance that gets closer to what you'd normally only see from TVs with a direct LED lighting system at a fraction of the price. Sony's Triluminos technology also contributes some mesmerisingly good color handling, while the brand's X1 processing system ensures that both native 4K and upscaled HD sources both looks fantastically detailed and sharp. Occasional rather defined backlight 'blocking' artifacts and the clunky Android TV smart engine stop the XD9305 TVs from challenging for the top spot on this list, but at their best the XD9305's pictures are genuinely sensational. The 10 best 4K TVs of 2017 feedproxy.google.com 2017-03-20 16:03 John Archer www.techradar.com 13 / 141 1.1 Snap's future is in TV, says the analyst who gave Snap its first (1.02/8) buy rating Scrolling through Snapchat could soon be the "digital equivalent of channel surfing," analyst James Cakmak told CNBC's " Power Lunch " on Monday. Cakmak is the first analyst to slap a buy rating on the so-called camera company that just went public earlier this month. The stock has been on a bumpy ride since then and fell below $20 for the first time last Thursday, after peaking near $30 per share. Moving forward, Snap's revenue is going to come from mobile video, Cakmak said. As it stands, "nothing [when it comes to video content] is produced specifically for mobile," even from social network giant Facebook. Snap should shift to a "TV-affiliate model" and then control users' viewing experience with its own products — think Spectacles — and unique content, the analyst said. Content that can be curated specifically for each viewer's personal preferences, Cakmak emphasized. "This is going to be a [complete] TV, mobile, video experience," he said. Cakmak's research group, Monness Crespi Hardt, initiated coverage Monday on the parent company of Snapchat with a buy rating and price target of $25. Snap was up close to 2 percent Monday, ahead of market close. "We recognize we are potentially giving too much credit for unproven skills in building a business, rather than just a product, but we see more to Snap than many suggest," Cakmak said in his Monday note to clients. Everyone is trying to do the same thing, but Snap is the only one producing, the analyst added in his CNBC interview. "Where's the innovation coming from? It's coming from Snap. " Following its market debut at the beginning of March, Snap now maintains 1 buy, 6 sells and 3 holds from analysts covering the company. Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Snap. Snap snaps back after analyst assigns first 'buy' rating feeds.reuters.com 2017-03-20 15:51 Lauren Thomas www.cnbc.com 14 / 141 The best free text editor 2017 8.3 (1.02/8) 1. WPS Office Writer 2. LibreOffice Writer 3. FocusWriter 4. Google Docs 5. WriteMonkey Every PC needs a small selection of essential software, including antivirus, a web browser, and a text editor. Windows 10 comes with a trial of Microsoft Word as standard, but once that’s expired you’ll need to either buy an Office 365 subscription or look for an alternative. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of free text editors available to download – whether you need something basic for simple documents, or a powerful program that’s packed with all the same features as Microsoft’s software. Here, we’ve gathered together the best free text editors for Windows. Some of these are part of full office suites, which also include tools for creating and editing spreadsheets and slideshows. If those are important to you too, you might be interested in our guide to the best free office software. Have we missed your favorite free text editor? Let us know in the comments below. WPS Office Writer is much more than a simple text editor; it’s a fully-fledged alternative to Word, suitable for any writing task once your trial of Microsoft Office has expired. WPS Office Writer comes with a great selection of templates for everyday tasks like letters and job applications, plus pre-defined text formats. It’s easy to add tables, images and other non-text elements, and for larger projects, page numbering, footnotes and tables of contents can be created in a couple of clicks. WPS Office Writer even comes with 1GB free cloud storage, so you can make quick backups of your documents and share them across devices easily. There are versions of WPS for Android and iOS , so you can easily continue writing and editing when you’re on the move. The only drawback of WPS Office Writer is its lack of support for the Open Document Foundation Text (ODT) format, which many other free text editors use by default. That means you might have to convert existing documents if you’re switching from another program. Another heavy-duty text editor, LibreOffice Writer offers everything you need for everyday personal, business, or academic writing. Its interface is a little more dated than WPS Office Writer’s, but it looks and works almost exactly like a slightly older version of Microsoft Word, so you won’t be left wondering where to find essential features. LibreOffice Writer is packed with tools already, but you can expand it still further if you think anything is missing. As an open source project, LibreOffice’s source code is freely available online for anyone to experiment with. This has led to the creation of a huge array of plugins and templates, which you’ll find in the official extensions library. LibreOffice Writer’s main drawback compared to WPS Office and Microsoft Word is the lack of cloud support, but you can easily use it together with a Dropbox account for the same effect. There’s even a portable version of LibreOffice , which you can use on any PC without installing it. Unfortunately it’s too large to fit on a standard USB thumb drive, but you could keep it on an external hard drive or SSD, or your preferred cloud storage service. If you’re the type of writer who prefers to be guided by your imagination rather than a strict plan, FocusWriter could be the perfect text editor for you. There are no templates, and you can’d add charts, tables or other media; this text editor is all about words. That doesn’t mean it’s short on features, though – developer Graeme Gott has packed it with thoughtful tools and options that will help you work more efficiently. These include daily goals with alerts when you reach your target, spell-checking (optional, in case you find it a distraction), and autosave to prevent you accidentally losing hours of work in the event of a system failure. There are also live statistics, including word and character count – a feature that’s surprisingly rare in free text editors. Best of all, there’s an option that adds satisfying typewriter sound effects each time you press a key on your keyboard. You’ll need a different tool to format your work, but FocusWriter is a brilliant text editor for creating your first draft. If you often use multiple devices (desktop or mobile), a cloud-based text editor like Google Docs could be the most practical option. Uploading your existing work to Google Docs can be a bit of a hassle, but creating new documents is simplicity itself, and there’s a good range of ready-made templates. One of Docs’ best features is the ability to import data directly from Sheets – Google’s Microsoft Excel analog. You can also import charts, which is a very useful feature for reports, and they will be updated automatically to reflect any changes made to the linked data. Indeed, Docs is particularly good for business use. Most of its templates are designed for reports, minutes and project proposals, and its comments and change-tracking tools make it easy for several people to collaborate on one document. If multiple users are working on the same document, their cursors will appear in different colors, and their user icons will appear at the top right of the screen – a smart touch that helps avoid frustration or confusion. Text documents can be saved to your Google account, or downloaded in a variety of formats, including DOCX, RTF, and HTML – though there’s no option for plain text, which is unusual. An internet connection is essential for Google Docs, but it saves your progress automatically and warns you if you go offline, helping reduce the risk of losing important work. In contrast to Google Docs, distraction-free text editor WriteMonkey only saves work as plain text, ensuring compatibility with whichever software you use for formatting and publication (whether it’s a more fully-featured word processor, a publishing tool like Adobe InDesign, or a CMS like WordPress). You can copy chunks of text in a different format if necessary, which is a neat compromise. WriteMonkey’s initial appearance is stark, with no toolbars or icons – just a blank page and a blinking cursor waiting for your keystrokes. However, like FocusWriter, WriteMonkey is packed with productivity tools to keep creative writers on track. These can be accessed via a huge right-click menu, but WriteMonkey is best when you stick to keyboard shortcuts. Almost every function – including bookmarks (ideal for marking chapters and sections), plugins, progress checkers, and display preferences – can be triggered with a simple key combination. The markup tools are also extremely handy, enabling you to apply formatting, create lists, add bookmarks, and insert rules without breaking your flow by reaching for your mouse. Like FocusWriter, WriteMonkey also offers a feature that emphasises keystrokes with pleasing typewriter sounds, turning your typing into a satisfying clatter. Ideal for completing a first draft, or preparing copy for use in another program. The best free stock photo sites 2017 feedproxy.google.com 2017-03-20 15:32 Cat Ellis www.techradar.com 15 / 141 0.3 Things are looking up for the wearables market (1.02/8) After a period of what must have felt like hopeless and endless decline for smartwatch manufacturers, analysts are predicting that we could see the wearables market return to growth. In 2016, we saw repeated reports that the smartwatch market was declining, with disappointing sales and increasingly uninterested customers. The declining interest wasn’t helped by the delayed release of Android Wear 2.0 which made almost every device other than the Apple Watch feel like it was stuck in stasis. Now that Android Wear 2.0 has been launched, bringing with it a new generation of smarter smartwatches, the International Data Corporation (IDC) is predicting we’ll see worldwide wearable device shipments grow from 102.4 million units in 2016 to 237.5 million by 2021. This would be a compound annual growth rate of 18.3 % and IDC say it’ll be possible thanks to “new vendors, emerging form factors, and an expanded number of retail outlets.” IDC's senior research analyst, Jitesh Ubrani, predicts that we’ll see companies increasingly focus on fashionable design both to distinguish themselves from one another and draw in a wider range of consumers, particularly those who don’t prioritize form-factor over the latest technology. “Tech companies will be forced to step up their game and offer a wider selection of sizes, materials, and designs in order to appeal to a broader audience. We also expect more tech vendors to partner with fashion brands for their creativity, and equally important, their distribution network.” Not only that, they predict that we’ll also see watches diversify and appeal to greater numbers by making them more specific in their functions as well as their forms. Manufacturers will “hyper-segment into specific niches, including connected kids' watches, athletic watches, luxury and fashion watches, and lifestyle watches that better address different segment needs, whether they be communication, health and fitness, or as smart luxury and fashion timepieces. " Rather than creating one watch that tries to do everything, they say that we'll see different watches offer different features to do the job the consumer expects them to. Outside of smartwatches, IDC also predicts growth in earworn devices and smart clothing which will increasingly integrate fitness tracking and coaching capabilities. Though growth is predicted for these products, IDC says it’s likely to be more “modest” as their “primary features of health and fitness tracking [...] overlap with the more popular wrist worn devices” which are already familiar to consumers. Their increased presence on the market is something we've noticed ourselves, with notable examples including Google and Levi’s smart clothing collection Project Jacquard and Sony’s experimental Xperia Ear device that was shown at this year’s MWC in Barcelona. 'Hearables' and clothing to grow fastest in wearables market, IDC says computerworld.com 2017-03-20 15:25 Emma Boyle www.techradar.com 16 / 141 1.2 Pwn2Own hacking contest ends with two virtual machine (1.02/8) escapes Two teams of researchers managed to win the biggest bounties at this year's Pwn2Own hacking contest by escaping from the VMware Workstation virtual machine and executing code on the host operating system. Virtual machines are in used in many scenarios to create throw-away environments that pose no threat to the main operating system in case of compromise. For example, many malware researchers execute malicious code or visit compromise websites inside virtual machines to observe their behavior and contain their impact. One of the main goals of hypervisors like VMware Workstation is to create a barrier between the guest operating system that runs inside the virtual machine and the host OS where the hypervisor runs. That's why VM escape exploits are highly prized, more so than browser or OS exploits. This year, the organizers of Pwn2Own, an annual hacking contest that runs during the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, Canada, offered a prize of US$100,000 for breaking the isolation layer enforced by the VMware Workstation or Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors. Friday, on the third and final day of the contest, two teams stepped up to the challenge ; both of them from China. Team Sniper, made up of researchers from the Keen Lab and PC Manager divisions of internet services provider Tencent, chained together three vulnerabilities to escape from the guest OS running inside VMware Workstation to the host OS. The other team, from the security arm of Qihoo 360, achieved an even more impressive attack chain that started with a compromise of Microsoft Edge, moved to the Windows kernel, and then escaped from the VMware Workstation virtual machine. They were awarded $105,000 for their feat. The exploit scenarios were difficult to begin with, because attackers had to start from a nonprivileged account on the guest OS, and the VMware Tools, a collection of drivers and utilities that enhance the virtual machine's functionality, were not installed. VMware Tools would have probably provided more attack surface had they been present. Also on the third day, researcher Richard Zhu successfully hacked Microsoft Edge, complete with a system-level privilege escalation that earned him $55,000. It was fifth Microsoft Edge exploit demonstrated during the competition. Apple's Safari fell four times, Mozilla Firefox once, but Google Chrome remained unscathed. Researchers also demonstrated two exploits for Adobe Reader and two for Flash Player, both with sandbox escapes. The contest also included many privilege escalation exploits on Windows and macOS. The Qihoo 360 team won the most number of points and were crowned Master of Pwn for this year's edition. It was followed by Tencent's Team Sniper and a team from the security research lab of Chinabased Chaitin Technology. The researchers have to share their exploits with security vendor Trend Micro, the contest's organizer, which then reports them to the affected software vendors. Pwn2Own ends with two virtual machine escapes computerworld.com 2017-03-20 14:33 Lucian Constantin www.infoworld.com 17 / 141 1.0 Russia will strike US elections (1.02/8) again, FBI warns Future U. S. elections may very well face more Russian attempts to interfere with the outcome, the FBI and the National Security Agency warned on Monday. “They’ll be back,” said FBI director James Comey. “They’ll be back in 2020. They may be back in 2018.” Comey made the comment during a congressional hearing on Russia’s suspected efforts to meddle with last year’s presidential election. Allegedly, cyberspies from the country hacked several highprofile Democratic groups and people, in an effort to tilt the outcome in President Donald Trump’s favor. Although Russia has denied any involvement, the FBI expects the country to strike again. “One of the lessons they [Russia] may draw from this is they were successful,” Comey said. “Because they introduced chaos and division and discord.” NSA director Michael Rogers agreed: “I fully expect them to continue this level of activity.” Both the FBI and NSA are working with their counterparts in Europe to help stop similar electiontampering efforts allegedly from Russia, Rogers said. France and Germany are two countries about to hold their own elections, he noted. “Disinformation, fake news, attempts to release information to embarrass individuals. You’re seeing that play out to some extent in European elections right now,” Rogers said. Back in December, a German intelligence agency accused Russia of ramping up online propaganda and hacking efforts to influence politics in the country. The tactics have included spear phishing email attempts against German political parties that appear to resemble those carried out by Russian cyberspies during the U. S. presidential campaign, the agency said. In February, Norway also said spear phishing attacks had targeted email accounts belonging to political officials in the country -- those, too, similar to tactics used by a suspected Russian hacking group. In response, some are urging NATO to fight back. “Russia is clearly testing NATO and the West,” U. K. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said last month. In the U. S., lawmakers have launched investigations into Russia’s suspected role in influencing last year’s election. But cybersecurity experts say the country needs to seriously bolster its cyber defenses. The U. S. needs to stop being so “reactive” to every cyberattack and work on ways to punish offenders and protect private companies from intrusions, said Mark Kuhr, CTO at security firm Synack. “This secret cyberwar never used to be in the news, but now its leaked out every other week,” he said. “We’ve got to start deterring these attacks.” Russia will strike U.S. elections again, FBI warns computerworld.com 2017-03-20 14:11 Michael Kan www.infoworld.com 18 / 141 0.6 Google, YouTube face ad boycott over extremist (1.02/8) content SAN FRANCISCO — Pressure on Google is rising after British brands and media outlets started to pull their business from the company and its YouTube unit over placement of their ads next to extremist content, moves that prompted an analyst to downgrade the stock. Late last week The Guardian and the BBC, among others, said they would halt spending to protest their advertisements being placed next to YouTube videos of white nationalists, Islamic State videos and other extremist content. Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said the protest from advertisers has "global repercussions. " The spending is "relatively small so far," Wieser wrote in a research report Monday. But, "we think that awareness of the incident will marginally curtail global growth this year versus prior expectations. " He downgraded Google parent company Alphabet ( GOOGL ) to hold from buy and reduced his price target to $950 from $970, in part due to a recent run-up in the stock. Alphabet shares fell 0.7% to $866.20. They've recently traded at an all-time high. Google's European Union operations boss publicly apologized to advertisers over the growing crisis that forced major brands such as Marks & Spencer to drop their Google and YouTube ads. Matt Brittin, Google’s President of EMEA Business & Operations, told the Advertising Week Europe conference in London, "we take our responsibilities to these industry issues very seriously. " "We’ve made a public commitment to doing better and are making improvements in three areas: raising the bar for our ads policies; simplifying advertiser controls and adding safer defaults; and increasing investment in enforcement to act faster," he said. But Wieser says he's not confident Google is going far enough to remedy advertiser concerns. "The approach comes across to us as attempting to minimize the problem rather than eliminating it, which is the standard we think that many large brand advertisers expect," he wrote. The exodus of British media outlets and advertisers follows an investigation from The Times in Britain in February that found that ads from major companies and the British government were appearing next to Islamic State videos and other extremist content. That led to the decision by Havas, the sixth-largest global media network, to suspend its advertising with Google and YouTube in the U. K. The UK government has halted its YouTube spending until the problem is resolved, according to the Financial Times. "According to press reports, over the past few days, many of the UK’s largest brands working with agencies beyond Havas (including the UK Government, L’Oreal, RBS, HSBC, Sainsbury’s, Sky, Marks & Spencer, McDonald’s and Audi) also indicated that they would suspend their advertising on YouTube and/or other Google ad products because of identical concerns," Wieser wrote. Guardian CEO David Pemsel said in a letter to Google that many brands feel they must place their ads on Google and YouTube given their dominant position in online advertising. Google is only tightening its grip on advertising dollars, according to research firm eMarketer. Total digital ad spending in the U. S. will increase 16% this year to $83 billion, dominated by Google in search ads and Facebook in display and mobile ads, according to the firm's latest forecast. "It is therefore vital that Google, DoubleClick and YouTube uphold the highest standards in terms of openness, transparency, and measures to avoid advertising fraud and misplacement in the future," Pemsel said. "It is very clear that this is not the case at the moment. " Google reviews content flagged by users. Four hundred hours of video is uploaded every minute to YouTube, Google says, making it tough to police. Some 98% of content flagged on YouTube is reviewed within 24 hours, Google says. "We recognize that we don't always get it right," Google U. K.'s managing director Ronan Harris wrote in a blog post Friday. He acknowledged that Google needs to "do a better job of addressing the small number of inappropriately monetized videos and content," and pledged Google would introduce new ways in coming weeks for marketers to control where their ads appear. Related: Why is this such a significant issue? "Brand safety" has emerged as possibly the biggest issue facing the advertising industry, Wieser says. For large marketers, even one ad placed next to extremist content can cause harm to a brand, he said. Exacerbating the problem for Google: "A hostile industry of media owners in Europe (many of them owners of print properties which have been negatively impacted by Google’s successes in recent years)," Wieser wrote. "We expect they will be all too happy to highlight future brand safety failings, negatively impacting brands. We think that Google will probably need to articulate goals that sound more like a zero tolerance policy, to alleviate concerns before it can fully recover," Wieser wrote. Head of Google Europe apologises over ads on extremist content theguardian.com 2017-03-20 14:02 Jessica Guynn rssfeeds.usatoday.com 19 / 141 0.8 IBM launches enterpriseready blockchain service (1.02/8) The U. S. technology company said on Monday its new product called IBM Blockchain was the first service for developers to build enterprise-grade technology using Hyperledger Fabric, the first code set to be released by the open source group. The Fabric blockchain can process more than 1,000 transactions per second and has the necessary features to be used by large enterprises to build their applications, IBM said. It added it was working with technology company SecureKey Technologies and a group of Canadian banks to build a digital identity network using its new blockchain services. The network, set for launch later this year, is aimed at making it easier for consumers to prove their identities when accessing services such as new bank accounts, driver's licenses or utilities. Banks involved include Bank of Montreal, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto-Dominion Bank. Blockchain, which emerged as the system running cryptocurrency bitcoin, is a digital shared record of transactions that is maintained by a network of computers on the internet, without the need of a centralized authority. Big businesses, including many of the world's largest banks, have been increasing their investment in the technology in hopes it can help them reduce the complexity and costs of some of their most burdensome processes, such as the settlement of securities or international payments. Technology companies and professional services firms have also been ramping up their investment in blockchain, as they race to capture the nascent market. IBM has been one of the most aggressive large technology companies on blockchain and has several large clients developing applications with the technology, including Northern Trust Corp, WalMart Stores Inc and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. IBM said it had also tested a blockchain-based asset management platform for carbon assets with Chinese company Energy-Blockchain Labs. The companies aim to release the platform, built using the new IBM Blockchain, later this year. (Reporting by Anna Irrera; Editing by Peter Cooney) 2017-03-20 IBM Launches Bluemix Container Service with Kubernetes to Fuel Highly Secure and Rapid Development of Cognitive Apps ibm.com 2017-03-20 12:10 Anna Irrera feeds.reuters.com 20 / 141 0.6 2017-03-20 MEDIA ALERT: IBM CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO GINNI ROMETTY TO KEYNOTE IBM INTERCONNECT 2017 (LIVE (0.10/8) WEB CAST) LAS VEGAS – IBM Interconnect 20 Mar 2017: IBM (NYSE: IBM) will offer a live web cast of Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty’s keynote from its annual cloud and cognitive conference, InterConnect 2017 at 9:00 a.m. PST (12:00 p.m. EST) on Tuesday, March 21 at : www.ibmgo.com . When: Tuesday, March 21 - 9:00-10:30 a.m. PST (12:00-1:30 p.m. EST) Where: Live webcast www.ibmgo.com . will be available: Who: Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO, IBM Bill Cobb, President & CEO, H&R Block Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO, AT&T Bruce Ross, Group Head, Technology Operations, Royal Bank of Canada & Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO, Girls Who Code InterConnect is IBM's cloud and cognitive conference where more than 20,000 developers, clients and partners are being introduced to the latest advancements in cloud computing through 2,000 sessions, labs and certifications. IBM is positioning both enterprise and startup clients for success with a complete portfolio of cloud services and marquee partnerships, supporting a wide range of applications including: big data, analytics, blockchain and cognitive computing. For more information, visit: https://www.ibm.com/cloudcomputing/. Engage in the conversation through @IBMCloud and #ibminterconnect. Build your own feed New to RSS? Join the conversation 2017-03-20 IBM and PlayFab Apply 2017-03-20 IBM Launches Bluemix the Power of IBM Watson to Unlock Container Service with Kubernetes to New Value for Game Developers Fuel Highly Secure and Rapid ibm.com Development of Cognitive Apps ibm.com 2017-03-20 IBM Announces New Pricing Model to Change Economics of Cloud Storage ibm.com 2017-03-20 15:40 www.ibm.com 21 / 141 0.1 New leak shows Galaxy S8 is smaller than S7 Edge (0.04/8) Not long ago we saw a diagram showing how the Samsung Galaxy S8 compared to a selection of other handsets, and now we can go one better, as actual photos showing the S8 next to the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge have been leaked. diagram Samsung Galaxy S8 iPhone 7 Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge The images, shared by SlashLeaks , appear to show that the Galaxy S8 is significantly larger than the 4.7-inch iPhone 7, as you’d expect, but that it’s actually slightly smaller than the 5.5-inch Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, despite clearly having a bigger screen (believed to be 5.8 inches). SlashLeaks That’s down to the tiny bezels and lack of a home button on the Samsung Galaxy S8, but it’s an impressive achievement, as Samsung has effectively packed a phablet-sized screen into a more normal sized body. Elsewhere, Playfuldroid has shared images that seemingly show the Samsung Galaxy S8 with its screen on, in blue, white and silver or gray colors. Playfuldroid We say seemingly, because they don’t quite match up with the images of the S8 in various colors that leaked recently. leaked recently Those, from the reliable leaker Evan Blass, show that whatever color you get the phone in it will be black from the front, while these ones show the colors extending to the front bezels. It’s possible that these are accurate, or that they show the Galaxy S8 in some kind of screen cover, but they’re certainly more suspect than other images. Colors aside, these and the images of the Galaxy S8 alongside other handsets match up with what we’ve seen before, showing an almost all-screen front, virtual home, back and recent keys, and an extra sensor at the top, likely housing an iris scanner. At this point we’re very confident that this will be the general form the Samsung Galaxy S8 takes, but we’ll know for sure soon, as the phone is set to be announced on March 29. The Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus is coming too. Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus How Samsung’s Galaxy S8 measures up to Galaxy S7 and iPhone 7 feedproxy.google.com 2017-03-20 14:22 By feedproxy.google.com 22 / 141 1.2 Epson debuts two new enterprise-grade printers Businesses of all sizes now have a wider selection of printers to choose from. Epson America, Inc. has announced two new corporate class printers, the high-speed WorkForce Enterprise WF-C20590 A3 multifunction printer and the WorkForce Pro WF-C869R A3 multifunction printer, in an effort to disrupt the corporate printing market. The WorkForce Enterprise, meant for the high end, department workgroup space, offers speeds of up to 100 ISO ppm and is powered by PrecisionCore Line Head Technology. It automatically detects and corrects clogged nozzles, and uses up to 50 per cent less power than most other colour lasers on the market. It comes with high capacity ink cartridges, which can yield up to 100,000 pages (black) and 50,000 pages (colour) each, and is also compatible with “third-party software solutions for managing usage limitations, user authentication and more.” And in keeping up with the modern age, it is able to print from mobile devices, or scan to the cloud. With the WorkForce Enterprise, Epson was able “to solve a long time-challenge for SMB and large workgroups: making color printing in the office accessible to all, at an affordable cost,” Mark Mathews, commercial vice president of marketing at Epson America, Inc., says in a Mar. 20 press release. “Delivering 100 pages per minute, the WorkForce Enterprise WF-C20590 is the first in a new class of Epson printers that integrate PrecisionCore Line Head Technology to unleash unrestricted and costeffective color printing in the office,” says Mathews. The WorkForce Pro, on the other hand, offers “the lowest colour printing costs in its class,” says Epson. Its replaceable ink pack system means it can print up to 84,000 ISO pages before needing to change the ink pack, and can print at speeds of 24 ISO ppm for both black and colour pages. It also boasts 50 per cent energy reduction, like the WorkForce Enteprise, and comes with several security features, such as PIN number certification for job release and user control access. The WorkForce Pro seamlessly integrates “with web-based enterprise applications such as PaperCut MF and other workflows,” and is enabled for remote printer data collection. The WorkForce Enterprise will be available in summer 2017, while the Pro will be available in the spring. Both offer channel support and enhance serviceability with their easy to use designs and long-lasting cartridges, allowing managed print services to handle more products at once. 2017-03-20 17:54 Mandy Kovacs www.itworldcanada.com 23 / 141 1.8 Omaha plans for upgrades to parking garages OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Omaha’s parking division is working on upgrades that will let drivers use smartphones to pay for parking in garages and even stake out spots for major events. The city’s parking manager, Ken Smith, tells the Omaha World-Herald (http://bit.ly/2nCRJ9C ) that the division is planning for $3.5 million in projects and technology upgrades for next year. The upgrades will include restoration and maintenance of parking facilities. New technology will allow drivers to find and pay for parking on their phones. The division is also working to add the option of reserving parking for events on the Park Omaha app. Private parking providers will also have the opportunity to use the new parking features. Smith says division staff will begin the process of replacing controlling parking garage payments this month. ___ Information from: http://www.omaha.com Omaha World-Herald, 2017-03-20 17:53 By www.washingtontimes.com 24 / 141 0.6 Team nebulizes aphids to knock down gene expression The new technique, first tried in a separate study of honey bees using a slightly different protocol, is a vast improvement over other approaches - for example, injecting the RNA, which is quite challenging when working with a creature the size of a pollen grain, the researchers said. Understanding the function of genes is a key to developing new approaches to controlling the pest, they said. The soybean aphid , Aphis glycines , is a relative newcomer to the U. S. from its native territory in eastern and southeastern Asia. First found in 2000 in Wisconsin, the aphid quickly spread throughout much of the Midwest United States and into eastern Canada. Heavy infestations can cause yield losses of 40 percent or more, studies have found. "There are different populations of the soybean aphid that differ in their ability to overcome soybean defenses," said University of Illinois entomology professor Allison Hansen, who led the new study with graduate student Margaret Thairu. "If you can knock down certain genes - cause them to express less of a certain protein, for example - it is easier to discover their function," Hansen said. "This can provide information that will aid in the development of new pest-control systems. " Introducing RNA into an animal's body can dampen the expression of specific genes. This is sometimes preferable to knocking out the gene altogether, which could kill the animal, Hansen said. Interrupting the protein-building machinery helps scientists understand what individual genes do, Thairu said. She compares it to figuring how a car, truck or train engine works by systematically pulling out engine parts and observing the results. "We take out the spark plug and see what happens," she said. "Does the car run? Does the train move anymore? " But getting RNA into an aphid's body is no easy task. Common techniques involve injecting the RNA, or engineering a plant in the laboratory to produce the RNA in its tissues and getting the insect to feed on it. In the latter case, the RNA is often degraded in the insect's gut, minimizing its effectiveness. Both methods are tedious, expensive and inefficient. As a result, the process of gene discovery in many sap-sucking insects like aphids has slowed to a crawl, Hansen said. "We have all this genomic data we don't know what to do with," she said. "People are just desperate to get something that will work. " "By aerosolizing the RNA, we can deliver it directly to the target tissues," Thairu said. The researchers nebulized the aphids with tiny droplets of RNA bound to nanoparticles. They put the insects in a small chamber and doused them with the mixture. "They don't look happy after this, because they don't like water," Hansen said. "They look like sad, wet dogs. " The aphids perked up when returned to their host plants, the researchers said. Nebulizing soybean aphids with RNA bound to nanoparticles appeared to block the function of a specific targeted gene, known as "bcat," the researchers found. This gene plays a role in degradation - and perhaps also the synthesis - of branch-chain amino acids. Adult insects exposed to the RNA for bcat were significantly smaller than their unexposed peers and smaller than insects exposed only to the nanoparticles, the researchers found. Using nanoparticles coated in RNA appeared to improve the uptake of RNA through tiny breathing tubes in the insects' bodies called tracheoles. The same technique did not appear to work in other aphid species, however. It also failed to produce a change when targeting a different gene. Hansen calls the new findings a proof of concept that the nebulizing technique can succeed - at least in some sap-sucking insects like aphids, which are notoriously difficult to work with. "This method is going to propel our field forward, especially for insects where other techniques fall short," she said. Explore further: How to be a successful pest: Lessons from the green peach aphid More information: M. W. Thairu et al, Efficacy of RNA interference knockdown using aerosolized short interfering RNAs bound to nanoparticles in three diverse aphid species, Insect Molecular Biology (2017). DOI: 10.1111/imb.12301 2017-03-20 17:53 phys.org 25 / 141 0.5 Critical thinking instruction in humanities reduces belief in pseudoscience "Given the national discussion of 'fake news,' it's clear that critical thinking - and classes that teach critical thinking - are more important than ever," says Anne McLaughlin, an associate professor of psychology at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work. "Fundamentally, we wanted to assess how intentional you have to be when teaching students critical thinking," says Alicia McGill, an assistant professor of history at NC State and co-author of the paper. "We also wanted to explore how humanities classes can play a role and whether one can assess the extent to which critical thinking instruction actually results in improved critical thinking by students. "This may be especially timely, because humanities courses give students tools they can use to assess qualitative data and sort through political rhetoric," McGill says. "Humanities also offer us historical and cultural perspective that allow us to put current events into context. " For this study, the researchers worked with 117 students in three different classes. Fifty-nine students were enrolled in a psychology research methods course, which taught statistics and study design, but did not specifically address critical thinking. The other 58 students were enrolled in one of two courses on historical frauds and mysteries - one of which included honors students, many of whom were majors in science, engineering and mathematics disciplines. The psychology class served as a control group. The two history courses incorporated instruction explicitly designed to cultivate critical thinking skills. For example, students in the history courses were taught how to identify logical fallacies - statements that violate logical arguments, such as non sequiturs. At the beginning of the semester, students in all three courses took a baseline assessment of their beliefs in pseudoscientific claims. The assessment used a scale from 1 ("I don't believe at all. ") to 7 ("I strongly believe. "). Some of the topics in the assessment, such as belief in Atlantis, were later addressed in the "historical frauds" course. Other topics, such as the belief that 9/11 was an "inside job," were never addressed in the course. This allowed the researchers to determine the extent to which changes in student beliefs stemmed from specific facts discussed in class, versus changes in a student's critical thinking skills. At the end of the semester, students took the pseudoscience assessment again. The control group students did not change their beliefs - but students in both history courses had lower beliefs in pseudoscience by the end of the semester. Students in the history course for honors students decreased the most in their pseudoscientific beliefs; on average, student beliefs dropped an entire point on the belief scale for topics covered in class, and by 0.5 points on topics not covered in class. There were similar, but less pronounced, changes in the non-honors course. "The change we see in these students is important, because beliefs are notoriously hard to change," says McLaughlin. "And seeing students apply critical thinking skills to areas not covered in class is particularly significant and heartening. " "It's also important to note that these results stem from taking only one class," McGill says. "Consistent efforts to teach critical thinking across multiple classes may well have more pronounced effects. "This drives home the importance of teaching critical thinking, and the essential role that humanities can play in that process," McGill says. "This is something that NC State is actively promoting as part of a universitywide focus on critical thinking development. " The paper, "Explicitly teaching critical thinking skills in a history course," was published March 20 in the journal Science & Education. Explore further: Fostering critical thinking via assessment More information: Anne Collins McLaughlin et al, Explicitly Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in a History Course, Science & Education (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s11191-017- 9878-2 2017-03-20 17:52 phys.org 26 / 141 1.1 What's Behind Phantom Cellphone Buzzes? March 20, 2017 — Reuters and Emily Flitter 0 minute ago — Jen Christiansen 2 hours ago — Katherine Wright 2 hours ago — Daniel Barron 0 minute ago — Samuel L. Stanley Jr. March 20, 2017 — Jeremy Hsu 2017-03-20 17:46 Daniel J www.scientificamerican.com 27 / 141 1.6 ORU students log 3 billion steps on Fitbit devices TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Oral Roberts University says the use of Fitbit activity trackers has proven to be a good fit within the school’s requirement that students take part in health and fitness activities. The school’s associate vice president of technology and innovation, Michael Mathews, tells the Tulsa World (http://bit.ly/2ns3zmf ) the devices have proven to be a time-saver for faculty members. Students used to track their fitness activities on paper and then turn them in for part of the grade, but the Fitbits can turn in data automatically. ORU launched its program 18 months ago and Fitbit -wearing students had taken more than 3 billion steps. This semester, nearly 1,300 students are wearing the devices. Mathews says that taking part in health and fitness activities is mandatory, but using a Fitbit is not. ___ Information from: http://www.tulsaworld.com Tulsa 2017-03-20 17:46 By www.washingtontimes.com World, 28 / 141 1.5 Technology being blamed for driving up car insurance rates BOSTON (AP) - Auto insurance rates in Massachusetts are on the rise and technology is to blame. Industry experts tell The Boston Globe (http://bit.ly/2nD53dW ) that drivers distracted by smartphones are crashing more often and those cars are now more expensive to repair because they’re loaded with on-board sensors and other gadgets. Some of the largest auto insurers in Massachusetts have received approval from state regulators to raise rates on average by between 3 and 6 percent this year. Mapfre USA Corp. , with more than a million policy holders in Massachusetts, plans to raise premiums by an average of nearly 4 percent. Liberty Mutual Insurance Cos., with nearly 300,000 customers, plans average rate increases of more than 5 percent. Massachusetts drivers paid an average premium of $1,108 in 2014, the most recent data available. ___ Information from: The http://www.bostonglobe.com Boston Globe, 2017-03-20 17:46 By www.washingtontimes.com 29 / 141 1.7 Norwalk teen finds her muse in iPhone photography NORWALK, Conn. (AP) - For years, Margaret Kraus begged her parents for a digital camera. When she reached third grade, they gave in. She took pictures of everything from random toys lying around the house to her twin sister. But it wasn’t until her family traveled to Thailand four years ago that she really caught the bug. By then of course, her camera of choice had become an iPhone. “That’s when I started thinking about it as more than just a hobby,” Kraus said. “The reason I like photography is that I see beauty in a lot of things. Something just compels me to take a picture. It’s important to find what inspires you and pursue it, and that’s what I’m doing.” Now, at just 16, Kraus is teaching photography and has exhibited her work throughout Fairfield County. Her current exhibit, at Valencia Luncheria in Norwalk, will be up through the end of the month. “It never occurred to me to show my work until my parents brought it up and I started thinking about it as a career path and thinking about that next step,” Kraus said. Kraus has never taken a photography class, and said she probably won’t. Instead, she learns by studying the work of photographers and artists she admires. She started by taking pictures of her fraternal twin sister, Vivienne, playing with interesting lines and lighting to create artistic images. “When I was little, I always loved art and being creative,” Kraus said. “My sister is my muse kind of. I saw beauty in her and in every day. She’s so naturally beautiful, and I will make her stand in front of buildings and in cool lighting. It’s no longer just my sister, but she’s how it started.” She only takes pictures with her iPhone, a telling sign of the times and her age. “I like it because I have it with me all the time,” Kraus said. “I’ve thought about (buying a camera) but it is expensive so that makes it more of a barrier.” Kraus has posted over 200 photos on her Instagram, @Vivaciouslyy, a play on her sisters name. She has exhibited her work at the Reeds Building and City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport and will teach a workshop this month in Bridgeport. In April, she will put up an exhibit at a coffee shop near her boarding school in New Hampshire. As for being her sisters go-to model, Vivienne Kraus said she doesn’t mind. “I kind of just went with it,” Vivienne Kraus said. “We’ve always had this relationship where she kind of bosses me around … I’m very proud of her and it’s great that people like her work. Her work is beautiful and accessible so it’s great to get it out there for people to enjoy.” Kraus ’s father, Bill Kraus, said he didn’t realize until he heard Margaret speak about her photography, how much artistic consideration she put into the images. And it wasn’t until someone outside the family acknowledged her work, that he began to see her work in a new light. “They were volunteering at a pre-school and she took a lot of amazing photos of the children there and one of the teachers suggested she do a show,” Bill Kraus said. “That was the first time as a father that somebody else said, ‘These are great.’” ___ Information from: The Hour, http://www.thehour.com 2017-03-20 17:45 By KAITLYN www.washingtontimes.com 30 / 141 1.3 Best gaming PC: 10 of the top rigs you can buy in 2017 Update: Expanding on our list of the best – and only the best – gaming PCs of 2017, we’ve added the Zotac Magnus EN1060 and EN1080 at number 2 and number 6, respectively. Complete with synopses from our reviews, read on to find out why this pair of mini PCs deserves your consideration! PC gaming has never been in better shape. The Windows 10 Creators Update will give gamers , even those with lower spec PCs, a shot at better frame rates and higher resolutions. At the same time, high-performance card, like the GTX 1080 Ti , are making 4K HDR gaming a reality for hardcore gamers with higher budgets. Windows 10 Creators Update will give gamers GTX 1080 Ti 4K HDR gaming a reality Unlike a PS4 or Xbox One, PCs provide you with a plethora of options, so whether you want to prioritize frame rates or visuals, play with keyboard and mouse or gamepad, it’s entirely your choice. Even professionally focused keyboards such as the Logitech G Pro are now at your disposal, so long as you don’t mind the clickety clacks of mechanical switches. Logitech G Pro Ultimately, however, a gaming PC is usually intended to run the latest triple-A blockbuster games fluidly and at high graphics settings. It can either be a one-time purchase or a long-term investment, depending on the amount of time, effort and funds you’re willing to shell out. Even if you don’t want to bother with part upgrades down the line, the best gaming PC is built to last. If sheer might is what you’re looking for, though, it won’t come cheap. You'll need to reach deep into your wallet for the utmost powerful GPU and highspeed processor accompanied by capacious storage options. Although, if you prefer that your games run with the graphics and frame rates cranked all the way up to the top, the lofty upfront cost may very well be justified. In the end, the choice is yours. You can either build a PC that tailors to your specific needs or effortlessly purchase one that’s pre-built by one of many manufacturers. For the most painless and least strenuous option, consider one of the 7 stellar gaming PCs listed below. Alienware's iconic gaming PC returns as a mini powerhouse CPU: Intel Core i5-7400 – i7-6700K | Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 460 – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 | RAM: 8GB – 16GB | Storage: 1TB HDD – 256GB PCIe SSD, 2TB HDD | Connectivity: Ethernet; Intel 3165 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.2 | Power supply: 850W PSU | Ports: 7 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 3.1 Type- A, 1 x USB-3.1 Type-C, 6 x USB 2.0, Ethernet, 4 x DisplayPort, HDMI, optical out, headphone jack, microphone jack, 7.1 surround sound out One of the few PCs on this list to earn a perfect score, the Alienware Aurora R5 combines design elements traditional to Dell's famed luxury gaming brand with a handful of contemporary twists. The nigh-mini ITX computer bears resemblance to, say, the Area 51, but with a case that feels strikingly more native to our home planet. Of course, it simultaneously boasts top-of-the-line specs; an overclockable K-series Intel Core i7 CPU, a GeForce GTX 1080 and a massively capable 850W power supply are just a few of the Aurora R5's redeeming qualities. Plus, even with the small chassis, there's plenty of room for an unparalleled SLI configuration. Read the full review: Alienware Alienware Aurora R5 Aurora R5 This VR-ready PC can crawl into tight spaces CPU: Intel Core i5-6400T | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 | RAM: Not included; up to 32GB | Storage: Not included | Connectivity: 802.11ac; Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports; Bluetooth 4.0 | Power supply: AC Adapter (DC 19.5V/180W) | Ports: 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 USB 3.1 Type-C, 2 x USB 2.0, 1 microphone jack, 1 headphone jack, 2 x DisplayPort 1,3, 2 x HDMI, SD card reader With the novel idea of the Steam Machine all but deceased at this point, the Zotac Magnus EN1060 serves as a sort of successor to the Zotac NEN Steam Machine of yesteryear. Unlike its Valvepowered predecessor, however, the EN1060 is more barebones. There’s no onboard storage or RAM, meaning there is some assembly required. If you can get past, there’s a convincing mini PC configuration to be had, even if it is incomplete out of the box. For starters, the inclusion of a GTX 1060 – although disappointing that it can’t be upgraded to something better down the line – is VR-ready and equipped to last. That goes without mentioning the virtually silent performance and vast array of ports, which are merely an added bonus. Read the full review: Zotac Magnus EN1060 Zotac Magnus EN1060 Two times 1080 equals 4K at 60fps CPU: Intel Core i3-7350K – i7-6950X | Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 480 – 2 x Nvidia Titan X | RAM: 16GB DDR4 (2,400MHz) – 64GB DDR4 (2,800MHz) | Storage: 1TB HDD – 8TB HDD; 4TB SSD | Connectivity: Ethernet; 802.11ac Asus Wi-Fi GO! module; Bluetooth 4.0 | Power supply: 650W EVGA SuperNOVA G3 – 1.6kW EVGA SuperNOVA G2 | Ports: 8 x USB 3.0, 3 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 USBC, 4 x USB 2.0, 1 optical audio out, 5 x audio jacks, 1 headphone jack, 6 x DisplayPort, 2 x HDMI Sure, for the price of an Origin Millennium PC, you could buy a halfway decent car. But why would you need to leave the house when you can play games in 4K at a buttery smooth 60 fps? That's the question Origin hopes you'll ask when you talk to your spouse about dropping six grand on a new gaming rig. Between its pair of EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition twins and the new Intel Broadwell-E Core i7-6950X processor, there is nothing the Origin Millennium can't handle – and on the best of the best displays at that. Of course, it's expensive; it's like ten years worth of future-proof. Read the full review: Origin Millennium Origin Millennium A VR-ready value proposition that’s hard to resist CPU: Intel Core i5-6200 – Core i7-6700K | Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 480 – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 | RAM: 8GB – 16GB DDR4 (2,133MHz) | Storage: 1TB HDD – 512GB SSD; 2TB HDD | Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet; 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.2 | Power supply: 460W PSU | Ports: 7 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, 2 x USB 2.0, SD card slot, HDMI, DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet, mic-in, headphone-out, 5.1 channel audio jacks The Dell XPS Tower Special Edition is a reminder of just how convenient and affordable it can be to skip the laborious assembly process and simply buy your gaming PC from a prominent and wellliked manufacturer. By making a few concessions in the CPU, PSU and storage departments, Dell was able to leverage a reasonable price tag and sweeten the deal with a handful of enticing additives. These include discrete graphics, a whopping 9 total USB ports and, of course, access to Dell’s online support system. That way, if something goes wrong, you’re not leafing through manuals to find out why your computer suddenly stopped working. Read the full review: Dell XPS Tower Special Edition Dell XPS Tower Special Edition PC gaming on the high-end, no tools required CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K – i7-6700K | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 – 1080 | RAM: 8GB – 16GB DDR4 (2,133MHz) | Storage: 1TB HDD – 2TB HDD, 256GB SSD | Connectivity: Ethernet; 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 | Power supply: 625W PSU | Ports: 4 x USB 2.0, 6 x USB 3.0,1 Gigabit LAN, 1 x HDMI / 1 x VGA / 1 x DVI, 6 x Audio Jack with SPDIF (7.1 Surround Sound), 1 PS/2 Combo, 7-in-1 Card Reader, 2 x Audio / Microphone Jack If you’re buying a pre-built PC, upgrades should be simple, right? That’s the philosophy behind the Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900, which bears a boisterous appearance that practically typecasts it as a gaming PC. It’s embellished with red lights all over, one of which even manages to make the letter “Y” look cool. The front of the chassis is bespeckled with textured patterns that’ll no doubt make your friends jealous. On top of offering support for a VR-ready GTX 1080, the Lenovo IdeaCentre boasts SLI support and room for up to 64GB of RAM, which are thankfully complemented by a convenient tool-less design. Read the full review: Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 No one mini PC should have all this power CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 | RAM: Not included; up to 32GB DDR4 | Storage: Not included | Connectivity: 802.11ac; Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports; Bluetooth 4.0 | Power supply: 2 x AC Adapter (DC 19.5V/180W) | Ports: 4 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 USB 3.1 Type-C, 1x microphone jack, 1x headphone jack, 2 x DisplayPort 1.3, 3 x HDMI 2.0, SD card reader Like the Zotac Magnus EN1060 before it, the Magnus EN1080 is a barebones mini PC with some assembly required, namely in the storage and memory departments. Its main differentiators are its inclusion of an Intel Core i7-6700 and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card. With these components on-hand, the EN1080 can handle everything from 4K gaming at middling frame rates to 1080p gaming at refresh rates upwards of 120Hz. Though it’s as costly a unit as might be expected from a PC armed with these specs, there are very few mid- to large-form factor PCs, not to mention mini computers, that can match the sheer heft of the EN1080’s performance output. Read the full review: Zotac Magnus EN1080 Zotac Magnus EN1080 A beefy LAN-friendly PC with a tasty design CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 – Titan X | RAM: 8GB – 16GB DDR4 (3,866MHz) | Storage: 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD; 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD | Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet; Dual-band 802.11ac WiFi | Power supply: SuperFlower 1000W | Ports: 4 x USB 3, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, Optical S/PDIF, Gigabit Ethernet, 3 x audio The latest Overclockers machine is one of the bestdesigned gaming PCs we've ever seen, with bespoke water-cooling, a great color scheme and keen attention to detail. It marries its great design with top-notch performance in games and applications. Luckily it never gets too hot or too loud either. It is, however expensive and niche, with limited potential for upgrading. If you're looking for an attractive and unique LAN-friendly gaming PC that can handle anything from 4K gaming to VR, the Asteroid is an out-of-this-world machine with a price tag that will bring you back down to earth. [ Editor's Note: This product is only available in the UK and other European territories.] Read the full review: Overclockers 8Pack Asteroid Overclockers 8Pack Asteroid Ultra HD that won't make your wallet cry CPU: 2.7GHz Intel Core-i5 6400 | Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 480 – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 | RAM: 8GB – 16GB DDR4 (2,400MHz) | Storage: 1TB HDD – 1TB HDD; 128GB SSD | Connectivity: | Power supply: 500W PSU | Ports: 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, 2 x USB 3.0 ports (front), 1 x USB 2.0 port (front), 2 x USB 2.0 ports (rear), 4 x USB 3.1 ports (rear), 4 x USB 3.1 ports (rear), 1 x HDMI, 1 x VGA, 1 x DVI-D, 1 x LAN (RJ45), 3 x audio jacks Interested in Ultra HD gaming without spending a fortune? Enter the StormForce Tornado, a GTX 1070-equipped rig with the outward appearance of a spaceship and five drive bays for nearly limitless internal storage potential. If you don't mind the extensive wait times of a hard drive (as opposed to a PCIe or M.2 SSD), the StormForce Tornado is a no-brainer. Starting at a mere £899 (about $1,180/AUS$1,540), the StormForce Tornado makes 1440p gaming (and even 4K, to an extent) affordable, and who doesn't want that? [ Editor's Note: This product is only available in the UK and other European territories.] Read the full review: StormForce Tornado StormForce Tornado Virtual reality made easy CPU: 3.5GHz Intel Core i5-6600K | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 – Titan X | RAM: 8GB – 16GB DDR4 (2,400MHz) | Storage: 1TB HDD – 3TB HDD; 1TB SSD | Connectivity: Ethernet | Ports: (Rear) 2 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0; (Top) 2 x USB 3.0, DisplayPort, DVI, VGA, HDMI, microphone and headphone jack While the Titan Virtual Force is neither tastefully designed nor particularly subtle, it's glitzy and selfindulgent, illuminating a green ooze reminiscent of the Manhattan sewers (cowabunga!). At the same time, of course, Overclockers was less concerned about making a fashion statement and more obsessed with crafting one of the most capable prebuilt computers money can buy. Complete with a 4K-capable GTX 980 Ti, an overclockable Intel 6600K and 8GB of RAM at the entry level, the Titan Virtual Force serves as an excellent shortcut to buttery smooth VR, or UltraHD, gaming on the high end. [ Editor's Note: This product is only available in the UK and other European territories.] Read the full review: Overclockers Titan Virtual Force Overclockers Titan Virtual Force Gaudy, but more than meets the eye CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K – i7-6800K | Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 480 – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 | RAM: 8GB – 32GB DDR4 (2,133MHz) | Storage: 256GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD; 2TB HDD (7,200 rpm) – 3TB HDD; 512GB SSD | Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2x2); Bluetooth 4.0 | Power supply: 600W Silver efficiency | Ports: 8 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB-C 3.1, Ethernet, SD card reader, 2 x HDMI, 2 x DisplayPort, microphone jack, headphone jack, optical audio out Though you might mistake it for a Rubik’s Cube at first glance, the HP Omen X’s quirky design is all part of its charm. Don’t confuse eccentric casing with limited upgradeability, however, as the HP Omen X is more than just a pretty face. Complete with three chambers for components, including one with four hard drive bays, this desktop leaves plenty of room for expansion later down the line. Upgrades can be performed nearly without tools altogether, requiring not much more than a basic Allen wrench to lift up the panel. Perhaps the most practical aspect of the Omen X, though, is its ability to change the color of its lighting based on which components are sweating the most. Read the full review: HP Omen X Desktop HP Omen X Desktop Now that you have a new gaming PC, it's time to buy the best gaming mouse best gaming mouse Gabe Carey has also contributed to this article 2017-03-20 17:40 By feedproxy.google.com 31 / 141 1.0 Intel unleashes first Optane SSD and it’s a speed demon Intel has revealed its first Optane SSD which uses the much-talked-about 3D XPoint technology that took the company a decade to hone. The Optane DC P4800X is a 375GB solid-state drive in the form of a PCIe card, and it’s aimed at heavyweight data centre usage, promising very low latency and high throughput. According to Intel, the SSD boasts a latency of under 10µs and offers random read/write speeds of up to 550,000/500,000 IOPs. What’s also very interesting is that the P4800X can use Intel’s ‘memory drive technology’ to make the SSD appear to be DRAM to the operating system, a useful added trick on the flexibility front. Intel notes that Optane SSDs offer “unrivalled performance at low queue depth, where the vast majority of applications generate storage workloads, which means CPUs are more active and more fully utilised”. The company also boasted of high endurance ratings, with the P4800X being capable of 30 DWPD (drive writes per day), with a claimed total lifespan of 12.3 petabytes. The drive is available in an ‘early ship program’ now, with more form factors and bigger capacities due to become available in the second half of this year. As spotted by ExtremeTech , it retails at $1,520 (around £1,230, AU$1,970), so it’s far from cheap (and those larger capacity drives will be much more expensive still, of course). As we already mentioned, this is an SSD targeted at data centre use, but it’s a sign of things to come – eventually we’ll see high-performance Optane drives aimed at consumer PCs with less frightening price tags. Optane is, however, already being used for cache drives in mainstream laptops like the ThinkPad T series (which has an optional 16GB Optane SSD). 2017-03-20 17:33 Darren Allan www.techradar.com 32 / 141 0.0 Uber plays the hero for some immigrant drivers caught up in travel ban – Silicon Valley SAN FRANCISCO — After three agonizing years apart, Uber driver Samer Alrajab Agha thought he’d soon be reuniting with his wife and five children, Syrian refugees he’d left behind in Turkey. Their long-awaited visas had arrived in the mail. The six plane tickets to New York were booked. But that dream was dashed when the family was turned away at the airport in January under President Donald Trump’s first travel ban. “We were devastated. It’s hard to explain it,” said Agha’s 19-year-old son, Abdalah Alrgab Agha. “We were just so close.” In the end, it was Uber that helped bring the family back together. When a federal judge suspended the ban in early February, the San Francisco-based company shelled out $4,700 for new plane tickets to New York, $7,000 for the family to rent a home on Staten Island and $2,500 for travel expenses — costs Agha couldn’t afford after paying for the plane tickets his family was barred from using. That sort of help offers a stark contrast to other recent revelations about the world’s most valuable startup and its culture. Animosity toward the $68 billion ride-hailing company reached a new high last month after a string of accusations of sexual harassment, sexism and outrageous managerial behavior culminated in a viral video of CEO Travis Kalanick losing his temper in an argument with a driver over fares. But Uber has kept a promise it made in January to help drivers caught up in the travel ban. The company, which vowed to put $3 million toward the effort, has provided free legal help, U. S.-bound plane tickets and other support to hundreds of drivers and their family members affected by the executive order that barred immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries. So far, Uber has reunited 26 drivers with family members they were separated from under the ban, flying a total of 68 people to the U. S. Nearly 500 drivers have reached out to Uber for legal help and support, and the company said it was still receiving requests last week. Uber says it will continue to offer those services as drivers struggle with uncertainty in the face of version two of Trump’s travel ban. A federal judge in Hawaii temporarily suspended the second ban Wednesday, and a Maryland judge followed with a similar order, but Trump has made it clear he’ll fight those rulings. “You feel like someone is behind you,” said Syrian Uber driver Mohammed Barazi, of Pleasant Hill, who reached out to the company after getting stuck in Saudi Arabia while attending his sister’s wedding. “You’re not just alone, waiting in the airport, panicking that they’re going to send you back to wherever you came from.” Barazi, an equity research analyst who started driving in September as a way to network and find job opportunities in his field, spent several days wondering if he’d ever return home. When he finally made it back to U. S. soil, Uber greeted him with a welcoming party at the San Francisco airport. “Welcome home, Mohammed!” said a large orange poster. The group waiting for him gave him chocolate and a free Uber ride back to his house. But most importantly, Uber had offered free legal help during his ordeal in case officials changed their minds and decided green card holders like 30year-old Barazi weren’t allowed back into the U. S. Knowing that made the hourlong customs screening — and being taken to a special room for questioning — less scary, he said. Taking advantage of what many feared would be a small window of opportunity after a federal judge in Seattle suspended the first travel ban in February, Uber rushed to purchase flights to the U. S. for drivers and family members from the countries listed in the ban — Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Syria and Iraq — who were stuck abroad. The company offered help in an email sent to all drivers immediately after the ban went into effect, and set up a 24/7 call center to connect drivers with outside attorneys paid for by the company. Support centers also were set up around the U. S., including in San Francisco. Each driver and family member returning home was met at the airport by three people — a lawyer, an interpreter and an Uber employee. Uber offered to pay drivers back for earnings they missed while stuck abroad. “Some drivers, they really just were afraid,” said Carrol Chang, an Uber general manager who helped coordinate the company’s travel ban-related efforts. “Their families were being held apart. They just didn’t know what their options were and what the ban meant for them.” Uber wouldn’t say how much of the $3 million it set aside for driver aid has been spent so far. The ride-hailing company helped Ali Muflahi, a Yemeni Uber driver and U. S. citizen, bring his wife home to Brooklyn. The two were married in Yemen in 2011, and after the wedding, Muflahi left her there and returned to New York, assuming his wife would soon follow. But it took years for her to secure a visa. When she finally did, the travel ban went into effect while the couple were in middle of their journey to the U. S. — leaving them stranded in Japan. That’s when Muflahi received an email from Uber. The company got Muflahi a lawyer, and when the ban was suspended, Uber bought the tickets to the U. S. “I never got support in the whole situation,” Muflahi said. “Only from Uber.” 2017-03-20 17:24 By Marisa www.siliconvalley.com 33 / 141 0.7 Impulse-buying crap you see on TV has gotten easier thanks to ZapBuy Perhaps the most genius part of Amazon is its oneclick buy feature. No doubt this has earned it a fair wedge of cash, as if you see something you want, it can be yours without any real depth or soulsearching. Humans are naturally impulsive creatures, and frictionless buying takes advantage of that aspect of our psyche. And now, the feature has escaped the confines of the web, and is making its way to traditional print and television advertising. And it’s all thanks to ZapBuy. Win a trip to Amsterdam! We've teamed up with Product Hunt to offer you the chance to win an all expense paid trip to TNW Conference 2017! CHECK IT OUT We've teamed up with Product Hunt to offer you the chance to win an all expense paid trip to TNW Conference 2017! CHECK IT OUT ZapBuy, from OmniWay , lets customers buy products simply by capturing a QR code. You could be watching a TV show, or reading a newspaper. If you see something you want, you just need to whip out your phone and scan the code. ZapBuy takes care of the rest. OmniWay In a statement, OmnyWay Ashok Narasimhan said “ZapBuy’s secret sauce is that it converts any surface into a point of commerce.” “By removing the friction from the process of making a purchase from an ad, OmnyWay is improving the shopping experience for consumers, leading to a significant improvement in conversions and sales,” he added. The beauty of ZapWay is that it’s not tied to any particular medium, as the QR codes could be integrated anywhere – on a TV or a print advert, or in a catalog. So, it’s probably not going to be great for our wallets. It’s probably not going to be great for our closets, either, which will soon bulge under the weight of so much shit we don’t really need. But it’s going to be great for advertisers, which will be able to eke even more value out of their spots. And it’s going to be great for retailers, which will now have a path to consumers in a way that’s just as lubricated as Amazon’s. Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 17:13 Matthew Hughes feedproxy.google.com 34 / 141 4.5 Best antivirus for business 2017: 10 of the best business antivirus software available in the UK We look at the best free antivirus protection for your business 2016. How to secure your business for free Antivirus products increase a computer's attack surface and may even lower operating system protections, a security researcher claims Bitdefender BOX can replace or run alongside a home router to scan all network traffic for security threats 2017-03-20 17:10 Matt Egan www.computerworlduk.com 35 / 141 1.5 MWC 2018: what we want to see MWC (or Mobile World Congress to give it its full name) is one of the biggest events on the mobile calendar, with 2017’s Barcelona show bringing us the LG G6 , Sony Xperia XZ Premium and Huawei P10 among dozens of other devices. LG G6 Sony Xperia XZ Premium Huawei P10 With the next show not happening until February 26 we’re a long way from MWC 2018, but as we get closer and news and rumors about what we’re likely to see start to emerge we’ll add them all to this article, and in the meantime we’ve come up with a wish list of what we want to see. So have a read, see if you agree, and let us know in the comments if there’s anything else you’re really hoping for at MWC 2018. What is it? The biggest phone show of 2018 When is it? Probably late February or early March 2018 There's no MWC 2018 news yet, but with the LG G6, Huawei P10 and Sony Xperia XZ Premium announced at MWC 2017 there's a good chance we'll see the LG G7, Huawei P11 and a new Sony flagship at the 2018 show, as well as numerous other phones and probably some tablets and wearables too. We do MWC 2018 will take place between February 26 and March 1 2018 in Barcelona. With nothing yet announced or even rumored for MWC 2018 we’re free to dream of all the things we might see, or at least hope to see. The following are among our most wanted. Samsung didn’t entirely skip MWC 2017, in fact it even held a press conference, but instead of the Samsung Galaxy S8 we got the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3. Samsung Galaxy S8 Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 It’s understandable that Samsung would want a separate event away from the madness of MWC to launch its biggest phone, but then the S8 is big enough that it would easily be the most popular launch of the show, so a separate announcement isn’t really needed. We hope Samsung will make MWC 2018 one to remember by using it to launch the Galaxy S9. It’s felt like folding phones have been just over the horizon for years now, but there’s growing evidence that late 2017 or early 2018 could be when we’ll finally see one, and MWC 2018 would be the ideal place for it to launch. growing evidence Hopefully when it does launch it will be more than just a gimmick, and won’t cost so much we need to sell our kidneys to buy it. MWC 2017 gave us the Huawei Watch 2 and Huawei Watch 2 Classic , but not much else in the way of wearables, despite the fact that Android Wear 2.0 launched shortly before the show. Huawei Watch 2 Huawei Watch 2 Classic Android Wear We were hoping that the first major Android Wear update would be accompanied by a shower of new smartwatches, but it wasn’t to be. More are sure to land over the course of 2017, but there’s little sign that we’ll see them in any great number, so hopefully MWC 2018 will be used as an opportunity for manufacturers to get back into the Android Wear game in big numbers. But we don’t just want new watches, they also need to genuinely do new things and improve on the existing models to make them more desirable. Better battery life tops our list of wants from them, since a watch we need to charge every day is not the future we envisioned. There hasn’t been much of interest in the world of Android tablets lately, other than the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3, which itself was announced at MWC 2017. At 2018’s show we’d like to see a larger number of slates, and for at least some of them to genuinely match up to the iPad Pro 2 , which we’re sure to have by then. iPad Pro 2 MWC 2017 saw the launch of numerous bigger and better phones across the low, mid and high-end, but the improvements were usually the expected ones – sharper screens, faster chipsets and so on. Innovation wasn’t absent, but it was in short supply, so while we certainly wouldn’t say no to all the usual improvements next year, we hope they’re accompanied by more truly new, different and interesting things. While smaller companies weren’t absent from MWC 2017, they generally failed to grab much attention, and that’s not just because they’re not household names, but also because – in many cases at least their announcements were genuinely less interesting. We’d like to see more lesser known brands grab headlines with exciting announcements at MWC 2018. That might be tough for small companies, but there’s potential for huge – but little known in the west – companies like Xiaomi to do it. As well as an absence of smartwatches there wasn’t much for fitness fans to see at MWC 2017 either, so we’d like to see an influx of sporty wearables at MWC 2018. And as with smartwatches these need to be significant improvements on what’s gone before – perhaps somehow automatically tracking a wider range of workouts than most of the current selection, like weights and yoga. MWC's announcements are sure to shake up our list of the best phones the best phones 2017-03-20 17:05 By feedproxy.google.com 36 / 141 5.5 Green Republicans Confront Climate Change Denial April 27, 2016 — Evan Lehmann and ClimateWire March 7, 2017 — Scott Waldman and E&E News November 23, 2016 — Lee Billings January 18, 2017 — Valerie Volcovici, Timothy Gardner and Reuters 2017-03-20 16:56 Reuters,Emily www.scientificamerican.com 37 / 141 1.2 Disable Telnet on switches, Cisco warns administrators Wikileaks’ disclosure of a CIA database of product vulnerabilities has led Cisco Systems to acknowledge a Telnet vulnerability in its IOS / IOS XE operating systems that affects more than 300 models including Catalyst and Industrial Ethernet switches. For the time being there is no workaround – although Cisco promises there will be a software fixes — so the company is urging administrators to turn off Telnet as an allowed protocol for incoming connections to eliminate the hole and instead use. SSH. How to do that can be found on the Cisco Guide to Harden Cisco IOS Devices. The vulnerability in the operating systems’ Cluster Management Protocol could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a reload of an affected device or remotely execute code with elevated privileges, Cisco says in its critical alert. That would allow an attacker to take over the device. The protocol utilizes Telnet internally as a signaling and command protocol between cluster members. Cisco says the vulnerability is due to the combination of two factors: An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending malformed CMP-specific Telnet options while establishing a Telnet session with an affected Cisco device configured to accept Telnet connections. Checking for the presence of the CMP subsystem is only required on devices running Cisco IOS XE Software, not Cisco IOS Software, says the company. However, checking if the device is configured to accept Telnet connections is required for devices running either operating system. Devices running a vulnerable IOS XE Software release but not including the CMP protocol subsystem are not affected. Cisco IPS Signature 7880-0 and Snort SIDs 41909 and 41910 can detect attempts to exploit this vulnerability. Two weeks ago WikiLeaks revealed what it says is an archive of 8,761 documents and files — but not source code, names, email addresses and external IP addresses — describing includes malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized “zero day” exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation that can be used by the agency for spying on a range of products using Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. A day later WikiLeaks said it would hand over details on the vulnerabilities to vendors so they can patch their software. However, citing unnamed sources Motherboard reported on Friday that WikiLeaks is asking vendors to sign off on a series of conditions before being able to receive the actual technical details. One source said a condition is fixes be issued within 90 days. That would appear to be assurance a vendor won’t hide the vulnerability, or give it a low priority. On the other hand it may take a vendor longer than three months to fix the bug(s). Motherboard also notes vendors may be shy about accepting anything from WikiLeaks that might be stolen property. 2017-03-20 16:53 Howard Solomon www.itworldcanada.com 38 / 141 1.7 Canada’s big 5 banks set to back blockchain-based identity service LAS VEGAS – Toronto-based identity management service provider SecureKey announced on Monday that it’s set to launch a blockchain-based service that will allow consumers to manage what identifying information they share with businesses later this year and Canada’s top five banks will be on board. The service itself will make use of IBM Corp.’s also just-announced blockchain service for enterprises. Based on the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric version 1.0, the service allows developers to quickly build and host secure production blockchain networks on the IBM Cloud. Blockchain is a technology that builds a traceable digital ledger that is shared among all peers who conduct transactions on a network, effectively removing the need for a third party to verify details or facilitate a transaction. Canada’s top six largest banks by revenue – BMO, CIBC, Desjardins, RBC, Scotiabank and TD – joined SecureKey’s digital identity ecosystem last October, injecting $27 million of funding into the company. More funding was kicked in by the Digital ID and Authentication Council of Canada. SecureKey says that it’s adopted former Ontario commissioner Ann Cavoukian’s Privacy by Design principles in designing the service and is working with other industry regulators. The concept of the service, managed from a mobile app, is to give individuals control over the personal information that their bank knows about them. For example, if a consumer has just moved and is setting up a new hydro electricity account, they could authorize their bank to share the necessary credentials with the utility provider. SecureKey says the crux of the value proposition here is to remove friction for consumers as they register for new services, while still maintaining a high level of security to meet regulated industry standards. The network is in its testing phase right now and the launch is planned for later this year. “Hyperledger Fabric is by far the most advanced permissioned-blockchain technology available today, in my opinion, both in protecting user data and allowing us to work within the context of industry and country privacy laws,” said Greg Wolfond, founder and CEO, SecureKey Technologies in a press release. “Among the many contributors to Hyperledger Fabric including SecureKey, IBM is a standout innovator that has proven that they can rapidly bring blockchain solutions to production. We are very excited to enter into this formal agreement that will benefit consumers around the world.” For banks that have recently seen at least some of their transactional relationship with consumers disrupted by mobile payment services, it puts them at the centre of a consumer’s commercial relationships and turns them into an ally in ensuring personal privacy. Comments from bank executives in the press release indicate they see the service as a way to improve their customer’s experience with digital services, enhancing their security and privacy. 2017-03-20 16:53 Brian Jackson www.itworldcanada.com 39 / 141 0.5 Dutch police mistakenly pays €3M for Office licenses, court tells Microsoft to keep it You can count on Dutch police to train eagles to snipe down drones from the sky, but don’t let them buy any software for you. Following a horrific administrative fail, Dutch court has ruled that local police won’t be receiving any cash back from Microsoft after mistakingly purchasing too many licenses for its Office package. train eagles to snipe down drones Back in 2008, a law enforcement employee accidentally ordered 13,656 licenses for a special home-working edition of MS Office. While inaccurate, the order went unnoticed by administration, which proceeded to wire a staggering €2,961,029 to Microsoft for the software, Dutch outlet NU.nl reports. NU.nl “We're hunting for awesome startups” Run an early-stage company? We're inviting 250 to exhibit at TNW Conference and pitch on stage! CHECK IT OUT Run an early-stage company? We're inviting 250 to exhibit at TNW Conference and pitch on stage! CHECK IT OUT Following the nightmare-inducing blunder, police filed a lawsuit asking that the purchase order be cancelled and the total amount paid be returned. This week, a court in The Hague ruled in favor of Microsoft, deeming the wrong purchase fully legal. The justification for the ruling stems from an earlier case in which the Windows -maker paid back Dutch police a total of €765,000 after another wrongly placed order in 2005. Windows Despite its generosity, Microsoft warned this is a one-time only let-off, emphasizing it has no legal obligations to comply with such requests “in the absence of any legal basis for the correction required by the police.” It seems Dutch police didn’t learn its lesson though. As court documents reveal, the ruling deemed it irrelevant that police is yet to activate most of the purchased licenses. Instead, the court argues the purchase was legal since Microsoft was fundamentally selling the right to use the software and not the usage itself. Dutch police issued a statement that they would not be appealing the decision and were glad with the clarification supplied by the court, nu.nl further adds. In addition to the massive payment, police will also have to foot €10,000 in legal fees. Ouch. on NU.nl on NU.nl Read next: Instagram now lets you save live videos for later Instagram now lets you save live videos for later Apps Microsoft Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 16:52 Mix feedproxy.google.com 40 / 141 0.9 Leading economies are stragglers in the world of fintech I’ve blogged about how I see leadership in the developing (developed now) economies of China and India, and the newer innovation models of emerging economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, but not quite in the way in which I see them now. The more I think about it, we have three major fintech models, each with their own unique blend of thinking. blogged about The mainstream fintech discussion here in Europe and America is how to reboot the antiquated banking system. Due to the implementation of technologies from the 1960s onwards, these economies have a heavily layered structure of year upon year of relentless upgrades and recovery plans. These are the economies that talk about the challenges of legacy systems and core system upgrades, and they recognize that something radical has to be done. Due to the antiquated nature of the infrastructure of these economies – most of which pre-dates the internet – I call them legacy economies. The fintech in these legacy economies approach things in three ways: Broaden the financial offer to those who have been underserved or unserved in these markets, for example Funding Circle for SMEs and SoFi for students; Funding Circle SoFi Remove the inefficiencies inside banks, such as the cost overheads of the client onboarding processes; and/or Remove the friction in the customer journey by making things far easier, as Stripe and Square aim to do. Stripe Square “This event was off the charts” Gary Vaynerchuk was so impressed with TNW Conference 2016 he paused mid-talk to applaud us. FIND OUT WHY Gary Vaynerchuk was so impressed with TNW Conference 2016 he paused mid-talk to applaud us. FIND OUT WHY However, all of the fintech radar ends up focussing on the incumbent’s existing way of doing things and, as a consequence, ways of inventing faster horses or horses with bells and whistles. Then there is the bewildering speed at which China and India have moved towards demonetization, through innovation ( Ant , Tencent and Baidu ), but also through government mandate ( Aadhaar , UPI ). Ant Tencent Baidu Aadhaar UPI Both economies are what Jim O’Neill threw into the BRICs discussion of 2003, although Brazil and Russia have not performed nearly as well economically or technologically as China and India. For these reasons, I see the fintech in China and India as demonstrating characteristics of growth economies. They started with nothing and built from the ground up. Unlike Europe and America, who are adding fintech to what was there before, China and India (and other nations like Poland and Turkey) began their journey with not much there. Their journey began in the late 1990s, with an internet-enabled platform right from the beginning. That is why the Indian ICICI bank was one of the first to offer Facebook customer servicing , along with Turkish bank DenizBank. Meanwhile, as I blogged on TNW the other day , Ant Financial are taking over the mobile payments world. Their vision is based upon being an integrated Facebook, Amazon and PayPal all-in-one, just like the other Chinese internet giants Tencent and Baidu. These firms were unencumbered by history and legacy, and hence built from a clean vision up, rather than trying to retrofit their ideas into old markets – which is why Facebook, Amazon and PayPal are segregated. Facebook customer servicing I blogged on TNW the other day The growth economies are thus notable for an unencumbered vision of leveraging the network, and their unencumbered vision will allow them to go globally without shackles, unlike their American counterparts. And then we have the innovation economies. These are the economies that are rapidly uplifting from poverty to consumption, and include many of the Sub-Saharan African countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Mali – as well as Pakistan, Afghanistan and their brethren, the Philippines, Indonesia and much of South America. I call these the innovation economies, as they pretty much had nothing until the mobile network appeared. I’ve blogged about that a lot lately, so don’t want to do it again, except to say that mobile financial inclusion is the most important development since banking first appeared. Secondly, that the images most people have of these countries in what they call the emerging markets are wrong. That was quite clear from my cut and paste of Bill Gates’ stakeholder letter for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. cut and paste In summary, as that covers it for this post, you have the Legacy West, the Growth East and the Innovative Emerging. Something like that anyway and, going back to where I started, if you are looking for the next generation financial system, you definitely will not find it in the Legacy West. That will show you the next generation of the existing system. You need to look to the emerging markets specifically, as they are leap-frogging all of us. A great example is that the emerging economies will show us the next digital identity scheme, as this is critical to inclusion. Watch this space. Chris Skinner will be speaking about the intriguing concept of the Semantic Bank at TNW Conference in May, check out our other great speakers here and don’t miss out on the Early Bird discount tickets. Chris Skinner TNW Conference our other great speakers here the Early Bird discount tickets Read next: Dutch police mistakenly pays €3M for Office licenses, court tells Microsoft to keep it Dutch police mistakenly pays €3M for Office licenses, court tells Microsoft to keep it Money TNW Conference Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 16:43 Chris Skinner feedproxy.google.com 41 / 141 1.8 Teen-Programmed AI Spits Rhymes Like Kanye West On a bet from peers in his high school programming club, a teenager in West Virginia taught himself to build an artificial intelligence program that can rap like Kanye West, according to news reports. Seventeen-year-old Robbie Barrat thought that artificial intelligence (AI) could accomplish tasks better than humans, and his high school programming club told him to prove it, reported Quartz. Using open-source code and 6,000 Kanye West lines, Barrat built a neural network that could mimic the superstar rapper. Barrat completed the project in a week and showed the program to his peers at their next club meeting, according to Quartz. It took one afternoon to write most of the code, Barrat said, but a few more days to optimize the AI's results. The program can now write original material and rap, even using semi-appropriate pauses, reported Quartz. [ Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures ] "Originally, it just rearranged existing rap lyrics, but now it can actually write word by word," Barrat told Quartz. At first, the challenge came in understanding where the neural network went wrong, which Barrat said was difficult because machine learning models are not very transparent. The teen therefore relied on open-source code and different software to refine the AI program, according to Quartz. Now, Barrat is developing AI programs that can produce different types of art. For example, he has already built a neural network that can write piano melodies, according to Quartz. Next up: abstract art. Original article on Live Science . 2017-03-20 16:38 Kacey Deamer www.livescience.com 42 / 141 1.6 Some retailers might not survive until the end of the year, eBay CEO says The 2016 holiday season may have been a historic turning point that will take down players in the retail industry, eBay CEO Devin Wenig said. "The fourth quarter of last holiday season was a really important moment," Wenig told CNBC's " Closing Bell " from the Shoptalk Conference in Las Vegas. "I think it was an inflection point where that was the end of retail as we know it. And I do think the restructuring of this industry is going to happen faster than a lot of people think.... the fourth quarter is the moment that people will look back on and say, 'That's when the current structure of the industry was irretrievable.'" Stores that can't keep up could be brought to reckoning by the end of this year, Wenig said. "I'm not sure all the retailers are going to even make it, in a healthy economy, to this holiday season," Wenig said. "And I do think you are going to see drastic changes in store footprints and what stores do. " Department stores J. C. Penney, Macy's and Sears have collectively announced hundreds of store closures slated for this year. Amazon, meanwhile, had its best holiday shopping season ever. Wenig said he doesn't think stores are completely going away, but that stores must be a "mini distribution center" to succeed. "I think the complete death of stores has been greatly exaggerated," Wenig said. "The consumer wants stores. The entire world will not be online. But there are both capacity and utility issues in retail. People don't like poor store experiences. " EBay has challenges of its own. EBay was the original online marketplace, but is no longer the only one. The company now competes for shoppers dollars with Amazon , Walmart , Etsy and others. Wenig has a number of strategies to capture consumers less familiar with what eBay can offer — from artificial intelligence bots, to new search technology. On Monday, eBay announced that — starting this summer — it will guarantee three-day delivery on more than 20 million items in the U. S. Millions of those items will also come with free shipping and shoppers will be able to filter items by one-and twoday delivery. "Most people shop eBay in their passions and their interests — as much as the things they need, the things they love," Wenig said. "But we know that there's a group of our buyer segment that want certainty. They want speed. " Then there are opportunities in emerging markets. An Indian news source, The Economic Times , reported that Indian e-commerce company Flipkart is in talks on a funding round of up to $1.5 billion with eBay and China's Tencent. Wenig declined to comment on the rumor, but talked broadly about eBay's strategy in India. "The Indian market is important to us," Wenig said. "We're always looking at the possibilities to win in every market we compete in. But eBay India is a major player in that market, and we are investing in it, and we'll continue to invest in it. " Meanwhile, eBay must wrestle with policy changes at home, including proposals of border taxes and immigration reform that critics say could hurt the retail industry. Wenig said he doesn't plan to be shy in his advocacy of responsible immigration and trade. "I absolutely want the president of the United States to succeed," Wenig said. "I'm the CEO of an American business and I'm an American citizen. .... With that said, we're going to speak up about issues that for us, aren't about politics, they're about our business. " — with reporting from CNBC's Courtney Reagan, Lauren Thomas and Harriet Taylor. 2017-03-20 16:29 Anita Balakrishnan www.cnbc.com 43 / 141 1.3 Study: Fake news more likely to be trusted if shared by the right person A new study confirms what you already suspect: Some people will believe anything if the right person shares it on Facebook. The Media Insight study , funded by the American Press Institute and AP-NORC, interviewed a sample of 1,489 adults on AP-NORC’s survey panel in the period between November and December last year. Media Insight created a series of fake social media posts sharing two identical articles from different sources — one article being published by the Associated Press, and the other by a fake site called DailyNewsReview. The Media Insight study “We're hunting for awesome startups” Run an early-stage company? We're inviting 250 to exhibit at TNW Conference and pitch on stage! CHECK IT OUT Run an early-stage company? We're inviting 250 to exhibit at TNW Conference and pitch on stage! CHECK IT OUT The participants were shown a mock-up social media post that showed the story being shared by a source, which could be anyone from Oprah to the US Surgeon General. About half of the participants were assigned a sharer they said earlier they would trust, while the other half weren’t. 50 percent of participants said they trusted the story’s facts if it was shared by someone they trusted, while only 34 percent said so if the story was shared by anyone else. Across the board, the people surveyed were more likely to trust the story, find it entertaining, and believe it to be wellreported if it was shared by a trusted person. Also, about half of the participants could remember who shared the article when asked later, while only two in 10 could identify the source. This might explain why fake news outpaced real news last year, and makes Facebook’s efforts to fix the problem a little more important. Without realizing it, we may be relying a little too much on sharers for accurate news stories. fake news outpaced real news fix the problem 'Who Shared It?': News to Trust on 'Who Shared It?': News to Trust on Distract How Americans Social Media on How Americans Social Media on Decide What Media Insight Decide What Media Insight Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 16:28 Rachel Kaser feedproxy.google.com 44 / 141 0.2 Wells Fargo checking account openings plummet amid scandal fallout – Silicon Valley SAN FRANCISCO — Wells Fargo suffered a nosedive in openings of new checking accounts during February, an indication that a scandal over bogus accounts lingers over the company, the embattled bank reported Monday. However, customer loyalty scores improved for the fourth consecutive month during February, although compared to the same month in 2016, the loyalty ratings were weaker, the bank said . “We’re pleased that our customer experience survey scores increased for the fourth consecutive month,” said Tim Sloan, Wells Fargo’s chief executive officer. During February, compared to the same month in 2016, the number of new checking accounts that were opened at the bank plummeted 43 percent. Applications for credit cards plunged 55 percent in February compared to the similar period in 2016. Total customer interactions with the bank fell 11 percent in February compared to same month the year before, the bank reported. “It will take time for us to work through the changes we are making in our business,” said Mary Mack, head of community banking with Wells Fargo. In September, Wells Fargo was fined $185 million after revelations emerged that bank employees opened up to 2.1 million bogus checking and credit accounts without the permission of its customers. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo fired 5,300 employees, and eventually, John Stumpf, who was the chief executive officer who presided over a culture of high-pressure sales practices, retired and was obliged to forfeit $41 million in compensation. “We remain focused on strengthening our relationships with existing customers and building new ones with potential customers,” Mack said. 2017-03-20 16:24 By George www.siliconvalley.com 45 / 141 2.2 US says Canadian accused in Yahoo hack poses flight risk A Canadian man accused of breaking into hundreds of millions of Yahoo email accounts poses an "extremely high flight risk" due to alleged ties to Russian intelligence agents, U. S. authorities say. U. S. law enforcement officials call Karim Baratov a "hacker-for-hire" paid by members of the Russian Federal Security Service. In an application for arrest filed with an Ontario court, they say Baratov has the money to leave Canada and the ability to destroy evidence related to his alleged activities while on the run. Baratov was arrested under the extradition act last Tuesday. Authorities say he and three others were indicted for computer hacking, economic espionage and other crimes. Prosecutors said that the defendants used a technique known as "spear-phishing" to dupe Yahoo users into thinking they were receiving legitimate emails to break into at least 500 million accounts in search of personal information and financial data such as gift card and credit card numbers. A bail hearing is scheduled for Baratov on April 5. Baratov's lawyer, Amedeo Dicarlo, has said the allegations against his client are unfounded. Dicarlo said he will seek to have Baratov released and plans to fight an extradition order. He declined to discuss Baratov's personal or professional life, describing successful entrepreneur. him only as a In documents filed with the Canadian court prior to his detention, U. S. authorities warned that if Baratov found out about the warrant for his arrest before it could be carried out, he might attempt to flee. They pointed to the case of one of Baratov's alleged co-conspirators, Alexsey Belan, who was previously arrested for another matter in Greece in 2013 and was to be extradited to the United States. Belan was released on bail while waiting for his extradition hearing and fled to Russia , where he "benefited from the protection afforded by Russian government officials," according to the documents. Belan had previously been indicted in 2012 and 2013 and was named one of FBI's most wanted cyber-criminals in November 2013. Baratov appeared to live a lavish lifestyle, which he documented on public social media accounts such as Instagram , posting photos of luxury cars and money. 2017-03-20 16:24 By abcnews.go.com 46 / 141 1.3 Google Maps can now save your parking spot Google Maps just added a small but useful update: It can now save where you parked. Google Maps As first spotted by Ars Technica , the latest Android app version (9.49) shows a new “save your parking option” when you tap on your blue location dot. Tap on this and Google will save your rough location (you can enter the exact location too), and give you the option to write notes, add photos, or even set a timer. That last option is particularly useful if you’re parked at a meter and need to make sure to leave or refill it before you get a ticket. Ars Technica Android Ever been to a tech festival? TNW Conference won best European Event 2016 for our festival vibe. See what's in store for 2017. LEARN MORE TNW Conference won best European Event 2016 for our festival vibe. See what's in store for 2017. LEARN MORE The parking notification will remain in maps until you dismiss it by pressing “clear” and you can also share the parking location if you need to rendezvous with someone. It’s a pretty thorough implementation for a small new feature. The only problem is that the feature is pretty obscure; I didn’t even know I could tap on the blue dot until I read the Ars Technica piece. It would be nice if Google placed the option in the side menu or somewhere a bit more visible. I also see no reason why you couldn’t just add a parking spot to a dropped pin anywhere on the map instead of just your current location (although, again, you can modify the location after you’ve saved the spot). Still, it’s a welcome feature for people who actually drive. No word on when the feature will come to iOS , but we imagine it’s only a matter of time. iOS Google Maps adds a sweet new parking spot saver on Ars Technica Google Maps adds a sweet new parking spot saver on Ars Technica Apps Google Maps Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 16:09 Napier Lopez feedproxy.google.com 47 / 141 0.9 Is 90 the New 80? Most 90Somethings Feel Healthy Perhaps 90 is the new 80: A new analysis finds that many Americans who reach age 90 and beyond say they are in good health. Few 90-somethings in the study showed signs of depression or cognitive problems, although they took a lot of medications and had difficulty getting around, according to the findings, released today (March 20) in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. "These data provide a snapshot of Americans' health at age 90, which will help our health care system prepare for the needs of long-lived adults," said the study's lead author, Michelle Odden, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Oregon State University. [ Extending Life: 7 Ways to Live Past 100 ] The findings suggest that, despite experiencing chronic diseases and disability, Americans over the age of 90 could adapt to their changing health needs and remain positive about their health, Odden told Live Science. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans age 90 years or older is expected to more than quadruple by the year 2050. In the study, researchers analyzed data from about 1,900 men and women ages 90 and older who lived in four different regions of the United States: Forsyth County, North Carolina; Sacramento County, California; Washington County, Maryland; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. All of the people in the new study were participants in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a long-running national study of heart-health risk factors in people ages 65 and older. As part of the study, each participant underwent a physical and mental health examination every year between 1989 and 1999, as well as in 2005 and 2006. Then, researchers collected follow-up data on the participants' health and well-being by telephone interview every six months through July 2015. Physical and mental health When the analysis was completed, 35 percent of the nearly 5,900 participants in the Cardiovascular Health Study had lived to at least 90 years old. Women tended to outlive men and represented about 65 percent of the group involved in the study. The participants came from a variety of living situations; some lived in the community, while others lived in assisted living facilities and nursing homes, Odden noted. Most of the women (59 percent) and men (62 percent) rated themselves as being in good, very good or excellent health. Many 90-somethings said they not only felt physically healthy, but also experienced good emotional well-being: About 77 percent of them reported no symptoms of depression. Despite this good news, the oldest of the participants also faced health challenges: About one in three of the men and women had cognitive problems, the study found. And many older adults were coping with chronic diseases. The findings revealed that people in their 90s were taking six medications regularly, on average. The most common types were medications for high blood pressure , heart health and thyroid problems. "I was surprised by the high number of prescription drugs used in this population," Odden said. Another common ailment was a problem with mobility; most of the women (75 percent) and men (59 percent) reported that they had trouble walking half a mile (0.8 kilometers). To ward off mobility issues later in life, the old adage "use it or lose it" certainly applies, Odden said. Staying active throughout life is the best prevention strategy for mobility problems down the road, she said. Follow Live Science @livescience , Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. 2017-03-20 16:07 Cari Nierenberg www.livescience.com 48 / 141 0.8 Did Braintree Payments just kill a successful Serbian taxi startup? Absence often inspires innovation. For Serbian entrepreneur Vuk Guberinic , the lack of ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft in Belgrade spurred him to launch his own taxi-hailing app, Car:Go. Vuk Guberinic Car:Go Car:Go had some initial success, but things have quickly unraveled, and now the business is in a desperate battle for its survival. According to Guberinic, this is due to the actions of Braintree Payments – the Paypal-owned company it uses to process credit cards. due to the actions of Braintree Payments Win a trip to Amsterdam! We've teamed up with Product Hunt to offer you the chance to win an all expense paid trip to TNW Conference 2017! CHECK IT OUT We've teamed up with Product Hunt to offer you the chance to win an all expense paid trip to TNW Conference 2017! CHECK IT OUT He alleges Braintree Payments transferred money to a bank account that was no longer under the control of the company, after he issued a notice to cease disbursements to that particular bank account. In addition, Guberinic also claims that Braintree Payments has failed to issue monthly card payment disbursements for the past two months. This starvation of funds has forced him to suspend operations, as he is unable to pay drivers and employees, essentially grounding a oncesuccessful taxi startup. According to Guberinic, the saga started when he discovered that his EU-based business partner had been embezzling funds from the company. As Braintree Payments isn’t available in Serbia, Car:Go was forced to use an EU-based partner in order to register for the service. After Guberinic noticed money going missing, he sent Braintree a warning email to stop further disbursements. He says this was acknowledged by the company in writing. Despite this, a further disbursement of €12,000 was sent to the EU-based account, against Guberinic’s instructions. At the time of writing, Car:Go has been unable to recover this sum. Emails obtained by TNW showed Braintree Payments acknowledging the payment was sent, but Braintree denying they did anything improper, saying it was disbursed to a “a legitimate bank account which was provided at the time of application.” The representative also added: “This case was reviewed at the highest level of EMEA Account Management. I apologize if you found the messaging to be unsatisfactory, but the funds were disbursed to a bank account you provided. Our payment services agreement does not guarantee the ability to hold a merchant’s funds upon request.” After Car:Go broke ties with its EU-based partner, it launched a UK-based subsidiary in order to handle payments. This used the WorldCore service, in order to receive disbursements from Braintree. To date, Guberinic says that he is yet to receive a single disbursement of funds. In addition to the €12,000 it transferred to the former business partner, he claims that Braintree has failed to transfer €15,000 owed to Car:Go. In an email to Braintree Payments, an emotional Guberinic said: “I had to borrow this equivalent amount of money (€27 K) to keep things alive, as you and your colleagues have assured me everything will be ok and so on, and in the past month you have not provided me a single document that payments went out at all, let alone that they came back!” Reflecting the somewhat haphazard payments ecosystem in Serbia, Car:Go allowed its users to pay for rides using five different methods. This includes bank transfers, pre-paid vouchers (similar to GreenDot’s MoneyPak), and ironically, PayPal. But card payments, processed through Braintree Payments, represented 70 percent of all revenue. As a result, Car:Go is now faced with a financial black-hole that it is unable to plug. As a result, the company has been forced to suspend operations. Speaking over Facebook Messenger, Guberinic said that while he would like to switch the company’s payment system to Stripe, this would require some development work. As he is currently unable to pay the company’s programmers, that simply isn’t possible. The Next Web reached out to Braintree Payments over email with a request for comment. While the company acknowledged our email, it has not issued a response to any of our questions at the time of publication. This post will be updated if Braintree comments. Read next: Google Maps can now save your parking spot Google Maps can now save your parking spot CES Insights Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 16:02 Matthew Hughes feedproxy.google.com 49 / 141 0.0 More than 300 Cisco switch models vulnerable to CIA hack A cache of CIA documents was dropped on the internet two weeks ago via WikiLeaks. It was a huge volume of data, some of which detailed CIA tools for breaking into smartphones and even smart TVs. Now, Cisco has said its examination of the documents points to a gaping security hole in more than 300 models of its switches. There’s no patch for this critical vulnerability, but it’s possible to mitigate the risk with some settings changes. Cisco’s security arm sent out an advisory on Friday alerting customers that the IOS and IOS XE Software Cluster were vulnerable to hacks based on the leaked documents. The 318 affected switch models are mostly in the Catalyst series, but there are also some embedded systems and IE-series switches on the list. These are enterprise devices that cost a few thousand dollars at least. So, nothing in your house is affected by this particular attack. The vulnerability is tied to the way Cisco’s Cluster Management Protocol (CMP) utilizes Telnet for internal signaling. It is possible to accidentally leave the Telnet protocol open to outside commands. This is a somewhat common mistake, and that’s what the CIA exploit is based upon. It works by feeding a malformed CMP-specific Telnet ping into the switch while establishing a new Telnet session. This can grant the remote user the power to run arbitrary code on the switch, which is essentially the holy grail of exploits. The CIA could use this method to gain full control of the device, and thus all the traffic passing through it. Cisco says there’s currently no way to patch the switch firmware to prevent this attack. The issue lies in the way vulnerable devices process Telnet commands. Specifically, they process all of them, even if no “cluster management commands” are present in the device’s configuration. There are two changes network administrators can make to prevent the attack from working. First, disable Telnet for incoming connections. If for some reason that’s not feasible for a business to disable Telnet pings, an access list can be used to strictly limit the devices that are allowed to send Telnet requests. The specific code used to gain access to the switches was not included in the documents dumped by WikiLeaks. The organization claimed it would disclose those to companies privately in order to get the holes patched. However, Motherboard reports that has yet to happen. Cisco says it will issue a patch at some point in the future, but no timeline is available. 2017-03-20 16:01 Ryan Whitwam www.extremetech.com 50 / 141 0.3 Coral reefs have another enemy: Dead zones Dead zones affect dozens of coral reefs around the world and threaten hundreds more, according to a new study by Smithsonian Institution scientists released Monday. This is the first study to find such a link, said study lead author Andrew Altieri of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. After seeing a massive coral reef die-off on the Caribbean coast of Panama in September 2010, Altieri and his team suspected it was caused by a dead zone — a low-oxygen area that kills marine life — rather than by warm or acidic ocean water, both of which are well-known causes of coral dieoffs. "Ocean warming and acidification are recognized global threats to reefs and require large-scale solutions, whereas the newly recognized threats to coral reefs caused by dead zones are more localized," Altieri said. He said his findings can be extrapolated to coral reefs worldwide, adding that such dead zones may be common in the tropics but have gone largely unreported, simply because scientists never looked for them. "Based on our analyses, we think dead zones may be underreported by an order of magnitude. " said Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and study co-author. "For every one dead zone in the tropics, there are probably 10 — nine of which have yet to be identified," she said. A dead zone occurs at the bottom of a body of water when there isn't enough oxygen in the water to support marine life. Also known as hypoxia, it's created by nutrient runoff, mostly from overapplication of fertilizer on farms in the spring. The Gulf of Mexico has an annual dead zone that typically forms in the summer, which varies in size from year to year. The Chesapeake Bay also has an annual dead zone. Nutrients such as nitrogen can spur the growth of algae, and when the algae die, their decay consumes oxygen faster than it can be brought down from the surface, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. As a result, fish, shrimp and crabs can suffocate and die. We can now add coral reefs to that list of threatened marine life, this study said. Up until now, "people really didn't think much about low oxygen as a potential cause of coral reef mortality," Altieri said. "Fortunately, dead zones can be reduced by controlling sewage and agricultural runoff into the ocean," he added. The study appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 2017-03-20 16:00 Doyle Rice rssfeeds.usatoday.com 51 / 141 1.6 Apple's next iPhone will lead to a big 'paradigm shift,' said VC Apple's the next version of the iPhone will lead to a "paradigm shift," with augmented reality as its foundation, said Gene Munster, managing partner at VC firm Loop Ventures. Augmented reality — which differs from virtual reality in that it is not completely immersive — will be the key to not just Apple's future but the future of tech. And while it may not impact the company's sales in the short-term, Muster says it will "lay the foundation of the next computing paradigm. " That shift will ultimately be good for Apple's stock, he said. "You start to get more comfortable when you put together the services side of the business on top of the augmented reality side," Munster said. Apple is investing heavily in augmented reality , though both acquisitions and hiring new talent, according to a report in Bloomberg. 2017-03-20 15:58 Chantel McGee www.cnbc.com 52 / 141 1.5 15 of the best iPad keyboard cases: get the right keys for your tablet With the iPad Pro Apple showed that it had ambitions for its slate to be more than just a humble tablet, with the official Smart Keyboard turning it into more of a laptop alternative. iPad Pro iPad Pro 9.7 keyboard cases iPad Pro 12.9 keyboard cases iPad Air 2 keyboard cases iPad Mini 4 keyboard cases iPad Mini 2 keyboard cases iPad Pro 9.7 keyboard cases iPad Pro 12.9 keyboard cases iPad Air 2 keyboard cases iPad Mini 4 keyboard cases iPad Mini 2 keyboard cases But third-party manufacturers have been making iPad keyboard cases for years, so you don’t need an iPad Pro - or an official accessory – to get your type on. With that in mind we’ve created a list containing some of the very best keyboard iPad cases for all of the currently available. Note: within each category we've ranked these from cheapest to most expensive according to prices at time of writing. The iPad Pro 9.7 is Apple's latest and arguably greatest slate, but you can make it even better with one of these keyboard cases. iPad Pro 9.7 Read our iPad Pro 9.7 review iPad Pro 9.7 review Built to last Colors: Black This keyboard doesn’t use the Smart Connector, instead pairing via Bluetooth, which means you will occasionally need to charge it. But the case it’s attached to stands out through enhanced durability, as it can protect your tablet from drops of up to 6 feet on to concrete, while a soft interior keeps your iPad’s screen clean and scratch-free. A premium option Colors: Black, Blue The Logitech Create is one of the best – and most expensive – keyboards you can get for the iPad Pro 9.7. It plugs in via the Smart Connector and draws power from the iPad itself, so it never needs charging. Once placed in typing position it will also automatically connect to your iPad Pro, so there’s no need for Bluetooth, and with full size, backlit keys there’s plenty of space to type comfortably. The Logitech Create case also has a holder for the Apple Pencil, built-in iOS shortcuts, and a sturdy cover, to keep your iPad safe. Officially good Colors: Black The official Apple Smart Keyboard also ranks among the very best, as you might expect. It’s slim and light, so it doesn’t hamper the portability of your iPad, but it also does the job it’s tasked with, as it’s reasonably spacious and works seamlessly – just connect it to the Smart Connector and get typing. The Smart Connector also keeps it powered, so you never need to juice it up, and the keys offer a reassuring spring-like tension without the bulk found on a traditional keyboard. The only real downside is the typically Apple pricing. 2017-03-20 15:54 By feedproxy.google.com 53 / 141 4.8 Visualizing Uncertain Weather March 20, 2017 — Katherine Wright 0 minute ago — Samuel L. Stanley Jr. 11 minutes ago — Daniel Barron March 20, 2017 — Jeremy Hsu 14 hours ago — Caleb A. Scharf 15 hours ago — Darren Naish 2017-03-20 15:43 Jen Christiansen blogs.scientificamerican.com 54 / 141 0.0 Searching for the origin of freshwater in the ocean The Southern Ocean is a pristine region of the Earth, and is considered to be the lungs of our climate system. Here, massive quantities of water move up from the depths to the surface, where they take up carbon dioxide and heat from the atmosphere before sinking down again. Were it not for this exchange, man-made global warming would be far more pronounced. One of the expedition's goals is to understand these important processes better. Which is why we're collecting water samples from the sea, the atmosphere and the ice during our journey – not an easy task in such harsh and constantly changing conditions! Stormy seas at the end of the world On the third leg of the journey, there continue to be almost 60 scientists on board, working on 22 research projects. A newcomer quickly realises that so many diverse interests can easily lead to conflict. In order to carry out the measurements for our project, I often have to walk through the ship for hours and negotiate the next stop when we can deploy the instruments in the water. For the first few days, it is simply the bad weather, rather than any conflict of interest, that confounds our painstakingly prepared monitoring schedule. Waves up to eight metres high prevent us from lowering the extremely heavy rosette with all its instruments and bottles into the sea. So initially, the oceanographers are only able to take a few measurements, whereas the atmospheric scientists have their hands full collecting rain and snow samples (see these blogs for stage 1 and stage 2 ). Tracking down freshwater After a couple of stormy days, our first stop is the island of South Georgia. I awake to find Akademik Treshnikov in calm water, and the ship's engine to be silent. Through the cabin porthole, I glimpse the smooth water surface, mountain peaks and clear blue sky. The storm has unexpectedly moved south, and we're at anchor in the bay at King Edward Point. I accompany my colleague Pascal Graf (see his blog ) to the island to collect water samples. Actually, we are searching for the same thing—the origin of water. While the ETH research group led by Professor Heini Wernli is interested in the atmospheric transport of the water, the EPFL project that I'm a member of is looking for the origin of the freshwater that determines the salinity of the Southern Ocean. For this project, we need to measure oxygen isotopes in seawater, which serve as a kind of fingerprint. Once we compare the seawater samples with those that Pascal and I have collected from the island, we will be able to determine how much freshwater in the form of snow and rain reaches the sea. Migrating icebergs We now sail south from South Georgia to the South Sandwich Islands. Soon we are on the main iceberg route and surrounded by icebergs as far as the eye can reach. Some are so colossal that you could build a whole village on them! These icebergs drift northward along the Antarctic Peninsula for hundreds of kilometres to meet the Circumpolar Current; they are then carried eastward like a conveyor belt , while they gradually melt. Our ship stops at a particularly massive iceberg, and a couple of researchers fly over by helicopter to bring back ice samples. We'll compare these with the seawater samples too, in order to assess how the melt water is freshening the sea. We pull slowly away from the polar waters, sailing northward, past the lonely island of Bouvet, on course to Cape Town. Our instruments are not registering any warming of the water yet, probably because winter is slowly arriving. This would also explain the large number of humpback whales travelling north, who accompany us on the past few days of the expedition, spouting water and sporting enormous tail fins. Changed water cycle freshens the Southern Ocean We are now leaving behind the colossal carpet of sea ice that spreads out over large areas of the Southern Ocean every winter and is beginning to expand again. Sea ice forms from freezing seawater; in the process, the salt dissolved in the water precipitates into the ocean below. This makes the seawater more salty. Conversely, when the ice melts, it releases freshwater into the ocean, reducing its salinity. Besides rainfall and melt water from icebergs, sea ice is the third source of freshwater in this region. Using satellite observations, we showed in an earlier study how a stronger northward transport of sea ice has reduced the salinity of the Southern Ocean over the past decades (see ETH News ). We now want to back up this theory with the more than a thousand water samples collected. The reduction in salinity enhances the stratification of the water and may be significant for the Earth's climate. Water with a low salinity is lighter than more salty water and floats like a lid on the surface. This prevents warmer and carbon dioxide-rich water to upwell from the depths, and results in an increased uptake of carbon dioxide and heat from the atmosphere at the surface. These are then subducted with the water to the lower layers. Valuable data and memories Only in a few months' time—once we have analysed and assessed all the samples in the lab— we will be able to assess to what extent the changes in sea ice, rainfall and iceberg melt are contributing to the decreasing salinity of the Southern Ocean. Only then will we know whether all the hard work on board the ship has been worthwhile. But one thing is already certain: the ACE expedition is returning with a countless amount of valuable data from the ocean, the atmosphere, the ice and the ecosystem. Over the coming years, this information will provide important insights into an area that is still largely unknown. As expedition members, we now own a wealth of unforgettable memories from a strange but wonderful part of the world, which although so remote, is so important for the climate of our planet. Explore further: Scientists unravel the process of meltwater in ocean depths 2017-03-20 15:42 phys.org 55 / 141 1.8 Neuroscience technique measures how well films will do at box office Through the study, which included 122 moviegoers, researchers were able to determine what type of content is most engaging and memorable to consumers. Neuroscience and business professor Moran Cerf and neuroscience Ph. D. researcher Sam Barnett developed a new technique using brain monitoring (electroencephalography; EEG). They measured participants' level of engagement with advertisements in real time by analyzing their brain waves. "It turns out, when our brains are truly engaged with the content we are watching, they essentially look the same as one another," Barnett said. Each film trailer was assigned a neural similarity score based on the extent to which viewers had similar brain patterns. Similar brain activity is a sign of greater engagement with the content. Higher neural similarity scores correlated directly with improved memory of the movie trailers and higher ticket sales when the films were released. Out of more than a dozen film trailers watched during the course of the four-week study, "X-Men: Days of Future Past" produced the highest neural similarity score, was remembered by the majority of viewers and ultimately earned the highest box office sales. On the other hand, "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" produced the lowest level of neural similarity, was only remembered by one out of five participants and generated a quarter of the weekly ticket sales that "X-Men" delivered. The neural similarity method also identified the peak moments of engagement. Movie trailers that achieve that moment in the first 16-21 seconds had the highest ticket sales upon release. Barnett pointed out how the neural similarity method could have helped "Muppets Most Wanted," which ran previews during the time of the study, reach its maximum potential. "'The Muppets' trailer's highest engagement came too late," Barnett said, noting that engagement in the second half of the trailer was much higher after non-puppet actors Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell and Tina Fey were introduced. "If the production company had used our neural similarity technique in their focus groups, they could have considered edits to increase the engagement and ticket sales. " Neural similarity scores predict future sales with more than 20 percent higher accuracy, in this context, compared to traditional survey methods like focus groups. Measuring brain waves in the moment without interrupting the experience helps to eliminate the risks of insincere survey responses as well as recall bias, according to Cerf and Barnett. "People are probably going to remember a trailer for movies like 'X-Men' or 'Spiderman' best because they are already familiar with the characters," Barnett added. "But with our method, we are not only testing their memory, but also how engaged they feel with the content of the advertisement as it's playing. " Through the course of the study, the researchers found that simpler content drove the highest engagement and neural similarity scores. Complexity rankings were based on the total number of words in the movie trailer, the number of unique words and the variation in the image. The simplest trailers with the fewest words and cleanest visuals achieved higher engagement and eventually higher ticket sales. Cerf and Barnett's paper, published in the prestigious Journal of Consumer Research , discusses the brain research method and its implications beyond marketing alone. Cerf and Barnett are also conducting research on how it can be used in classroom environments, sports stadiums and political campaigns. "We can use this method to measure the effectiveness of any advertisement, speech, lecture, song – anything you can think of where memory and engagement matter," Cerf said. "And we can do it more accurately than traditional methods. " Explore further: EEGs can predict a movie's success better then surveys More information: Samuel B. Barnett et al. A Ticket for Your Thoughts: Method for Predicting Movie Trailer Recall and Future Ticket Sales Using Neural Similarity among Moviegoers, Journal of Consumer Research (2017). DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucw083 2017-03-20 15:42 phys.org 56 / 141 0.0 How small can superconductors be? In 1959, physicist P. W. Anderson conjectured that superconductivity can exist only in objects that are large enough to meet certain criteria. Namely, the object's superconducting gap energy must be larger than its electronic energy level spacing—and this spacing increases as size decreases. The cutoff point (where the two values are equal) corresponds to a volume of about 100 nm 3. Until now it has not been possible to experimentally test the Anderson limit due to the challenges in observing superconducting effects at this scale. In the new study published in Nature Communications , Sergio Vlaic and coauthors at the University Paris Sciences et Lettres and French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) designed a nanosystem that allowed them to experimentally investigate the Anderson limit for the first time. The Anderson limit arises because, at very small scales, the mechanisms underlying superconductivity essentially stop working. In general, superconductivity occurs when electrons bind together to form Cooper pairs. Cooper pairs have a slightly lower energy than individual electrons, and this difference in energy is the superconducting gap energy. The Cooper pairs' lower energy inhibits electron collisions that normally create resistance. If the superconducting gap energy gets too small and vanishes—which can occur, for example, when the temperature increases—then the electron collisions resume and the object stops being a superconductor. The Anderson limit shows that small size is another way that an object may stop being a superconductor. However, unlike the effects of increasing the temperature, this is not because smaller objects have a smaller superconducting gap energy. Instead, it arises because smaller crystals have fewer electrons, and therefore fewer electron energy levels, than larger crystals do. Since the total possible electron energy of an element stays the same, regardless of size, smaller crystals have larger spacings between their electron energy levels than larger crystals do. According to Anderson, this large electronic energy level spacing should pose a problem, and he expected superconductivity to disappear when the spacing becomes larger than the superconducting gap energy. The reason for this, generally speaking, is that one consequence of increased spacing is a decrease in potential energy, which interferes with the competition between kinetic and potential energy that is necessary for superconductivity to occur. To investigate what happens to the superconductivity of objects around the Anderson limit, the scientists in the new study prepared large quantities of isolated lead nanocrystals ranging in volume from 20 to 800 nm 3 . Although they could not directly measure the superconductivity of such tiny objects, the researchers could measure something called the parity effect, which results from superconductivity. When an electron is added to a superconductor, the additional energy is partly affected by whether there is an even or odd number of electrons (the parity), which is due to the electrons forming Cooper pairs. If the electrons don't form Cooper pairs, there is no parity effect, indicating no superconductivity. Although the parity effect has previously been observed in large superconductors, this study is the first time that it has been observed in small nanocrystals approaching the Anderson limit. In accordance with Anderson's predictions from more than 50 years ago, the researchers observed the parity effect for larger nanocrystals, but not for the smallest nanocrystals below approximately 100 nm 3. The results not only validate the Anderson conjecture, but also extend to a more general area, the Richardson-Gaudin models. These models are equivalent to the conventional theory of superconductivity, the Bardeen Cooper Schrieffer theory, for very small objects. "Our experimental demonstration of the Anderson conjecture is also a demonstration of the validity of the Richardson-Gaudin models," coauthor Hervé Aubin at the University Paris Sciences et Lettres and CNRS told Phys.org. "The Richardson-Gaudin models are an important piece of theoretical works because they can be solved exactly and apply to a wide range of systems; not only to superconducting nanocrystals but also to atomic nuclei and cold fermionic atomic gas, where protons and neutrons, which are fermions like electrons, can also form Cooper pairs. " On the more practical side, the researchers expect the results to have applications in future quantum computers. "One of the most interesting applications of superconducting islands is their use as Cooper pair boxes employed in quantum bits, the elemental unit of a hypothetical quantum computer," Aubin said. "So far, Cooper pair boxes used in qubits are much larger than the Anderson limit. Upon reducing the size of the Cooper pair box, quantum computer engineers will eventually have to cope with superconductivity at the Anderson limit. " Explore further: Physicists pass spin information through a superconductor More information: Sergio Vlaic et al. "Superconducting parity effect across the Anderson limit. " Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14549 Abstract How small can superconductors be? For isolated nanoparticles subject to quantum size effects, P. W. Anderson in 1959 conjectured that superconductivity could only exist when the electronic level spacing δ is smaller than the superconducting gap energy Δ. Here we report a scanning tunnelling spectroscopy study of superconducting lead (Pb) nanocrystals grown on the (110) surface of InAs. We find that for nanocrystals of lateral size smaller than the Fermi wavelength of the 2D electron gas at the surface of InAs, the electronic transmission of the interface is weak; this leads to Coulomb blockade and enables the extraction of electron addition energy of the nanocrystals. For large nanocrystals, the addition energy displays superconducting parity effect, a direct consequence of Cooper pairing. Studying this parity effect as a function of nanocrystal volume, we find the suppression of Cooper pairing when the mean electronic level spacing overcomes the superconducting gap energy, thus demonstrating unambiguously the validity of the Anderson criterion. 2017-03-20 15:42 phys.org 57 / 141 0.5 Astronomers investigate a mysterious isolated star cluster complex Located some 62 million years away in the constellation Fornax, NGC 1316 is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky, classified as a lenticular radio galaxy. While the galaxy is dominated by old and intermediate-age stars, it shows signs of previous galaxy interactions. However, the only indicator of current star formation in this galaxy is the HII region SH2. This peculiar isolated star cluster complex is located in the southern outskirts of NGC 1316. With a ring-like morphology and an estimated age of about 100 million years, SH2 contains approximately 100 young star clusters. Although this complex has been the subject of few studies in the past, its origin still remains a mystery. In order to reveal more details of this interesting region of NGC 1316, a team of astronomers led by Tom Richtler of the University of Concepcion in Chile observed it in October 2012. The observations were carried out with the Visible MultiObject Spectrograph (VIMOS) mounted on the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. The researchers used VIMOS to study SH2's morphology, kinematics, and metallicity employing line maps, velocity maps, and line diagnostics of a few characteristic spectra. "We used the Integral Field Unit of the VIMOS instrument, where each pixel of the field corresponds to a spectrum rather than to only one intensity value as in normal imaging. Therefore, this kind of instrument provides a very efficient way of gathering astrophysical information," Richtler told Phys.org. The team conducted these observations with the main aim of testing the hypothesis of SH2 being an infalling dwarf galaxy. Richtler noted that this assumption is quite reasonable, given the shells and ripples in NGC 1316, witnessing other infalling dwarf galaxies. Moreover, SH2 has the typical size of a dwarf galaxy. "Star formation would then be initiated by the shock in the gas of the precursor of SH2. This is a phenomenon that we see quite frequently in other dwarf galaxies that accompany bigger galaxies," Richtler added. However, the strong-line diagnostic diagrams and empirical calibrations described in the paper show a high metallicity of SH2, which does not confirm this theory. The results rather favor a scenario in which a molecular cloud complex (which could form during a merger about 2 billion years ago) started a star-forming process approximately 100 million years ago. "The metal content must be low, as invariably found for dwarf galaxies. Therefore, SH2 is not an infalling dwarf galaxy, but has formed within a big gas cloud which had its origin in some galaxy interactions more than 1 billion years ago. SH2 is an example of how the still enigmatic globular cluster formation might have happened in the past," Richtler concluded. The researchers plan further observations of SH2 using VLT's other Integral Field Units, which could reveal more insights into the nature of this region. In particular, they want to know how a big molecular cloud complex could survive for 1 billion to 2 billion years without star formation, and why it has a ringlike morphology. The team will also investigate why the star formation process was so efficient in producing bound massive star clusters and not field stars. Explore further: First ultra-compact dwarf galaxy in the group NGC 5044 found More information: The globular cluster system of NGC 1316 IV. Nature of the star cluster complex SH2, arXiv:1703.00313 [astro-ph. GA], arxiv.org/abs/1703.00313 2017-03-20 15:42 phys.org 58 / 141 0.0 Nepal to strap some Everest climbers with GPS device Hundreds of climbers are expected to attempt to climb the world's highest peak in April and May, but only a few will be fitted with the devices as an experiment. The chief of Nepal's tourism department, Durga Dutta Dhakal, said the devices, costing about $300 apiece, would help locate climbers who are in trouble on the mountain so rescuers can be sent. The devices will also track the movement of the climbers while they are on Everest. The data will be checked after they get back from the mountain to determine whether they reached the summit and should be issued a climber 's certificate. Last year, an Indian couple claimed they scaled the peak and received a certificate from mountaineering authorities, but it was later determined that they had altered their photo on the summit. It was a huge embarrassment for Nepalese mountaineering authorities. Climbers only need a photo showing them on the 8,850-meter-high (29,035-foot-high) summit and a report from a government-assigned liaison official. The officials, however, rarely stay on the mountain to monitor the climbers. Climbers are also covered with heavy clothing, climbing gear and oxygen masks, making it difficult for them to be clearly recognized in photographs. The 2017 spring climbing season is expected to be busy on Everest. Hundreds of climbers were able to scale the peak last year following two years of disasters on the mountain. The 2015 season was scrapped after 19 climbers were killed and 61 injured by an avalanche at the base camp triggered by a massive earthquake. In 2014, an avalanche at the Khumbu Icefall killed 16 Sherpa guides. Explore further: Six Nepalese dead, six missing in Everest avalanche 2017-03-20 15:42 phys.org 59 / 141 0.3 Moire superstructures created using block copolymers To create ever-smaller devices, scientists have continued to look for new fabrication methods that can be used to manipulate materials at the nanoscale. One avenue of research is block copolymer (BCP) self-assembly—a means for creating patterns on extremely small nanostructures. BCPs have more than one chemically distinct polymer chain—they are connected by covalent bonds. Researchers tune attributes such as chemical composition, molecular weight and volume to cause them to self-assemble into repeating patterns. It has also been found that directed self-assembly of BCPs can be used to build templates for creating patterns that are beyond the resolution of conventional lithography. In this new effort, the researchers used a four-step process to apply the directed self-assembly of BCPs to create moiré superstructures. Moiré patterns are interference patterns created when an opaque ruled pattern with see-through gaps is laid over another similar pattern. Superstructures are structures that emerge when one structure is superimposed on another. In this effort, the team combined the two ideas to create structures with multi-micron sized grains with preferred majority phases. The team used self-formation to create a thin film BCP layer as a base using spin coating. Next, they applied solvent annealing and reactive ion etching to turn the initial layer into a hexagonal lattice of silica dots. They then repeated the process on top of the first layer using a different BCP with the lattice spaced differently. Adding the top layer resulted in converting the BCP to silica dots, which in return resulted in the creation of a moiré superstructure. The researchers note that they are not yet clear on how such structures might be used in an application, but suggest they might prove useful for creating metasurfaces with tunable optical properties. They note the structures can be modified by changing dot size and height and pitch ratio. Explore further: New computer chip manufacturing method squeezes more onto limited wafer space More information: Cong Jin et al. Preferential Alignment of Incommensurate Block Copolymer Dot Arrays Forming Moiré Superstructures, ACS Nano (2017). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b00322 Abstract Block copolymer (BCP) self-assembly is of great interest as a cost-effective method for largescale, high-resolution nanopattern fabrication. Directed self-assembly can induce long-range order and registration, reduce defect density, and enable access to patterns of higher complexity. Here we demonstrate preferential orientation of two incommensurate BCP dot arrays. A bottom layer of hexagonal silica dots is prepared via typical selfassembly from a PS-b-PDMS block copolymer. Self-assembly of a second, or top, layer of a different PS-b-PDMS block copolymer that forms a hexagonal dot pattern with different periodicity results in a predictable moiré superstructure. Four distinct moiré superstructures were demonstrated through a combination of different BCPs and different order of annealing. The registration force of the bottom layer of hexagonal dots is sufficient to direct the self-assembly of the top layer to adopt a preferred relative angle of rotation. Large-area helium ion microscopy imaging enabled quantification of the distributions of relative rotations between the two lattices in the moiré superstructures, yielding statistically meaningful results for each combination. It was also found that if the bottom layer dots were too large, the resulting moiré pattern was lost. A small reduction in the bottom layer dot size, however, resulted in largearea moiré superstructures, suggesting a specific size regime where interlayer registration forces can induce long-range preferential alignment of incommensurate BCP dot arrays. 2017-03-20 15:41 phys.org 60 / 141 0.0 Delta IV delivers daunting display powering international military WGS-9 satcom to orbit The next generation Wideband Global SATCOM-9 The next generation Wideband Global SATCOM-9 (WGS-9) military comsat mission for the U. S. Force lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV from Space Launch Complex-37 (SLC-37) on Saturday, March 18 at 8:18 p.m. EDT at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The launch and separation of the payload form the Delta upper stage was "fully successful," said Major General David D. Thompson, Vice Commander Air Force Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, CO, to our media gaggle soon after launch at the press view site on base. "The WGS-9 mission is key event celebrating the 70th anniversary of the U. S. Air Force as a separate service. The USAF was created two years after World War II ended. " "The theme of this year is 'breaking Barriers.'" WGS-9 was delivered to a supersynchronous transfer orbit atop the ULA Delta IV Medium+ rocket. The WGS-9 satellite was paid for by a six nation consortium that includes Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands amd the United States. It joins 8 earlier WGS satellite already in orbit. "WGS-9 was made possible by funding from our international partners," Thompson emphasized. It is the ninth satellite in the WGS constellation that serves as the backbone of the U. S. military's global satellite communications. "WGS provides flexible, high-capacity communications for the Nation's warfighters through procurement and operation of the satellite constellation and the associated control systems," according to the U. S. Air Force. "WGS provides worldwide flexible, high data rate and long haul communications for marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen, the White House Communication Agency, the US State Department, international partners, and other special users. " WGS-9 also counts as the second of at least a trio of launches from the Cape this March – with the possibility for a grand slam fourth at month's end – if all goes well with another SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from pad 39A. The 217 foot tall Delta IV Medium+ rocket launched in the 5,4 configuration with a 5 meter diameter payload fairing that stands 47 feet tall, and 4 solid rocket boosters to augment the first stage thrust of the single common core booster. The payload fairing was emblazoned with decals commemorating the 70th anniversary of the USAF, as well as Air Force, mission and ULA logos. Orbital ATK manufactures the four solid rocket motors. The Delta IV common booster core was powered by an RS-68A liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine producing 705,250 pounds of thrust at sea level. A single RL10B-2 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine powered the second stage, known as the Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS). The booster and upper stage engines are both built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. ULA constructed the Delta IV Medium+ (5,4) launch vehicle in Decatur, Alabama. The DCSS will also serve as the upper stage for the maiden launch of NASA heavy lift SLS booster on the SLS-1 launch slated for late 2018. That DCSS/SLS-1 upper stage just arrived at the Cape last week – as I witnessed and reported here. Saturday's launch marks ULA's 3rd launch in 2017 and the 118th successful launch since the company was formed in December 2006 as a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The is the seventh flight in the Medium+ (5,4) configuration; all of which were for prior WGS missions. Explore further: Awesome Atlas delivers next-gen high-speed Echostar 19 internet sat to orbit for America 2017-03-20 15:41 phys.org 61 / 141 0.0 Reports: Cognizant Could Lay Off 6,000-10,000 Employees As Part of Digital Services Shift - Page: 1 Cognizant will likely slash between 2.3 percent and 5 percent of its workforce as automation makes many of the solution provider's lower-end IT jobs redundant. The Teaneck, N. J.-based company, No. 7 on the CRN Solution Provider 500 , is expected to move forward with between 6,000 and 10,000 job cuts as the company shifts its focus from traditional to digital IT services, according to The Times of India and the Business Standard. Cognizant did not immediately respond to CRN's request for comment, but told The Times of India and the Business Standard that resizing the company's employee base is part of its standard practice. At the end of 2016, Cognizant employed more than 260,000 people globally, including 47,500 in North America and 180,000 in India, according to a filing with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). [RELATED: Cognizant CEO: Elliott Management Deal Strikes Right Balance Among Digital Growth, Higher Margins and Larger Returns ] "As part of our workforce management strategy, we conduct regular performance reviews to ensure we have the right employee skill sets necessary to meet client needs and achieve our business goals," a Cognizant spokesperson said in a statement. "This process results in changes, including some employees transitioning out of the company. " Cognizant's stock climbed $0.50 (0.85 percent) to $59.06 in trading Monday afternoon. The layoff plans were reported before the market opened Monday. The solution provider laid off between 1 percent and 2 percent of its workforce a year ago, and roughly 1 percent of its workforce two years ago, according to The Times of India. But these moves are slated to go well beyond Cognizant's routine late-March cuts of the bottom 1 percent of their workforce for non-performance. "We will leverage our scale to improve cost in 2017 and 2018 through cost optimization efforts and intelligent sourcing," said Karen McLoughlin, Cognizant's chief financial officer, during the company's February earnings call. "And we will aggressively use automation to drive the optimization of traditional offerings such as application, infrastructure, and process services. " Cognizant reached an agreement last month with activist investor Elliott Management to boost its nonGAAP operating margins from 19.5 percent in 2016 to 22 percent by 2019 by streamlining its cost structure, improving operational efficiency and aggressively employing automation to optimize traditional services. The company's non-GAAP operating margins had fallen from 20.2 percent in 2014 to 19.7 percent in 2015 to 19.5 percent last year due to increases in compensation, benefit and certain professional services costs, Cognizant said. "Agile development and the pervasive influence of technology increases the value of co-location and a consultative approach," said Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza during the company's February earnings call. 2017-03-20 15:34 Michael Novinson www.crn.com 62 / 141 0.0 Bitcoin steadies after biggest three-day tumble in over two years Having soared to an all-time high of $1,350 BTC=BTSP on the Bitstamp exchange on March 10, on speculation that regulators could approve the first U. S. bitcoin exchange traded fund the following day, the digital currency then slipped back. Its falls began accelerating on Thursday and it hit a five-week low of $944.36 on Saturday. But bitcoin recovered a little on Sunday and built on those gains on Monday, climbing around 2.5 percent to roughly $1,050 by 1815 GMT. Bitcoin experts said its steep losses were driven by a longstanding, and intensifying, row over whether and how - to increase the capacity of the "blocks" that bitcoin transactions are processed in, so as to make sure there are no delays in transactions being finalised. "The bitcoin scaling debate is a risk for the network and highlights core issues in terms of governance and this is where more nimble crypto competitors see advantages in fleshing out their capabilities sooner," said Charles Hayter, CEO of digital currency analysis website Crytocompare, in London. At the same time that bitcoin was plunging, a newer, rival "cryptocurrency" was soaring: ether. The digital currency behind Ethereum - a project that some experts say holds more potential than bitcoin - has almost tripled in value this month, jumping to record highs of around $45. Some experts said traders were selling bitcoin and buying ether, which was exacerbating the falls in the original cryptocurrency. "Traders in the space are looking for better returns in the more risky and nascent cryptos such as Dash, Monero and Ethereum (and are) looking to replicate the extraordinary returns that bitcoin saw in its early days," added Hayter. U. S. regulators dashed Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss's bitcoin ambitions earlier in the month by rejecting their application to list an exchangetraded fund linked to the digital currency. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Alison Williams) 2017-03-20 15:33 Jemima Kelly feeds.reuters.com 63 / 141 1.7 Russian pleads guilty to charge related to Citadel malware A Russian man accused of helping develop and distribute malicious software designed to steal personal financial information pleaded guilty Monday to a charge of computer fraud. Mark Vartanyan, 29, who's known to have used the online alias "Kolypto," was arrested in Norway in October 2014 and was extradited to the U. S. in December. He entered a guilty plea in federal court in Atlanta after reaching a deal to cooperate with federal prosecutors, who have agreed not to seek more than five years in prison. He's scheduled to be sentenced June 21. Vartanyan, a native of Moscow, was involved in the development, improvement, maintenance and distribution of Citadel, which infects computer systems and steals financial account credentials and personally identifiable information, prosecutor Greg D'Agincourt said in court. Starting in 2011, Citadel was marketed on inviteonly, Russian-language internet forums used by cybercriminals, and users targeted the computer networks of major financial and government institutions around the world, prosecutors have said. Industry estimates indicate it infected about 11 million computers worldwide and caused more than $500 million in losses. Vartanyan was involved in the development, improvement, maintenance and distribution of Citadel from August 2012 to January 2013 while living in Ukraine and again from April 2014 to June 2014 while living in Norway, prosecutors have said. Citadel was a top-tier malware at its height but had a relatively short run compared to some similar programs because its source code was leaked early on, making it easier for antivirus companies to spot it and block it, Mark Ray, a former FBI special agent who is now director of cyber investigations at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Atlanta, told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "What made Citadel so unique is that it was the first one that really incorporated this concept of a customer relationship development module, where the developers wanted feedback from the users on improvements and additions and new features," said Ray, who was still working for the FBI in 2014 and traveled to Norway to interview Vartanyan following his arrest. Vartanyan was one of many people who helped develop Citadel, Ray said, adding that just like with the development of legitimate software programs, developers of malware rely on different programmers with different tools and skills to build and improve their programs. Another Russian, Dimitry Belorossov of St. Petersburg, known as Rainerfox, was sentenced in September 2015 to serve 4 1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty in Atlanta to conspiring to commit computer fraud for distributing and installing Citadel onto computers using a variety of methods, prosecutors said. The Department of Justice investigation into the creator of Citadel is ongoing. 2017-03-20 15:32 By abcnews.go.com 64 / 141 1.9 Watch Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Control a Giant Mech Robot Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos got to live out every 6year-old's fantasy when he got behind the controls of a giant "mech" robot. The Verge reports that Bezos tried out the 13-foottall (4 meters) robot yesterday (March 19) at his company's private Machine Learning, Home Automation, Robotics and Space Exploration (MARS) conference. Video of the bot, developed by Hankook Mirae Technology in South Korea, first surfaced in December in promotional clips. Live Science was skeptical of the robot's existence and functionality at the time. But the new video reveals that the robot does, indeed, exist. However, it's far from clear how much the mech (a term for piloted, humanoid robots) can really do. Bezos flails the arms around using controls in the robot's torso cockpit, but the robot does not take any steps and is tethered to the ceiling, presumably for safety reasons. [ The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created ] The robot does not pick anything up in the video, either, which is notable because its developers say that one of their goals is to create piloted robots for real-world jobs, like cleaning up the Fukushima nuclear power plant that was damaged in 2011 when a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. So far, none of the footage of the mech has shown it manipulating objects. The massive bot also runs on external power, which means that, so far, it's unable to work untethered. Such limitations could be overcome. Roboticists have already developed robots that can navigate uneven terrain, including Boston Dynamics' intimidating "Big Dog" and the bipedal "Atlas" humanoid robot. Atlas can open doors, lift boxes and even right itself when pushed, and operates with an internal power source. Those bots are much smaller than the giant mech Hankook Mirae is trying to develop, however, and don't present the same safety challenges as a piloted robot. According to Hankook Mirae's website , the mech robot, nicknamed Method 2, weighs a minimum of 1.6 tons. A designer affiliated with Hankook Mirae, Vitaly Bulgarov, told Live Science in December that the giant mech has been under development for several years and is a prototype made to show off particular technologies, like the human-machine interface that controls the arms. In that case, the mech may never be used for more than demonstration purposes, while the individual technologies used to make it might be redirected to more practical designs. Whatever the ultimate function of the robot, it certainly taps into human fantasies of what robots should be. Mechs like the Method 2 design appear in the 2009 film "Avatar" as well as in "Starship Troopers" (1997) and in "Pacific Rim" (2013). The character of Ripley (played by actress Sigourney Weaver) also uses one in the classic sci-fi film "Aliens" (1986), which Bezos referenced during his ride in Method 2. "Why do I feel so much like Sigourney Weaver? " Bezos quipped. Original article on Live Science . 2017-03-20 15:12 Stephanie Pappas www.livescience.com 65 / 141 Embed 1.4 Uber's head of mapping leaves, wants to go home Share SAN FRANCISCO — Uber vice president of maps and business platform Brian McClendon is leaving the ride-hailing giant, another in a steady stream of recent departures from the troubled company. McClendon, in a statement provided by Uber, described the departure as amicable and long planned. “After 30 years away, I've decided to move back to my hometown of Lawrence, Kansas," he wrote. "My roots there run deep and traveling back a few times a year no longer seems like enough. This fall’s election and the current fiscal crisis in Kansas is driving me to more fully participate in our democracy — and I want to do that in the place I call home. " McClendon said he would be staying on as an Uber advisor. The executive's move comes on the heels of Uber president Jeff Jones' far less friendly departure. On Sunday, Jones abruptly quit the $68 billion tech company, citing his concerns about Uber's leadership issues. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is on the hunt for a second-in-command after a series of scandals that started with a former employee's blog post citing a sexist working environment. Kalanick told employees in an email Sunday that Jones was not in contention for the new COO post, which contributed to his departure. Among other Uber officials who have left in recent weeks are Gary Marcus, who led Uber AI Labs, hacker Charlie Miller of Uber's self-driving-car team, and Ed Baker, Uber's vice president of product and growth. Another high profile engineering executive, Amit Singhal, was ousted after it was discovered that he had not disclosed being the subject of a sexual discrimination lawsuit at his former place of employment, Google. 2017-03-20 15:02 Marco della rssfeeds.usatoday.com 66 / 141 1.1 The Best Action Cameras for under £250 While traditional camcorders are fine for most situations, if you want to get close-up or firstperson-perspective footage of sports and other outdoor activities, then an action camera is the answer. Action cams are smaller, lighter and more portable than their bulkier siblings, are often wearable, and sometimes waterproof. They can also be attached to pretty much anything – from skateboards, surfboards and bikes to helmets, body parts, drones, or even your pets. Here are our recommended models for under £250. Measuring 2.8 x 2.7 x 1.2 inches and weighing 4.2 ounces, the GoPro Hero+ (pictured above) is a solid entry-level action camera at a fairly reasonable price. With a rugged and durable design to survive dirt, sand and the toughest of outdoor pursuits, it's also waterproofed to a depth of 40 metres for capturing footage of aquatic activities. Both 720p HD and 1080p Full HD can be recorded at 30 and 60fps (frames per second). You can also record in GoPro's SuperView mode, which stretches the edges of a 4:3 frame to 16:9, but only at 720p60. Along with these video modes, you can capture 8-megapixel stills on the go. Pairing the Hero+ with the iOS and Android GoPro app via WiFi means you can use your phone (or a GoPro Smart Remote ) to set up shots remotely, but you can't access a stream of what the camera's seeing once you hit record. Other features include a front LCD screen (but no rear live view LCD), the QuikCapture function (which turns the device into a one-button camera for capturing key moments), a very wide field of view and a broad range of compatible mounts. The lowest priced model in our rundown, the Polaroid Cube is also the most miniature, measuring a tiny 1.4 x 1.4 x 1.4 inches. Its rubberised body (available in either black, blue or red) is surprisingly rugged for such a dinky device, being shock-proofed and cold-proofed, as well as waterproofed to a depth of six feet. You can record both 720p HD or 1080p Full HD video on the Polaroid Cube (both limited to 30fps), which looks great, but the 6-megapixel still images are less impressive. The device mounts magnetically or with a clip (a variety of alternative mounts can be purchased separately), while an inbuilt rechargeable battery records 90 continuous minutes of footage per charge. A 1.5-inch, 2.6-ounce cube, the compact GoPro Hero Session (formerly known as the Hero4 Session) is waterproofed to a depth of 10 metres straight from the box (without the need for an extra casing to be added, unlike most other models), offers solid audio and shoots great quality video. There are a number of video recording modes, ranging from 1440p 2K/Quad HD at 30fps to 480p at 120fps, while still images are captured at 8megapixels, with options for time-lapse, burst, or single shot modes. Again, the Hero Session can be controlled via the iOS and Android Go Pro app or the Smart Remote control. The camera uses a proprietary mounting hinge with a quick-release latch, rather than the standard threaded tripod mount. Also included in the package are a number of mounting accessories, one of which swivels easily forward and backward, while a ball joint mount allows for finer adjustments in any direction. Measuring 2.32 x 1.29 x 4.1 inches, at more than six ounces in weight the Drift HD Ghost-S is relatively heavy for an action camera. Plus points include the durable and waterproof rubberised plastic body (allowing you to use the camera underwater without an additional case), a useful remote, a large 2-inch display and a clever swivelling lens that turns up to 300 degrees – meaning you can mount the device any way you want. Producing decent 12-megapixel stills, this flexible model also lets you record 1080p video at 25, 30, 50 and up to 60fps, with fields of view ranging from 90, 127 and 160 degrees. The video quality is not the best we've seen, however, making this a comparatively costly choice for its specifications. 2017-03-20 15:01 Stephen Eastwood uk.pcmag.com 67 / 141 0.0 Cisco, Dell EMC, HPE Locked In Cloud Infrastructure Dogfight - Page: 1 The market for the hardware and software that form The market for the hardware and software that form the infrastructure for public and private clouds has become a red-hot battleground for the industry's top vendors, and new research suggests Cisco, Dell EMC and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise are in a virtual deadlock atop that strategically important territory. Cisco holds "a commanding lead" in public cloud infrastructure, Synergy Research Group said, while Dell EMC pulled into the market ahead of HPE in private cloud. The cloud infrastructure equipment market – including servers, storage, networking, operating systems and virtualization software – surpassed $70 billion last year, and Cisco, Dell EMC and HPE together claimed more than a third of the total market in the fourth quarter, according to Synergy. [Related : Dell Boomi CEO: Acquisition Of ManyWho Will Help Partners 'Bring Solutions To Market Very Rapidly' ] Dell EMC's ascendance in the cloud infrastructure market is the result of the merger between the two companies, and Stephen Monteros, senior vice president of Sigmanet, an Ontario, Calif., solution provider that works with several vendors, said Synergy's data shows that the blockbuster merger was a smart move. "It looks like a pretty good move for Dell, EMC and customers that are looking for a consolidation of vendors and of approach. " In fact, each of the three vendors claimed an 11.5 percent market share during the quarter, thanks to Dell's September acquisition of EMC. In the years before the Dell EMC merger, the cloud infrastructure equipment market was dominated by Cisco and HPE. The merger brought together server powerhouse Dell and data storage giant EMC and put the combined company on equal footing in the cloud market with cloud server leader HPE and networking giant Cisco, Synergy said. Since the $58 billion Dell EMC merger, company executives have been pushing solution providers to sell across the firm's portfolio of server, storage and networking products, as well as hyper-convergence products. The cloud market, Dell EMC executives argue, will be a hybrid of public and private for years into the future as customers use public cloud services for some things and private cloud for others. Contract manufacturers, who make cloud infrastructure equipment sold by other companies, altogether accounted for a share of the market similar to the top three vendor brands, driven by demand from hyper-scale cloud providers. Strength in server operating systems and virtualization applications gave Microsoft an almost 8 percent market share during the quarter, and IBM registered slightly more than a 6 percent share, Synergy said. 2017-03-20 15:01 Matt Brown www.crn.com 68 / 141 0.5 Sir Martin Sorrell says Google must 'place ads in the right way' Marks and Spencer has become the latest firm to pull its online advertising from Google's platforms over fears it is appearing next to extremist content. Sir Martin Sorrell, the head of WPP; the world's largest advertising firm, told the Radio 4's World at One that Google must now demonstrate they are more in control "of the places where the adverts appear". Sir Martin called for a "white list of appropriate sites and a black list of inappropriate sites" where advertisers' content "would not appear on the black list". 2017-03-20 14:53 www.bbc.co.uk 69 / 141 0.7 Astronomers to peer into a black hole for first time with new Event Horizon Telescope Black holes are regions of space inside which the pull of gravity is so strong that nothing – not even light – can escape. Their existence was predicted mathematically by Karl Schwarzchild in 1915, as a solution to equations posed in Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Astronomers have had circumstantial evidence for many decades that supermassive black holes – a million to a billion times more massive than our sun – lie at the hearts of massive galaxies. That's because they can see the gravitational pull they have on stars orbiting around the galactic centre. When overfed with material from the surrounding galactic environment, they also eject detectable plumes or jets of plasma to speeds close to that of light. Last year, the LIGO experiment provided even more proof by famously detecting ripples in spacetime caused by two medium-mass black holes that merged millions of years ago. But while we now know that black holes exist, questions regarding their origin, evolution and influence in the universe remain at the forefront of modern astronomy. Catching a tiny spot on the sky On April 5-14 2017, the team behind the Event Horizon Telescope hopes to test the fundamental theories of black-hole physics by attempting to take the first ever image of a black hole's event horizon (the point at which theory predicts nothing can escape). By connecting a global array of radio telescopes together to form the equivalent of a giant Earth-sized telescope – using a technique known as Very Long Baseline Interferometry and Earthaperture synthesis – scientists will peer into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy where a black hole that is 4m times more massive than our sun – Sagittarius A* – lurks. Astronomers know there is a disk of dust and gas orbiting around the black hole. The path the light from this material takes will be distorted in the gravitational field of the black hole. Its brightness and colour are also expected to be altered in predictable ways. The tell-tale signature astronomers hope to see with the Event Horizon Telescope is a bright crescent shape rather than a disk. And they may even see the shadow of the black hole's event horizon against the backdrop of this brightly shining swirling material. The array connects nine stations spanning the globe – some individual telescopes, others collections of telescopes – in Antarctica, Chile, Hawaii, Spain, Mexico and Arizona. The "virtual telescope" has been in development for many years and the technology has been tested. However, these tests initially revealed a limited sensitivity and an angular resolution that was insufficient to probe down to the scales needed to reach the black hole. But the addition of sensitive new arrays of telescopes – including the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile and the South Pole Telescope – will give the network a much-needed boost in power. It's rather like putting on spectacles and suddenly being able to see both headlights from an oncoming car rather than a single blur of light. The black hole is a compact source on the sky – its view at optical wavelengths (light that we can see) is completely blocked by large quantities of dust and gas. However, telescopes with sufficient resolution and operating at longer, radio millimetre wavelengths can peer through this cosmic fog. The resolution of any kind of telescope – the finest detail that can be discerned and measured – is usually quoted as a small angle corresponding to the ratio of an object's size to its distance. The angular size of the moon as seen from the Earth is about half a degree, or 1800 arc seconds. For any telescope, the bigger its aperture, the smaller the detail that can be resolved. The resolution of a single radio telescope (typically with an aperture of 100 metres) is roughly about 60 arc seconds. This is comparable to the resolution of the unaided human eye and about a sixtieth of the apparent diameter of the full moon. But by connecting many telescopes, the Event Horizon Telescope will be about to achieve a resolution of 15-20 microarcsecond (0,000015 arcseconds), corresponding to being able to spy a grape at the distance of the moon. What's at stake? Although the practice of connecting many telescopes in this way is well known, particular challenges lie ahead for the Event Horizon Telescope. The data recorded at each station in the network will be shipped to a central processing facility where a supercomputer will carefully combine all the data. Different weather, atmospheric and telescope conditions at each site will require meticulous calibration of the data so that scientists can be sure any features they find in the final images are not artefacts. If it works, imaging the material inside the black hole region with angular resolutions comparable to that of its event horizon will open a new era of black hole studies and solve a number of big questions: do event horizons even exist? Does Einstein's theory work in this region of extreme strong gravity or do we need a new theory to describe gravity this close to a black hole? Also, how are black holes fed and how is material ejected? It may even be possible to image the black holes at the centre of nearby galaxies, such as the giant elliptical galaxy that lies at the heart of our local cluster of galaxies. Ultimately, the combination of mathematical theory and deep physical insight, global international scientific collaborations and remarkable, tenacious long-term advances in cutting edge experimental physics and engineering look set to make revealing the nature of spacetime a defining feature of early 21st century science. Explore further: Scientists readying to create first image of a black hole 2017-03-20 14:49 phys.org 70 / 141 0.6 Raising the (G)bar for antimatter exploration GBAR (Gravitational Behaviour of Antihydrogen at Rest), a new experiment at CERN, is preparing to explore one aspect of this puzzle – what is the effect of gravity on antimatter? While theories exist as to whether antimatter will behave like matter or not, a definitive experimental result is still missing. GBAR will measure the effect of gravity on antihydrogen atoms. Located in the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) hall, GBAR is the first of five experiments that will be connected to the new ELENA deceleration ring. On 1 March, the first component of the experiment was installed – a linear accelerator (linac). In sharp contrast to the LHC's chain of big accelerators and fast particles, the AD world of antimatter is small and its particles are as slow as they come. The GBAR linac is only 1.2 metres long and it will be used to create positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. The experiment will use antiprotons supplied by ELENA and positrons created by the linac to produce antihydrogen ions. They consist of one antiproton and two positrons, and their positive charge makes them significantly easier to manipulate. With the help of lasers, their velocity will be reduced to half a metre per second. This will allow them to be directed to a fixed point. Then, trapped by an electric field, one of their positrons will be removed with a laser, which will make them neutral again. The only force acting on them at this point will be gravity and they will be free to make a 20-centimetre fall, during which researchers will observe their behaviour. The results might turn out to be very exciting. As the spokesperson of GBAR, Patrice Pérez, explains: "Einstein's Equivalence Principle states that the trajectory of a particle is independent of its composition and internal structure when it is only submitted to gravitational forces. If we find out that gravity has a different effect on antimatter, this would mean that we still have a lot to learn about the universe. " Five other experiments are based at the Antiproton Decelerator, two of which – AEGIS and ALPHA – are also studying the effect of gravity on antimatter. Explore further: A new ring to slow down antimatter 2017-03-20 14:49 phys.org 71 / 141 1.7 Best iPad apps 2017: download these now It's the apps that really set iOS apart from other platforms - there are higher quality apps available on the App Store for the iPad than any other tablet. So which ones are worth your cash? And which are the best free apps? Luckily for you we've tested thousands of the best iPad apps so that you don't have to. So read on for our selection of the best iPad apps - the definitive list of what applications you need to download for your iPad now. If you are looking for games, then head over to Best iPad games - where we showcase the greatest games around for your iOS device. Or if you're using an iPhone 7 (or one of its excellent brethren) head over to our best iPhone apps list. On iPhone, Hipstamatic lets you switch between a virtual retro camera and a sleek modern camera app. On iPad, it all goes a bit weird, with the former option giving you a camera floating in space, and the latter making you wonder why you’d use a tablet for taking snaps. But Hipstamatic nonetheless gets a recommendation on the basis of other things it does. Load an image from your Camera Roll, and you can delve into Hipstamatic’s editor. If you’re in a hurry, select a predefined style – Vintage; Cinematic; Blogger – and export. Should you fancy a bit more fine-tuning, you can experiment with lenses, film, and flashes. And plenty of other adjustments are available, too, such as cropping, vignettes, curves, and a really nice depth of field effect. Wikipedia is, in reality, a massive web of articles, but when browsing, it looks more like a sea of links. WikiLinks rethinks exploring Wikipedia through the use of spider diagrams, providing a clever visual overview of the relationship between subjects. On iPhone, you switch between views, but the app makes use of the iPad’s larger display by splitting it in two. On the left is your mind map, which grows as you tap on new articles. On the right is your current selection to peruse. As a reader, WikiLinks is less remarkable – article sections irritatingly begin life collapsed, and it all feels a bit cluttered. But when using Wikipedia for research, no other app is so helpful in enabling you to see the links between the site’s many pages. If your iPad’s sitting around doing nothing while you work on a Mac or PC, Duet Display can turn it into a handy second screen for your desktop or notebook. You fire up the app on your iPad and a companion app on your computer, and connect the two devices using a cable – like it’s 2005 or something. Minimalist fetishists might grumble, but a wired connection means there’s almost no lag – even when using Duet Display’s highest detail settings and frame rates. With macOS Sierra, you also get one extra goodie: a virtual Touch Bar. So you needn’t splash out on a brand-new MacBook Pro to check out Apple’s latest interface innovation – you can use Duet Display instead. One of the geekier apps around – but also one that showcases the range of a fully equipped iPad – iStat 3 is all about remote-monitoring Macs, PCs and servers. Setup is almost comically simple: launch iStat Server on a computer, then install iStat 3 on your iPad. If the devices are on the same network, everything should start communicating; if not, enter some network details and you should be good to go. iStat itself is all about graphs and histories. It’ll show all kinds of wiggly lines and numbers to represent CPU, memory, disk space, network usage, fan speeds, and temperatures. You can check out what’s happened over the past hour, day, week, month, or year, along with performing a ping or traceroute. Naturally, this kind of thing largely lends itself to professional users, but there are home applications, too – for example, keeping an eye on a home server that sends media around your house – and iStat’s user-friendliness makes it approachable for anyone. It’s fair to say that the original WAVESTATION was one of the weirder synths that showed up in the 1990s. It worked by combining and sequencing multiple waveforms, allowing you to morph and mix what you heard by twiddling a joystick. The result was a synth where you could conceivably fashion an engaging loop simply by holding down a single key. As ever, the digital recreation is authentic, but KORG iWAVESTATION adds further smarts by way of enabling editing of sounds through the touchscreen. You also get a delightful pad-based controller option for tapping out sounds. There are some drawbacks, though, in this not being the most intuitive of synths to dig deep into, and the morphing joystick not being available on all screens. However, if you want an iPad synth that sounds like nothing else out there, and with a huge library of noises to explore, iWAVESTATION is an excellent choice. Carl Burton’s Islands: Non-Places is listed in the App Store as a game, but don’t believe a word of it. Really, this ten-scene artistic endeavor is a surreal, mesmerizing semi-interactive animated film. Each ‘non-place’ is somewhere you’d usually ignore or stay only on a very temporary basis, but here, the mundane is subverted through unusual and unexpected juxtapositions. You’ll find yourself staring at a luggage carousel, before the bags begin a lazy Mexican wave. Elsewhere, palm trees ride mall escalators, while a run-of-the-mill seating area is suddenly flooded, a warning siren slicing its way through inane background chatter. The result is frequently disorientating, but Islands also has the capacity to surprise, and is often oddly beautiful. There are plenty of apps out there that attempt to transform images into something that might once have appeared on the screen of an ancient piece of computer hardware, but none match Retrospecs . You either take a photo or load an image from your iPad and then select a preset. You get everything from the chunky character-oriented Commodore PET, through to relatively powerful fare such as the detailed 16-bit graphics of the SNES and Atari ST. From an authenticity standpoint, Retrospecs wins out, but the app also affords plenty of tweaking potential. You can switch modes for those machines that offered multiple resolutions, choose alternate dither patterns, and adjust contrast, vibrancy, and other settings. Best of all, you can use any of the existing presets as the basis for your own unique slice of retro-filter joy. It’s concert time for the motley crew of Toca Band , in this toy designed to help kids explore music creatively. (And, um, adults who might get sucked in a bit.) It’s all very simple: drag weird cartoon characters (each of which plays their own instrument) to spots on the stage, and they automatically jam along with the only song that Toca Band appears to know. Lob a musician at the star and they start a unique solo improv with a modicum of user control. Toca Band is a very sweet app, which even toddlers should be able to grasp. A word of warning, though: that Toca Band riff will quickly become an earworm you’ll be hard pressed to remove. iA Writer provides a writing environment suitably focused for iPad, but that also makes nods to the desktop. The main screen is smartly designed, with a custom keyboard bar offering Markdown and navigation buttons; if you’re using a mechanical keyboard, standard shortcuts are supported. Further focus comes by way of a typewriter mode (auto-scrolling to the area you’re editing) and graying out lines other than the one you’re working on. Elsewhere, you get an optional live character count, iCloud sync, and a robust Markdown preview. We’d like to see a split-screen mode for the last of those (as per the Mac version), but otherwise iA Writer’s a solid, effective and affordable minimal writing app for iPad. 1972’s ARP Odyssey was a classic of the era, and reborn in 2015 with a smart new design and modern connectors. Now, the duophonic synth is on iPad and, if anything, the digital incarnation beats the hardware original. With ARP ODYSSEi , you still get the many synthesis controls of the real-world kit, allowing for a huge diversity of sound. The sliders are a mite fiddly, but any frustration is mitigated by the wealth of presets and ability to save your own. The best bit, though, is the programmable arpeggiator, which transforms sounds into rich, exciting loops. Sadly, the feature is omitted from ODYSSEi’s Korg Gadget incarnation, but as a standalone synth for iPad, this one’s hard to beat. Editing PDFs somehow feels like it should be the preserve of desktop software, but PDF Expert makes such tasks a cinch on an iPad. You can grab PDFs from iCloud or Dropbox, and then get to work rearranging pages, adding new content, creating notes, completing forms, making highlights, and even doodling with your finger. As a reader, the app is impressive, too, ably dealing with large PDFs. There’s also a text-to-speech mode that reads documents at a speed of your choosing, highlighting words as it goes. The app also wisely integrates the kind of smarts found in the developer’s own Documents app, so you can use PDF Expert as a central repository for your iPad PDFs, filing, merging, archiving, and sharing them as needed. We're not sure what makes this edition of the famous mockney chef's recipe book 'ultimate', bar that word being very clearly written on the icon. Still, Jamie Oliver's Ultimate Recipes is certainly a very tasty app. The 600 recipes should satisfy any given mood, whether you're after a sickeningly healthy salad or fancy binging on ALL THE SUGAR until your teeth scream for mercy. Smartly, every recipe offers step-by-step photos, so you can see how badly you’re going wrong at any point. And when you've nearly burned down the kitchen, given up and ordered a pizza, you can watch the two hours of videos that reportedly tell you how to "become a real kitchen ninja". Note: this doesn't involve wearing lots of black and hurling sharp objects at walls, sadly. Music-creation apps can overwhelm, even when trying to be friendly. Lily neatly takes a rather more playful – if slightly twee – stab at having you make tunes. You start by selecting a color and shape. The former dictates an instrument and the latter the number of leaves on your lily. Tap + to open the flower, and then the flower itself to access a pulsating playback head. You then tap spaces to lay down notes, which can be shifted entire octaves by prodding adjacent vertical lines. Repeat the process with more lilies and you'll soon have an oddly delicate cacophony serenading your ears. Lily's a very sweet app. It's perhaps a touch too abstract to be as immediate as it wants to be, but all becomes clear with a little play. We do wish songs could be saved (although you can export a recording) – the lives of these lilies are all too fleeting. So, you’ve picked up an iPad synth to compose music, play live, or bound about like a maniac, pretending you're on stage at Glastonbury. Fortunately, Poison-202 is ideal for all such sets of circumstances. The moody black and red graphic design is very 1990s, but it's Poison-202's sounds that hurl you back to the halcyon days of electronic music. Aficionados of The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers and Orbital will be overjoyed at the familiar (and brilliant) sounds you can conjure up simply by selecting presets and prodding a few keys. And if you're not satisfied by the creator's (frankly awesome) sound design smarts (in which case, we glare at you with the menace of a thousand Keith Flints), all manner of sliders and dials enable you to create your own wall-wobbling bass and earsearing leads. For free, Ferrite Recording Studio provides the means to record the odd bit of audio, bookmark important bits, and mash together a few such recordings into something resembling a podcast. But pay the $19.99/£14.99 IAP and this app gives desktop podcast-creation products a run for their money. Using the smartly designed interface, you can import clips and sounds from various sources, craft multi-track edits that make full use of slicing, fading, ducking, and silence stripping, and add professional effects to give vocals that bit of extra punch. On an iPhone, this is an impressive app, but on iPad, the extra screen space you get makes for significantly faster editing of your audio and a far superior user experience compared to the cramped screen. Rather than be all things to all people, Zen Brush 2 is a painting app with a sense of focus, emulating the feel of an East Asian ink brush. It's therefore suited to flowing, semi-abstract artistic effort with your finger to offer a digital take on calligraphy. On iPhone’s teeny screen this app feels a little redundant, but it comes alive on the iPad's larger display, especially if you have a stylus. The selection of tools is intentionally limited to keep you focused, but you can still swap between a red and black brush, experiment with alternate brush sizes or dryness values and swap out the underlying canvas. There is a sense of give and take about Zen Brush 2's level of realism: strokes are applied wonderfully, but inks don't interact with each other nor the paper beneath. Still, the strong sense of character gives artwork created in Zen Brush 2 a unique feel and it's a relaxing, almost meditative, app to spend time with. The iPad Google Maps app has a perfectly serviceable (if, in recent updates, somewhat fiddly) Street View mode, and so the notion of paying for an app to browse such panoramas may seem strange. But Streets 3 proves itself to be interesting and genuinely entertaining. Although you can browse locations in Streets 3 by dragging a map and dropping a pin to define a location, the app speeds things along with a gallery. This showcases famous sights and places, including museums, zoos, and even the Large Hadron Collider. Using the old arrows movement system (rather than the newer Google Maps swiping model) makes for fast, efficient navigation. Usefully, a little extra context is provided about the famous sites, so you can learn rather than just gawp; and favorites can be stored for return visits. None of which perhaps cements Streets 3 as essential, but it's certainly fun for the armchair tourist. There are loads of great painting apps for illustrators and artists, but Amaziograph tries something a bit different, introducing you to a world of tessellation and symmetries. This makes for an app that has plenty of potential for professional use, but also one that anyone can enjoy. To begin, you select a style. The simplest is a split- screen mirror, but there are also kaleidoscope-like options, and those that create tiled, repeating patterns. It's then a question of scribbling on the canvas, and watching a pattern form before your eyes. The toolset is quite basic (with a bafflingly overthought color palette selector), but Amaziograph chalks up a big win when it comes to flexibility. At any point, you can adjust the settings of the current grid, or choose a different symmetry/tessellation type. This propels the app far beyond 'toy' territory, opening up avenues for creativity regardless of your level of artistic prowess. As a combination clock and weather app, Living Earth works well across all iOS devices, but use it with an iPad in a stand and you've got something that'll make other clocks in the immediate vicinity green with envy. As you might expect, your first job with the app is to define the cities you'd like to keep track of. At any point, you can then switch between them, updating the main clock and weather forecasts accordingly. Tap the weather and you can access an extended forecast for the week; tap the location and you get the current times and weather for your defined locations. But it's the Earth that gets pride of place, taking up the bulk of the screen. It shows clouds by default, although weather geeks can instead choose colors denoting temperature, wind speed or humidity values. Then with a little swipe the globe rotates, neatly showing heavily populated locations during night time as lattices of artificial man-made light. Whether you need a few minutes of peace or help to fall asleep after hours of stress, Flowing offers meditative splashy reflection. Choose from six scenes, plonk headphones on and then just sit and listen to gorgeous 3D audio recordings of streams, waterfalls and rivers. Should you feel the need, noodle about with the parallax photo - although that’s frankly the least interesting bit of the app. There is room for screen interaction though - the slider button gives you access to a mixer, to trigger ambient soundtracks by composer David Bawiec, and add birdsong and rain; while the Flowing icon houses guided meditations by Lua Lisa. There’s also a timer, so you can fall asleep to a gently meandering brook without it then burbling away all night. In all, even if you don’t make use of every feature, Flowing is an effective, polished relaxation aid. Animation can be painstaking, whether doing it for your career or just for fun. Fortunately, Stop Motion Studio Pro streamlines the process, providing a sleek and efficient app for your next animated masterpiece. It caters to various kinds of animation: you can use your iPad’s camera to capture a scene, import images or videos (which are broken down into stills), or use a remote app installed on an iPhone. Although most people will export raw footage to the likes of iMovie, Stop Motion Pro shoots for a full animation suite by including audio and title capabilities. There are some snags. Moving frames requires an awkward copy/paste/delete workaround. Also, drawing tools are clumsy, making the app’s claim of being capable of rotoscoping a tad suspect. But as an affordable and broadly usable app for crafting animation, it fits the bill. Scanners for iPad have come a long way from their roots as souped-up camera apps, and Scanbot 6 is making a play to be the only one on your iPad - by doing way more than just scanning. The basics are ably dealt with - the app automatically locates documents in front of your iPad’s camera (assuming there’s contrast with the desk underneath), and you can crop, rotate, coloradjust, and save the result. Buy the Pro IAP, though, and Scanbot becomes far more capable. It’ll run OCR text recognition on any document, and attempt (with a reasonable degree of success) to extract details for single-tap ’actions’, such as triggering a phone call or visiting a website, based on what it finds. For the majority of iPad users, Apple’s iMovie is the go-to app for cutting footage and spitting out a movie. However, Pinnacle Studio Pro is a great option for anyone who wants a more desktop-like video editing experience. The interface is efficient, enabling you to pre-trim clips, and quickly navigate your in-progress film by way of a standard timeline, or quickly jumping to scenes by tapping clip thumbnails. Additionally, there are tools for complex audio edits across three separate tracks, and adjusting a clip’s rotation. The only downside is an initial feeling of complexity and an ongoing sense of clutter - this isn’t an especially pretty app. However, it is a usable, powerful and effective one, and that more than makes up for any niggles. Another example of a book designed for kids that adults will sneak a peek at when no-one's watching, Namoo teaches about the wonders of plant life. Eschewing the kind of realistic photography or illustration you typically see in such virtual tomes, Namoo is wildly stylized, using an arresting low-poly art style for its interactive 3D simulations. Each of these is married with succinct text, giving your brain something to chew on as you ping the components of a plant's cells (which emit pleasingly playful - if obviously not terribly realistic - sounds and musical notes) or explore the life cycle of an apple. Wikipedia is one of the most amazing resources around, but it looks like a dog's dinner. You might find certain subject matter thrilling, but your eyes will glaze over before you get through half an article on an iPad. V for Wikipedia rethinks this entire experience, unassumingly describing itself as "a nice reader for Wikipedia". Every aspect of V for Wikipedia feels like output from a careful, considerate designer. There's a smart nearby places view, where lines snake from an overhead map to Wikipedia article titles awaiting a tap, search results include brief synopses and images, but best of all, the articles themselves look great - more like a book to lean back and read than a website you'd prefer to flee from. There are plenty of apps that enable you to plonk text over photos, but Over excels when it comes to control. Load a photo (or start with a blank canvas) and you can add words, stickers and additional imagery, gradually fashioning a card, poster or slice of social media genius. For free, you get the basic app, but a one-off IAP unlocks handy additional features, such as drop shadows and adjustments. In combination with editable layers and saved projects, these things make Over resemble something you'd find on the desktop, albeit with the kind of intuitive and immediate interface you only find in the best iPad apps. On the desktop, Scrivener is widely acclaimed as the writer's tool of choice. The feature-rich app provides all kinds of ways to write, even incorporating research documents directly into projects. Everything's always within reach, and your work can constantly be rethought, reorganised, and reworked. On iPad, Scrivener is, astonishingly, almost identical to its desktop cousin. Bar some simplification regarding view and export options, it's essentially the same app. You get a powerful 'binder' sidebar for organizing notes and documents, while the main view area enables you to write and structure text, or to work with index cards on a cork board. There's even an internal 'Split View', for simultaneously smashing out a screenplay while peering at research. With Dropbox sync to access existing projects, Scrivener is a no-brainer for existing users; and for newcomers, it's the most capable rich text/scriptwriting app on iPad. At the last count, there were something like eleven billion sketching apps for iPad, and so you need something pretty special to stand out. Concepts shoots for a more professional audience architects, designers, illustrators, and the like - but in doing so presents a far more flexible product than most. When scribbling on the infinite canvas, you're drawing vector strokes, which can be individually selected and adjusted. The tools area is customizable and colors are selected using a Copic color wheel. Pay the pro IAP and you unlock all kinds of features, including precision tools and shape guides, endless layers, and the means to export your work as high-res imagery, SVG, DXF or PSD. In use, whether using a finger or stylus, Concepts is elegant and usable but powerful. So for free, this is an excellent tool for wannabe scribblers, and for the price of a couple of coffees, a high-end digital sketchbook suitable for professionals. Sounds like a bargain either way to us. Your eyes might pop at the price tag of this iPad synth, but the hardware reissue of this amazing Moog was priced at a wallet-smashing $10,000. By contrast, the Model 15 iPad app seems quite the bargain. To our ears, it's also the best standalone iOS synth on mobile, and gives anything on the desktop a run for its money. For people used to messing around with modular synths and plugging in patch leads, they'll be in heaven. But this isn't retro-central: you can switch the piano keyboard for Animoog's gestural equivalent; newcomers can work through straightforward tutorials about how to build new sounds from scratch; and those who want to dive right in can select from and experiment with loads of diverse, superb-sounding presets. From its earliest days, the Mac was in part a product of Steve Jobs's obsession with typography. Although iOS includes a large range of fonts, your iPad lacks the extensibility of a Mac, which is where AnyFont comes in. Using the app, you can load new fonts from a PC or Mac by way of iTunes or import from Dropbox. Said fonts then become available in the likes of Pages, Keynote and Microsoft's Office suite. There's no bulk import via Dropbox; and the app must create a separate profile for each imported font. These limitations initially irk, but also force a sense of focus, having you import only the fonts you really need rather than a collection of thousands. Relaxation aids have a tendency to be a bit 'right on', but Windy frames itself as part story, part artwork, and comes across as elegant and interesting rather than preachy. You get six scenes to explore and each offers a parallax image to drag about and a piece of text to read. But it's the audio experience that really grabs hold. Each scene features a unique 3D wind recording, which sounds superb through decent headphones. Using the app's settings, you can mix in rain, water, birdsong and cricket noises. The composition you create plays indefinitely, or you can set a timer, to help you nod off to your custom soundscape. There are plenty of apps that enable you to add comic-like filters and the odd speech balloon to your photos, but Comic Life 3 goes the whole hog regarding comic creation. You select from predefined templates or basic page layouts, and can then begin working on a Marvel-worrying masterpiece. Importing images is straightforward, and you get plenty of control over sound effects and speech balloons. For people who are perhaps taking things a bit too seriously (or actual comic creators, who can use this app for quick mock-ups), there's a bundled script editor as well. Oddly, Comic Life 3's filters aren't that impressive, not making your photos look especially handdrawn. But otherwise the app is an excellent means of crafting stories on an iPad, and you can export your work in a range of formats to share with friends - and Stan Lee. It's been a long time coming, but finally Tweetbot gets a full-fledged modern-day update for iPad. And it's a good one, too. While the official Twitter app's turned into a 'blown-up iPhone app' monstrosity on Apple's tablet, Tweetbot makes use of the extra space by way of a handy extra column in which you can stash mentions, lists, and various other bits and bobs. Elsewhere, this latest release might lack a few toys Twitter selfishly keeps for itself, but it wins out in terms of multitasking support, granular mute settings, superb usability, and an interesting Activity view if you're the kind of Twitter user desperate to know who's retweeting all your tiny missives. This music app is inspired by layered composition techniques used in some classical music. You tap out notes on a piano roll, and can then have up to four playheads simultaneously interpret your notes, each using unique speeds, directions and transpositions. For the amateur, Fugue Machine is intuitive and mesmerising, not least because of how easy it is to create something that sounds gorgeous. For pros, it's a must-have, not least due to MIDI output support for driving external software. It took us mere seconds to have Fugue Machine working with Animoog's voices, and the result ruined our productivity for an entire morning. (Unless you count composing beautiful music when you should be doing something else as 'being productive'. In which case, we salute you.) There's a miniature revolution taking place in digital comics. Echoing the music industry some years ago, more publishers are cottoning on to readers very much liking DRM-free content. With that in mind, you now need a decent iPad reader for your PDFs and CBRs, rather than whatever iffy reading experience is welded to a storefront. Chunky is the best comic-reader on iPad. The interface is simple but customisable. If you want rid of transitions, they're gone. Tinted pages can be brightened. And smart upscaling makes low-res comics look good. Paying the one-off 'pro' IAP enables you to connect to Mac or Windows shared folders or FTP. Downloading comics then takes seconds, and the app will happily bring over folders full of images and convert them on-the-fly into readable digital publications. You're probably dead inside if you sit down with Metamorphabet and it doesn't raise a smile — doubly so if you use it alongside a tiny human. The app takes you through all the letters of the alphabet, which contort and animate into all kinds of shapes. It suitably starts with A, which when prodded grows antlers, transforms into an arch, and then goes for an amble. It's adorable. The app's surreal, playful nature never lets up, and any doubts you might have regarding certain scenes — such as floaty clouds representing 'daydream' in a manner that doesn't really work — evaporate when you see tiny fingers and thumbs carefully pawing at the iPad's glass while young eyes remain utterly transfixed. Pop music is about getting what you expect. Ambient music has always felt subtly different, almost like anything could happen. With generative audio, this line of thinking became reality. Scape gives you a combined album/playground in this nascent genre, from the minds of Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers. Each track is formed by way of adding musical elements to a canvas, which then interact in sometimes unforeseen ways. Described as music that "thinks for itself", Scape becomes a pleasing, fresh and infinitely replayable slice of chillout bliss. And if you're feeling particularly lazy, you can sit back and listen to an album composed by the app's creators. Illustration tools are typically complex. Sit someone in front of Adobe Photoshop and they'll figure out enough of it in fairly short order. Adobe Illustrator? No chance. Assembly attempts to get around such roadblocks by turning graphic design into the modern-day touchscreen equivalent of working with felt shapes — albeit very powerful felt shapes that can shift beneath your fingers. At the foot of the screen are loads of design elements, and you drag them to the canvas. Using menus and gestures, shapes can be resized, coloured, duplicated and transformed. Given enough time and imagination, you can create abstract masterpieces, cartoonish geometric robots, and beautiful flowing landscapes. It's intuitive enough for anyone, but we suspect pro designers will enjoy Assembly too, perhaps even using it for sketching out ideas. And when you're done, you can output your creations to PNG or SVG. Typography is something that doesn't come naturally to everyone. And so while there are excellent apps for adding text to images, you might want more help, rather than spending hours finetuning a bunch of misbehaving letters. That's where Retype comes in. You load a photo or a piece of built-in stock art, and type some text. Then it's just a case of selecting a style. The type's design updates whenever you edit your text, and variations can be accessed by repeatedly prodding the relevant style's button. Basic but smart filter, blur, opacity and fade commands should cement Retype's place on your iPad. Even though the iPad is an immensely powerful mobile device, there's no getting away from it sometimes being fiddly for performing complex tasks; this is all the more frustrating if said tasks are something you must do regularly. Fortunately, Workflow is here to help. It includes over 200 actions that work with built-in and third-party apps, enabling you to fashion complex automation that's subsequently activated at the touch of a button. To help you get started, the gallery houses dozens of pre-built workflows, and for added flexibility, you can access those you create or install from inside the app, via the Today widget, or by way of a custom Home screen app-like shortcut. iPads have opened up a world of creative possibilities for guitarists by way of apps that ape all kinds of amps and stomp boxes. But AmpliTube Acoustic does something new. The clue's in the title — this is a tone studio created for acoustic guitars, and designed to be used with the iRig Acoustic clipon microphone. Highlights include a particularly lovely 12-string simulator, and the 'bass maker', which adds lowend to your strumming. Of course, electric guitarists can also use the app, for clean tones and effects, and developer IK Multimedia has, as usual, issued a limited freemium version that acts as a demo of sorts. There are plenty of great distraction-free writing apps for iPad, but Ulysses for iPad adds serious management and editing clout to the mix. The idea is you use the app for all your writing — notes; inprogress text; final edits; and export. Items in your library can be manually sorted, grouped and filtered; text can be processed to PDF, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML and ePub. But what's most astonishing is how the app's interface mirrors its Mac counterpart's, and yet still feels entirely at home on the iPad. (And for iPad Pro users hankering after a top-notch writing app to use in Split View, look no further). The lofty boast with RealBeat is that you can use the app to make music with everything. The remarkable thing is, you really can. The app has eight slots for samples, waiting for input from your iPad's mic. You can record snippets of any audio you fancy: your voice; a spoon smacking a saucepan; a pet, confused at you holding your iPad right in front of its face. These samples can then be arranged into loops and songs using a familiar drum-machinestyle sequencer and pattern editor. Completed masterpieces can be exported using Audio Copy and iTunes File Sharing, and the app also integrates with Audiobus. On the desktop, Panic's Transmit is a perfectly decent FTP client. But when it was first released for iPad, Transmit felt rather more like the future. It was smart and elegant, utilising all of the then-new iOS features, such as Share sheets. Even today, its interface seems a step beyond its contemporaries — the vibrant icons and dark lists look gorgeous and modern. Most importantly, the app remains very usable, with an excellent dragand-drop model, smart previews, and support for a huge range of services, including local shared Mac folders. Calling Editorial a text editor does it a disservice. That's not to say Editorial isn't any good as a text editor, because it very much is. You get top-notch Markdown editing, with an inline preview, and also a TaskPaper mode for plain text to-do lists. But what really sets Editorial apart is the sheer wealth of customisation options. You get themes and custom snippets, but also workflows, which can automate hugely complex tasks. You get the sense some of these arrived from the frustrations at how slow it is to perform certain actions on an iPad; but a few hours with Editorial and you'll wish the app was available for your Mac or PC too. Previously known as iDraw, Graphic is now part of the Autodesk stable. Visually, it looks an awful lot like Adobe Illustrator, and it brings some suitably high-end vector-drawing smarts to Apple's tablet. All the tools and features you'd expect are present and correct; and while it's admittedly a bit slower and fiddlier to construct complex imagery on an iPad than a PC, Graphic is great to have handy when you're on the move. Smartly, the app boasts plentiful export functions, to continue your work elsewhere, and will sync with its iPhone and Mac cousins across iCloud. Depending on your age and media preferences, Molecules by Theodore Gray might appear to be the future of books, a modern take on a CD-ROM, or something that's escaped from a Harry Potter movie. At its core, it is, of course, a textbook. But this is a textbook that begs to be explored, primarily due to dazzling your senses with dozens of animated photographic objects that you can interact with. This is a trick publisher Touchpress has used before, but it never really gets old. Spinning objects beneath your fingers adds a playful side to a subject that could be considered quite dry; this is further enhanced by videos you can drag to scrub through, and molecule simulations. The simulations are perhaps the smartest aspect of the app, not because they're the most visually exciting, but because of what they represent. In dragging their component parts around and seeing how molecules react to changes in temperature, you're suddenly very aware these aren't static building blocks, but are always alive and in motion. A printed tome can only hint at such things, but this digital volume brings a level of intrigue and immersion paper simply cannot match - making it well worth the higher cost. One of the curious things about the iPad is the absence of major Adobe apps from the App Store. The creative giant instead seems content with smaller, simpler 'satellite' apps, assuming users will continue to rely on the desktop for in-depth work. Pixelmator thumbs its nose to such thinking, reworking the majority of its desktop cousin (itself a kind of streamlined Photoshop) for the iPad. Given the low price tag, this is an astonishingly powerful app, offering brushes, layers, gorgeous filters, levels editing, and more. You need to invest some time to get the most out of Pixelmator, but do so and the app will forever weld itself to your Home screen. There are loads of sketching tools for iPad, but it feels like Procreate is the one really forging ahead, bringing artists a well-balanced mix of power and accessibility. If you want to keep things simple, Procreate gets out of your way. The toolbar doesn't distract, and the only on-screen controls are handy sliders for brush size and opacity; but even these can all be auto-hidden after a user-defined period, leaving the entire screen to display your masterpiece. Whether drawing with a finger or a stylus, Procreate proves responsive and feels surprisingly tactile. The tool selection is straightforward but offers real depth, not least in how you can really delve into brushes and mess about with their characteristics. But the app has also taken to heart the fact it's running on a touchscreen. To straighten a stroke, you simply hold its end point for a second. Undo and redo are merely a two - or three - finger tap away. And the strength of layer effects is determined by swiping across the canvas, in a pleasing and precise manner. If you're the kind of person who watches a plane fly overhead and wonders which airline it is, where it's going, and where it's been, you should download Plane Finder immediately. On launch, the app figures out where you are, loads a map, and gets to work showing planes zooming about the place. If you live near an airport, this will evoke a combination of excitement and terror once you realise just how many steel tubes with wings are being hurled across the sky. Plane Finder absolutely revels in this plane-based geekery. An augmented reality mode has you wave your iPad in front of your face to track the positions of planes in 3D. (Go outside for best effect — it's a bit weird having plane info splattered across office walls.) There's a time-travel mode, so you can watch a previous day's flights in fast-forward, and filters and alerts help you drill down into any specifics you happen to be interested in. There's even a practical edge to the app, with arrivals and departures boards when you tap on an airport, although we will admit in that case it's probably a bit quicker to just visit the relevant website. There are plenty of apps that provide the means to turn photos into messages and poster-style artwork. Elsewhere in this list we mention the excellent Retype, for example. But if you hanker after more control, Fontmania is a good bet. This isn't the most complex or feature-rich app of its kind, but it is extremely pleasing to use. On selecting your photo, you can add a filter. Then it's down to business with typography. The 'Art' section houses frames, dividers, shapes and pre-made 'artworks'. The 'Text' section is for typing out whatever you like, and you can choose from a range of fonts. Really, it's the interface that makes Fontmania. The simple sidebar is clear and non-intrusive, providing quick access to tools like Color and Shadow. All items added to the canvas can be manipulated using standard iOS gestures, avoiding the awkwardness sometimes seen within this sort of app. Perhaps best of all, though, Fontmania is a payonce product. Download and you get access to everything, rather than suddenly discovering a drop shadow or extra font will require digging into your wallet again. iPad video editors tend to have a bunch of effects and filters lurking within, but with VideoGrade you can go full-on Hollywood. On launch, the app helpfully rifles through your albums, making it easy to find your videos. Load one and you get access to a whopping 13 colour-grading and repair tools. Despite the evident power VideoGrade offers, the interface is remarkably straightforward. Select a tool (such as Vibrance, Brightness or Tint), choose a setting, and drag to make a change. Drag up before moving your finger left or right to make subtler adjustments. Smartly, any tool already used gets a little green dash beneath, and you can go back and change or remove edits at any point. All filters are applied live to the currently shown frame, and you can also tap a button to view a preview of how your entire exported video will look. Want to compare your edit with the original video? Horizontal and vertical split-views are available at the tap of a button. Usefully, favorite filter combinations can be stored and reused, and videos can be queued rather than laboriously rendered individually. A lot of modern camera apps do much the same thing, presenting a seemingly endless array of filters but locking them into categories with names you can't hope to remember. The net result is people find a few they like and ignore the rest. infltr tries something a bit different, brutally simplifying and largely randomising the entire process. On selecting an image from your camera roll (annoyingly, this must be a local image - shared iCloud albums aren't supported), you tap the filter button and then drag your finger about. With every movement, the app cycles through its reported seven million different filters. If that still feels like too much work, double-tap to instantly apply a random filter. This loss of control feels a bit weird at first, and there's no way to save favorite filters, but then that kind of feature would miss the point. infltr is about letting go, enjoying watching a photo change as you drag across the glass display. That it also works with Live Photos, panoramas and the camera adds further value to an initially seemingly throwaway but actually rather lovely app. Freed from the confines of pesky reality and plastic, building blocks have become hugely popular in the digital realm. Tayasui Blocks isn't Minecraft, but does have some of that giant's elegance and social smarts. Straightforward tools enable you to add and colour blocks and layers. Blocks almost stomp into place, emitting a pleasingly chunky sound effect; and if you find quietly deleting errors dull, you can lob a bomb or shuriken at errant cubes. Tayasui Blocks is gesture-aware. You can zoom, move and spin your creation, making it simple to add blocks to any surface. And the aforementioned social aspect works very well, offering downloads of existing models and uploads of your own. (Wisely, the app knows if you make very minor alterations to someone else's design and blocks attempts at sharing.) During testing, we found the odd bit of lag with very large, complex builds (a blocky Death Star even made an iPad Air 2 stutter), and optional stickers (mouths, eyes, and the like) seem broadly pointless. Otherwise, this is a first-rate, elegant and simple building-block toy for your tablet. Korg Gadget bills itself as the "ultimate mobile synth collection on your iPad" and it's hard to argue. You get well over a dozen varied synths, ranging from drum machines through to ear-splitting electro monsters, and an intuitive piano roll for laying down notes. A scene/loop arranger enables you to craft entire compositions in the app, which can then be shared via the Soundcloud-powered GadgetCloud or sent to Dropbox. This is a more expensive app than most, but if you're a keen electronic-music-oriented songwriter with an iPad, it's hard to find a product that's better value. There are quite a few apps for virtual stargazing, but Sky Guide is the best of them on iPad. Like its rivals, the app allows you to search the heavens in real-time, providing details of constellations and satellites in your field of view (or, if you fancy, on the other side of the world). Indoors, it transforms into a kind of reference guide, offering further insight into distant heavenly bodies, and the means to view the sky at different points in history. What sets Sky Guide apart, though, is an effortless elegance. It's simply the nicest app of its kind to use, with a polish and refinement that cements its essential nature. Every now and again, you get an app that ticks all the boxes: it's beautiful, audacious, productive, and nudges the platform forwards. This perfectly sums up Coda , a full-fledged website editor for iPad. The app's graphic design borrows from the similarly impressive Transmit for iOS, all muted greys and vibrant icons. It's a style we wish Apple would steal. When it comes to editing, you can work remotely or pull down files locally; in either case, you end up working in a coding view with the clout you'd expect from a desktop product, rather than something on mobile. Naturally, Coda is a fairly niche tool, but it's essential for anyone who regularly edits websites and wants the ability to do so when away from the office. Mind-mapping is one of those things that's usually associated with dull business things, much like huge whiteboards and the kind of lengthy meetings that make you hope the ground will swallow you up. But really they're perfect whenever you want to get thoughts out of your head and then organise them. On paper, this process can be quite messy, and so MindNode is a boon. You can quickly and easily add and edit nodes, your iPad automatically positioning them neatly. Photos, stickers and notes can add further context, and your finished document can be shared publicly or privately using a number of services. When you're told you can control the forces of nature with your fingertips that probably puts you more in mind of a game than a book. And, in a sense, Earth Primer does gamify learning about our planet. You get a series of engaging and interactive explanatory pages, and a free-for-all sandbox that cleverly only unlocks its full riches when you've read the rest of the book. Although ultimately designed for children, it's a treat for all ages, likely to plaster a grin across the face of anyone from 9 to 90 when a volcano erupts from their fingertips. For most guitarists, sound is the most important thing of all. It's all very well having a massive rig of pedals and amps, but only if what you get out of it blows away anyone who's listening. For our money, BIAS FX is definitely the best-sounding guitar amp and effects processor on the iPad, with a rich and engaging collection of gear. Fortunately, given the price-tag, BIAS FX doesn't skimp on set-up opportunities either. A splitter enables complex dual-signal paths; and sharing functionality enables you to upload your creations and check out what others have done with the app. With visible pixels essentially eradicated from modern mobile device screens, it's amusing to see pixel art stubbornly refusing to go away. Chunky pixels are, though, a very pleasing aesthetic, perhaps in part because you know effort and thought has gone into the placement of every single dot. For our money, Pixaki is the only app worth considering for iPad-related pixel art. It's simple and elegant, with straightforward tools, an extremely responsive canvas, global and document-specific palettes, and multiple brush sizes. Extra points, too, for the opacity slider's handle being a Pac-Man ghost. Although Apple's Inter-App Audio, baked deep into iOS, has gained traction, it's Audiobus that leads in terms of app compatibility. The audio-routing system enjoys support from over 600 products, covering a huge range of DAWs, synths and guitar apps. With the multi-routing IAP ($4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99), you can create complex chained effects and other sophisticated set-ups. And if you've multiple iOS devices, Audiobus Remote (also $4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99) provides a second screen for your session, simplifying recording, sample triggering, preset selection, and more. You might argue that Google Maps is far better suited to a smartphone, but we reckon the king of mapping apps deserves a place on your iPad, too. Apple's own Maps app has improved, but Google still outsmarts its rival when it comes to public transport, finding local businesses, saving chunks of maps offline, and virtual tourism by way of Street View. Google's 'OS within an OS' also affords a certain amount of cross-device sync when it comes to searches. We don't, however, recommend you strap your cellular iPad to your steering wheel and use Google Maps as a sat-nav replacement, unless you want to come across as some kind of nutcase. Adult colouring books are all the rage, proponents claiming bringing colour to intricate abstract shapes helps reduce stress - at least until you realise you've got pen on your shirt and ground oil pastels into the sofa. You'd think the process of colouring would be ideal for iPad, but most relevant apps are awful, some even forcing tap-to-fill. That is to colouring what using a motorbike is to running a marathon - a big cheat. Pigment is an exception, marrying a love for colouring with serious digital smarts. On selecting an illustration, there's a range of palettes and tools to explore. You can use pencils and markers, adjusting opacity and brush sizes, and work with subtle gradients. Colouring can be 'freestyle', or you can tap to select an area and ensure you don't go over the lines while furiously scribbling. With a finger, Pigment works well, but it's better with a stylus; with an iPad Pro and a Pencil, you'll lob your real books in the bin. The one niggle: printing and accessing the larger library requires a subscription in-app purchase. It's a pity there's no one-off payment for individual books, but you do get plenty of free illustrations, and so it's hard to grumble. We're not sure whether Slack is an amazing aid to productivity or some kind of time vampire. Probably a bit of both. What we do know is that the real-time messaging system is excellent in a work environment for chatting with colleagues (publicly and privately), sharing and previewing files, and organising discussions by topic. There's smart integration with online services, and support for both the iPad Pro and the iPad's Split View function. Note that although Slack is clearly designed with businesses in mind, it also works perfectly well as a means of communicating with friends if you don't fancy lobbing all your worldly wisdom into Facebook's maw. Podcasts are mostly associated with small portable devices - after all, the very name is a mash-up of 'iPod' and 'broadcast'. But that doesn't mean you should ignore your favourite shows when armed with an iPad rather than an iPhone. We're big fans of Overcast on Apple's smaller devices, but the app makes good use of the iPad's extra screen space, with a smart two-column display. On the left, episodes are listed, and the current podcast loads into the larger space on the right. The big plusses with Overcast, though, remain playback and podcast management. It's the one podcast app we've used that retains plenty of clarity when playback is sped up; and there are clever effects for removing dead air and boosting vocals in podcasts with lower production values. Playlists can be straightforward in nature, or quite intricate, automatically boosting favourites to the top of the list, and excluding specific episodes. And if you do mostly use an iPhone for listening, Overcast automatically syncs your podcasts and progress, so you can always pick up where you left off. We're big fans of Duolingo on iPhone. Its bite-size exercises are perfect for quickly dipping into, when you've a spare moment to tackle a bit of languagelearning. On iPad, the app is basically the same, and the screen's relative acres make everything feel a touch sparse. However, Duolingo remains the same impressive and approachable app, and the iPad's form-factor lends itself to more extended sessions, which is great for when you want to properly crack the next challenge the app throws your way. As ever, we remain baffled that this app remains entirely free. We've yet to find the catch. Learning a musical instrument isn't easy, which is probably why a bunch of people don't bother, instead pretending to be rock stars by way of tiny plastic instruments and their parent videogames. Yousician bridges the divide, flipping a kind of Guitar Hero interface 90 degrees and using its visual and timing devices to get you playing chords and notes. This proves remarkably effective, and your iPad merrily keeps track of your skills (or lack thereof) through its internal mic. The difficulty curve is slight, but the app enables you to skip ahead if you're bored, through periodic 'test' rounds. Most surprisingly, for free you get access to everything, only your daily lesson time is limited. Maybe it's just our tech-addled brains, but often we find it a lot easier to focus on an app than a book, which can make learning things the old fashioned way tricky. That's where Khan Academy comes in. This free app contains lessons and guidance on dozens of subjects, from algebra, to cosmology, to computer science and beyond. As it's an app rather than a book it benefits from videos and even a few interactive elements, alongside words and pictures and it contains over 10,000 videos and explanations in all. Everything is broken in to bite-sized chunks, so whether you've got a few minutes to spare or a whole afternoon there's always time to learn something new and if you make an account it will keep track of your progress and award achievements. As you launch Kitchen Stories , you catch a glimpse of the app's mantra: "Anyone can cook". The problem is, most cooking apps (and indeed, traditional cookery books) make assumptions regarding people's abilities. Faced with a list of steps on a stark white page, it's easy to get halfway through a recipe, look at the stodge in front of you, reason something must have gone terribly wrong, and order a takeaway. Kitchen Stories offers firmer footing. You're first met with a wall of gorgeous photography. More importantly, the photographs don't stop. Every step in a recipe is accompanied by a picture that shows how things should be at that point. Additionally, some recipes provide tutorial videos for potentially tricky skills and techniques. Fancy some Vietnamese pho, but not sure how to peel ginger, prepare a chilli or thinly slice meat? Kitchen Stories has you covered. Beyond this, there's a shopping list, handy essentials guide, and some magazine-style articles to peruse. And while you don't get the sheer range of recipes found in some rival apps, the presentation more than makes up for that — especially on the iPad, which will likely find a new home in your own kitchen soon after Kitchen Stories is installed. On opening Toca Nature , you find yourself staring at a slab of land floating in the void. After selecting relevant icons, a drag of a finger is all it takes to raise mountains or dig deep gullies for rivers and lakes. Finishing touches to your tiny landscape can then be made by tapping to plant trees. Wait for a bit and a little ecosystem takes shape, deers darting about glades, and fish swimming in the water. Using the magnifying glass, you can zoom into and explore this little world and feed its various inhabitants. Although designed primarily for kids, Toca Nature is a genuinely enjoyable experience whatever your age. The one big negative is that it starts from scratch every time — some save states would be nice, so each family member could have their own space to tend to and explore. Still, blank canvases keep everything fresh, and building a tiny nature reserve never really gets old. The fairly large screen of the iPad means you can access desktop-style websites, rather than ones hacked down for iPhone. That sounds great until you realise most of them want to fire adverts into your face until you beg for mercy. Old people will wisely suggest 'RSS', and then they'll explain that means you can subscribe to sites and get their content piped into an app. Reeder 3 is a great RSS reader for iPad. It's fast, efficient, caches content for offline use and — importantly — bundles a Readability view. This downloads entire articles for RSS feeds that otherwise would only show synopses. Like on the iPhone, Reeder's perhaps a bit gesturehappy, but it somehow feels more usable on the iPad's larger display. And we're happy to see the app continue to improve its feature set, including Split View and iPad Pro support, font options for the article viewer, and the means to sync across Instapaper content. It says something about the flexibility of LumaFX that we initially thought it broken during review. It wasn't — we'd in fact accidentally applied so many effects to a video that it ended up looking like a nightmarish Eastern European animation from 1977. We weren't counting on a video app enabling rapid layering of advanced effects just by blithely tapping away, you see. But that's LumaFX in a nutshell — it makes mucking around with videos almost laughably simple. You can crop and fit videos in various ways, reorient those that are the wrong way round, change their speeds, adjust colours, and fiddle about with that effects catalogue. There are vignettes, blurs, and weird pixelation effects, all of which render almost absurdly quickly. It's all rather brilliant. Given the sheer photo-editing power available for nothing in Google's excellent Snapseed, paid apps in this space need to be something special. Enlight covers all the basics, much as you'd expect, with a range of tools for cropping, making adjustments, adding filters, and so on. Where it excels is in shooting for a more artistic and professional approach. From an art standpoint, you get a bunch of painterly and classic film filters that really look the part. When it comes to professional retouching, you can process up to 50MP images on an iPad Pro, work with noise reduction, freeze areas of images when transforming them, and precision-mask any effect. The first time you try any tool, a tutorial leads you through the process, but on the whole Enlight has the kind of interface that's easy to click with. The destructive nature of effects and editing is a pity - you can't later adjust something you changed a while ago, only undo. But that's the only niggle in this otherwise excellent photo editor for iPad. Although Apple introduced iCloud Keychain in iOS 7, designed to securely store passwords and payment information, 1Password is a more powerful system. Along with integrating with Safari, it can be used to hold identities, secure notes, network information and app licence details. It's also cross-platform, meaning it will work with Windows and Android. And since 1Password is a standalone app, accessing and editing your information is fast and efficient. The core app is free – the company primarily makes its money on the desktop. However, you’ll need a monthly subscription or to pay a one-off $9.99/£9.99/AU$14.99 IAP to access advanced features (multiple vaults, Apple Watch support, tagging, and custom fields). The vast majority of iPads in Apple's line-up don't have a massive amount of storage, and that becomes a problem when you want to keep videos on the device. Air Video HD gets around the problem by streaming video files from any Mac or PC running the free server software. All content is live-encoded as necessary, ensuring it will play on your iPad, and there's full support for offline viewing, soft subtitles, and AirPlay to an Apple TV. Perhaps the best bit about the software is how usable it is. The app's simple to set up and has a streamlined, modern interface - for example, a single tap downloads a file for local storage. You don't even need to be on the same network as your server either - Air Video HD lets you access your content over the web. Just watch your data downloads if you're on 3G! Although there are more powerful text editors available for iPad (such as Editorial and Ulysses), Byword is where it's at if you just want a nononsense distraction-free writing environment that lets you get on with writing. The subdued interface and typewriter-style font feel resolutely old-school, but there are nods to modern working by way of Markdown support (assisted by a custom keyboard row) and live word/character count. For anyone publishing to the web, the app also provides integration WordPress and Tumblr. with the likes of Drum machines are always a lot of fun, but many of those available for iOS are rather throwaway, their options exhausted within minutes. DM1 is pretty much the exact opposite, packed with a huge number of drum kits, a step sequencer, a song composer and a mixer. The bundled sounds are extremely varied, ranging from acoustic kits to thoroughly modern earmonstering electronic samples. And the option to switch between live play (by way of bashing pads) and step-writing is welcome. Inter-App audio, Audiobus and MIDI support also ensure what you create doesn't end up in a percussion-rich silo. Dropbox is a great service for syncing documents across multiple devices, and chances are you're familiar with it already. On the iPad, we used to consider Dropbox essential as a kind of surrogate file system. Even now that Apple's provided easier access to iCloud Drive, Dropbox remains a useful install, largely on the basis of its widespread support (both in terms of platforms and also iOS apps). The Dropbox app itself works nicely, too, able to preview a large number of file types, and integrating well with iOS for sending documents to and from the various apps you have installed. Although you get the sense eBay's designers can't get through a month without redesigning their app, it's always far superior to using the online auction site in a browser. eBay for iOS works especially well on an iPad, with images looking great on the larger screen, and browsing proving fast and efficient. Speedy sorting and filtering options also make it a cinch to get to listings for whatever it is you fancy buying. In a sense Evernote is an online back-up for fleeting thoughts and ideas. You use it to save whatever comes to mind - text documents and snippets, notes, images, web clips, and even audio. These can then be accessed from a huge number of devices. (We suspect any day now, Evernote will unveil its ZX Spectrum app.) The app itself could be friendlier, and there's a tendency towards clutter. But navigation of your stored bits and pieces is simple enough, and the sheer ubiquity and reliability of Evernote makes it worthy of investigation and a place on your home screen. Apple's own Calendar app is fiddly and irritating, and so the existence of Fantastical is very welcome. In a single screen, you get a week view, a month calendar and a scrolling list of events. There's also support for reminders, and all data syncs with iCloud, making Fantastical compatible with Calendar (formerly iCal) for macOS. The best bit, though, is Fantastical's naturallanguage input, where you can type an event and watch it build as you add details, such as times and locations. On iPad, we do question the layout a little - a large amount of space is given over to a month calendar view. Still, in portrait or, better, Split View, Fantastical 2 is transformative. GoodReader is the iPad's best PDF reader, and also a means of editing documents on the move. Using the app's excellent toolset, you can annotate documents and extract text. Pages within documents can be rearranged, and files split and combined. Beyond working specifically with PDF, the app will preview many other file types, and includes the ability to archive and extract ZIPs, and connect to a wide range of online services. It therefore goes far beyond the likes of iBooks, becoming a handy tool for anyone who regularly works with PDFs and sends them on elsewhere. You're not going to make the next Hollywood hit on your iPad, but iMovie 's more than capable of dealing with home movies. The interface resembles its desktop cousin and is easy to get to grips with. Clips can be browsed, arranged and cut, and you can then add titles, transitions and music. For the added professional touch, there are 'trailer templates' to base your movie on, rather than starting from scratch. And should your iPad be powerful enough, this app will happily work with and export footage all the way up to 4K, which will likely make anyone who used to sit in front of huge video workstations a decade or two ago wide-eyed with astonishment. There's something fascinating about animation, and iStopMotion is a powerful and usable app for unleashing your inner Aardman, enabling you to create frame-by-frame stories. The camera overlay makes it easy to check your current scene against the previous one, and you can preview your work at any time. There's also time-lapse functionality built-in, and the means to use the free iStopMotion Remote Camera with an iPhone on the same network. If you're still convinced the iPad is only a device for staring brain-dead at TV shows and not a practical tool for education, check out iTunes U. The app enables you to access many thousands of free lectures and courses taught by universities and colleges, thereby learning far more than what bizarre schemes current soap characters are hatching. For instructors, it's similarly a boon, enabling them to build lessons, collect and grade assignments, and have one-to-one or group discussions. It's also an app that gels well with Apple's modern design sensibilities, the interface getting out of the way and letting content shine through. Touch Press somewhat cornered the market in amazing iOS books with The Elements, but Journeys of Invention takes things a step further. In partnership with the Science Museum, it leads you through many of science's greatest discoveries, weaving them into a compelling mesh of stories. Many objects can be explored in detail, and some are more fully interactive, such as the Enigma machine, which you can use to share coded messages with friends. What's especially great is that none of this feels gimmicky. Instead, this app points towards the future of books, strong content being married to useful and engaging interactivity. The idea behind Launch Center Pro is to take certain complex actions and turn them into tappable items — a kind of speed-dial for tasks such as adding items to Clear, opening a URL in 1Password, or opening a specific view in Google Maps. Although the list of supported apps isn't huge, it's full of popular productivity apps; and should you use any of them on a regular basis, Launch Center Pro will be a massive time-saver and is well worth the outlay. It's not like Microsoft Word really needs introduction. Unless you've been living under a rock that itself is under a pretty sizeable rock, you'll have heard of Microsoft's hugely popular word processor. What you might not realize, though, is how good it is on iPad. Fire up the app and you're greeted with a selection of handy templates, although you can of course instead use a blank canvas. You then work with something approximating the desktop version of Word, but that's been carefully optimized for tablets. Your brain keeps arguing it shouldn't exist, but it does — although things are a bit fiddly on an iPad mini. Wisely, saved documents can be stored locally rather than you being forced to use Microsoft's cloud, and they can be shared via email. (A PDF option exists for recipients without Office, although it's oddly hidden behind the share button in the document toolbar, under 'Send Attachment', which may as well have been called 'beware of the leopard'.) Something else that's also missing: full iPad Pro 12.9 support in the free version. On a smaller iPad, you merely need a Microsoft account to gain access to most features. Some advanced stuff — section breaks; columns; tracking changes; insertion of WordArt — requires an Office 365 account, but that won't limit most users. Presumably, Microsoft thinks iPad Pro owners have money to burn, though, because for free they just get a viewer. Bah. There are loads of note-taking apps for the iPad, but Notability hits that sweet spot of being usable and feature-rich. Using the app's various tools, you can scribble on a virtual canvas, using your finger or a stylus. Should you want precision copy, you can drag out text boxes to type into. It's also possible to import documents. One of the smartest features, though, is audio recording. This enables you to record a lecture or meeting, and the app will later play back your notes live alongside the audio, helping you see everything in context. Naturally, the app has plenty of back-up and export options, too, so you can send whatever you create to other apps and devices. We mention Microsoft's iPad efforts elsewhere, but if you don't fancy paying for a subscription and yet need some spreadsheet-editing joy on your iPad, Numbers is an excellent alternative. Specially optimised for Apple's tablet, Numbers makes great use of custom keyboards, smart zooming, and forms that enable you to rapidly enter data. Presentation app Keynote and page-layout app Pages are also worth a look. For a long while, Paper was a freemium iPad take on Moleskine sketchbooks. You made little doodles and then flipped virtual pages to browse them. At some point, it went free, but now it's been transformed into something different and better. The original tools remain present and correct, but are joined by the means to add text, checklists, and photos. One other newcomer allows geometric shapes you scribble to be tidied up, but without losing their character. So rather than only being for digital sketches, Paper's now for all kinds of notes and graphs, too. The sketchbooks, however, are gone; in their place are paper stacks that explode into walls of virtual sticky notes. Some old-hands have grumbled, but we love the new Paper. It's smarter, simpler, easier to browse, and makes Apple's own Notes look like a cheap knock-off. PCalc Lite 's existence means the lack of a built-in iPad calculator doesn't bother us. For anyone who wants a traditional calculator, it's pretty much ideal. The big buttons beg to be tapped, and the interface can be tweaked to your liking, by way of bolder and larger key text, alternate display digits, and stilling animation. Beyond basic sums, PCalc Lite adds some conversions, which are categorised but also searchable. If you're hankering for more, IAP lets you bolt on a number of extras from the paid version of PCalc, such as additional themes, dozens more conversions, alternate calculator layouts, a virtual paper tape, and options for programmers and power users. We tend to quickly shift children from finger-painting to using much finer tools, but the iPad shows there's plenty of power in your digits — if you're using the right app. Autodesk SketchBook provides all the tools you need for digital sketching, from basic doodles through to intricate and painterly masterpieces; and if you're wanting to share your technique, you can even time-lapse record to save drawing sessions to your camera roll. The core app is free, but it will cost you $4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99 to unlock the pro features. In theory, we should be cheerleading for FaceTime, what with it being built into iOS devices, but it's still an Apple-only system. Skype , however, is enjoyed by myriad users who haven't been bitten by the Apple bug, and it works very nicely on the iPad, including over 3G. Unlike on the iPhone, where Skype clearly wants to be a Windows Phone app, the iPad version feels a lot more like a restrained desktop app. Usefully, Skype works well in Split View, too, so you can message people while referring to an open document or web page. Apple's Photos app has editing capabilities, but they're not terribly exciting — especially when compared to Snapseed. Here, you select from a number of tools and filters, and proceed to pinch and swipe your way to a transformed image. You get all the basics — cropping, rotation, healing brushes, and the like - but the filters are where you can get really creative. There are blurs, photographic effects, and more extreme options like 'grunge' and 'grainy film', which can add plenty of atmosphere to your photographs. The vast majority of effects are tweakable, mostly by dragging up and down on the canvas to select a parameter and then horizontally to adjust its strength. Brilliantly, the app also records applied effects as separate layers, each of which remains fully editable until you decide to save your image and work on something else. Soulver is more or less the love child of a spreadsheet and the kind of calculations you do on the back of an envelope. You write figures in context, and Souvler extracts the maths bits and tots up totals; each line's results can be used as a token in subsequent lines, enabling live updating of complex calculations. Drafts can be saved, exported to HTML, and also synced via Dropbox or iCloud. Initially, the app feels a bit alien, given that people have been used to digital versions of desktop calculators since the dawn of home computing. But scribbling down sums in Soulver soon becomes second nature. When the YouTube app presumably became a victim of the ongoing and increasingly tedious Apple/Google spat, there were concerns Google wouldn't respond. Those turned out to be unfounded, because here's yet another bespoke, nicely designed Google-created app for iOS. The interface is specifically tuned for the iPad, and AirPlay enables you to fire videos at an Apple TV. We're big fans of the Foldify apps, which enable people to fashion and customise little 3D characters on an iPad, before printing them out and making them for real. This mix of digital painting, sharing (models can be browsed, uploaded and rated) and crafting a physical object is exciting in a world where people spend so much time glued to virtual content on screens. But it's Foldify Dinosaurs that makes this list because, well, dinosaurs. Who wouldn't be thrilled at the prospect of making a magenta T-Rex with a natty moustache? Should that person exist, we don't want to meet them. When someone talks about bringing back the sounds of the 1980s, your head might fill with Human League and Depeche Mode, but if you played games, you'll instead think of Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway, chip-tune pioneers whose music graced the C64, leveraging the power of the MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID (Sound Interface Device) chip. SidTracker64 is a niche but wonderfully designed iPad app that's a complete production package for creating SID tunes. It's unashamedly retro in terms of sound, but boasts a modern design, with powerful editing and export functionality. If you're only into raw chip-tune noises, Audiobus and InterApp Audio are supported; but if you're an old-hand, you'll be delighted at the bundled copy of Hubbard's Commando, ready for you to remix. 2017-03-20 14:47 Craig Grannell www.techradar.com 72 / 141 0.7 Fowl Play? Nope, Giant Chicken in Viral Video Is Real Video footage of what appeared to be an exceptionally large chicken went viral on Twitter yesterday (March 19), gathering tens of thousands of retweets and likes. It prompted exclamations of disbelief and awe, as viewers watched the massive bird navigate down the steps from its coop and strut around an outdoor enclosure. Shared by @LifesBook_Ceo at 3:23 a.m. local time, the tweet showcasing the chicken did not include any identifying information about either the chicken or its location, but several commenters on Twitter suggested that the bird was likely a Brahma chicken, a large type of domestic fowl known for its size and spectacular plumage — particularly the feathers in the broad fan of its tail and those adorning its legs and toes. Though it's unclear from the video exactly how big the chicken is, it does appear to have much longer legs and a stockier body than the average barnyard hen, and the splay of feathers around the chicken's feet make them seem almost like massive paws as it paces the pen. [ Camera Trapped: Wonderful and Weird Wildlife Around the World ] The Brahma chicken is not a separate species, but rather a breed of the domestic chicken ( Gallus gallus domesticus ). It is one of the largest such breeds, with males documented as weighing up to 18 lbs. (8 kilograms), though the average Brahma chicken is closer to 12 lbs. (5 kg) according to The Livestock Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that aims to protect endangered breeds of livestock and poultry . Brahma chickens were developed in the U. S., bred primarily from large chickens that originated in China, and they were described as an official breed in the American Poultry Association's American Standard of Perfection in 1874, The Livestock Conservancy reported. There are three color varieties — light, dark and buff — and the bird in the video appears to be a light Brahma: mostly white, with dark feathers at the tips of its wings and tail and the lower part of its neck. Brahma chickens are frequently referred to as "The King of All Poultry," and they are famed for their hardiness in cold climates, their production of large eggs and their ample quantities of meat — "a large Brahma could feed a moderate-sized family," according to The Livestock Conservancy. Original article on Live Science . 2017-03-20 14:45 Mindy Weisberger www.livescience.com 73 / 141 1.2 What 'masochistic' wearable tech says about desire for choice 2017's World Consumer Rights Day calls attention to how consumers are yet to trust the products and services born out of the technologically-driven digital economy. But this is only half the picture when it comes to understanding our changing relationship with technology. Because while some consumers may struggle to trust services such as Uber, other consumers seek out technology to make decisions for them and to take control of their lives. As sociologist William Davies has claimed, these desires fuel the growth of 'predictive shopping', which is where goods are delivered to consumers' homes based on what they have bought before, rather than through an expressed choice to purchase. A growing genre of wearable technology is also illustrative of consumers' growing appetite for innovations that make personal decisions and place limits on their lives. When we think of wearable technology, our minds probably turn to those fitness devices used to track and monitor our physical activity. But is all wearable technology as benign as the devices which tell us the number of steps we take each day? No, not all. Take, for instance, the wristband that administers an electric shock of up to 340 volts to the wearer when they succumb to bad habits, the hope being that the threat of physical punishment will ensure we shake unwanted behaviours. Similarly, another piece of software punishes you financially if you fail to keep to your goals. On the one hand, these technologies could be treated as just another tool - albeit masochistic ones - to ensure we achieve our New Year's resolutions. On the other, the desire for this genre of technology reveals how consumers are looking for ways to relinquish freedom of choice, out-sourcing decision making and granting responsibility to technologies that, to some extent, take control of their lives. The growing popularity of technologies that limit the options available to us and constrain our capacity to exercise choice is significant when we consider the way in which autonomy, liberation and the freedom to express oneself has been the great boast of advanced economies. If it's possible to treat these technologies as evidence of a new appetite for devices that dominate, suppress and limit, a necessary question to ask is: where does this growing desire for one's own domination come from? Doug Holt chronicles a key moment in the transformation of marketing in 1950s America. Influenced by books such as William H. White's The Organization Man, consumers rallied against paternalistic marketing techniques that directed consumers as to how they should live. Consumers were aggrieved that marketing firms were providing oppressive blueprints for how they should spend their income while simultaneously asserting they had the freedom to choose. The most successful brands in the decades that followed - Volkswagen, Jack Daniels, Nike - provided platforms for consumers to pursue this newfound desire for selfexpression and individuality. Not much has changed. From organisations that work out new ways to offer us personalised products and services on the assumption that we wish to reflect our individuality in everything we purchase, to social media platforms asking us express to others what is on our mind, the obligation that we invest our sense of self into everything we consume has never been as dominant. But is this abundance of opportunity to self-express healthy? Research shows perhaps not. Psychologist Roy Baumeister argues there are pressures that come with not only having a unique sense of self but also being compelled to express it. This is because being required to make decisions that invite you to reveal your 'true self' can result in a crippling sense of vulnerability, self-awareness and anxiety, since we are worried about maintaining a favourable public image. If you have ever planned your own wedding, you'll appreciate how taxing and stressful these activities can be. Prosecco or Champagne? Meat or fish? The ways in which we can express who we are to others are apparently endless. The anxiety that arises out of these situations can result in the strange circumstance where you are happy to pay others to take control and make the most personal decisions for you. What this illustrates is Baumeister's central point: that when continually confronted with the command to express who we are, trying to maintain a unique identity can become stressful. And in response, people derive great pleasure in handing control over to others, even if this means freedom is constrained and choices are limited. From this perspective, the growing appetite for this genre of technology that limits freedom and constrains the choices available to us begins to make sense. For consumers burdened by organisations' ceaseless command to self-express, technologies that promise to limit, constrain, and dominate appear to relieve that burden. While we may boast of the abundance of choice and freedom available to us, the role of this new genre of technology in today's consumer society is not so much to do with facilitating freedom, but more with helping us to escape it. Explore further: When identity marketing backfires: Consumers don't like to be told what they like 2017-03-20 14:41 phys.org 74 / 141 7.9 Anti-Immigration Rhetoric Is a Threat to American Leadership March 20, 2017 — Katherine Wright 11 minutes ago — Daniel Barron March 20, 2017 — Jeremy Hsu 14 hours ago — Caleb A. Scharf 15 hours ago — Darren Naish 18 hours ago — Andrew Joseph and STAT 2017-03-20 14:35 Samuel L blogs.scientificamerican.com 75 / 141 0.5 2017 Channel Madness Round 1 Results So Far: Cloud Battle Brewing - Page: 1 We're more than halfway through the voting in Round 1 of the 2017 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs. Let's take a look at the scores so far. In the Infrastructure region, F5's David Helfer in his tournament debut is out in front of Shannon Sbar of APC by Schneider Electric by a score of 64 percent to 36 percent. In her quest to best last year's performance, Cisco's Wendy Bahr is out to a comfortable lead over Commvault's Ralph Nimergood , 58 percent to 42 percent. Extreme's Bob Gault is leading Terry Richardson of Hewlett Packard Enterprise 57 percent to 43 percent, while Eaton's Curtiz Gangi is besting HPE's Scott Dunsire 54 percent to 46 percent. In the Hardware region, 2016 Champion Sandra Glaser Cheek of Brocade Ruckus has come out strong against NetApp's Bill Lipsin , leading 58 percent to 42 percent. Dell EMC's John Byrne is ahead of Polycom's Nick Tidd 60 percent to 40 percent, while Lenovo's Sammy Kinlaw is looking good against Aruba's Donna Grothjan , 84 percent to 16 percent. And HP's Stephanie Dismore is ahead of tournament newcomer Greg Taylor of Samsung, 56 percent to 44 percent. In the Cloud region, a fierce battle is waging between Datto's Rob Rae and Intermedia's Eric Martorano , with Rae holding a slim 52 percent to 48 percent lead. This is currently the tightest race in the tournament. Elsewhere in the region, 2016 finalist Brooks McCorcle of AT&T is ahead of Carbonite's Jon Whitlock , 85 percent to 15 percent. Whitlock was a last-minute replacement for Jessica Couto , who left Carbonite last week. VMware's Frank Rauch is turning in a strong performance, leading Google's Bertrand Yansouni 74 percent to 26 percent. And Verizon's Janet Schijns is up over tournament newcomer David Powell of LogicMonitor, 82 percent to 18 percent. 2017-03-20 14:32 Jennifer Follett www.crn.com 76 / 141 1.6 Video: We got a demo of Fleshlight’s new dick-sucking robot At SXSW we met up with Maurice op de Beek, CTO of Kiiroo , a Dutch company that developed the Fleshlight Launch. The Launch is a robot that pairs with normal Fleshlights to relieve users of the manual work you’d normally have to put in. The device can be used independently, or paired with VR or video to mimic the motions on screen. Maurice gave us a demo and talked us through the bright future of teledildonics. SXSW Kiiroo We did our best to censor the more explicit parts, but some parts of this video could be considered NSFW. “We're hunting for awesome startups” Run an early-stage company? We're inviting 250 to exhibit at TNW Conference and pitch on stage! CHECK IT OUT Run an early-stage company? We're inviting 250 to exhibit at TNW Conference and pitch on stage! CHECK IT OUT Get your very own Launch for $199.95 over here . for $199.95 over here We like some products. We don’t like others. Either way, if you buy something through our affiliate links, we get a small cut of the revenue. This isn’t a sponsored post, but for the sake of transparency, you deserve to know what’s up. Distract SXSW Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 14:27 Alejandro Tauber feedproxy.google.com 77 / 141 1.0 Meet the 20-something Stripe founders who are now worth more than $1 billion each Patrick and John Collison have come a long way from the quiet village outside of Limerick, Ireland where they grew up. With little around except "mooing cows," the brothers turned to coding to occupy themselves. To access the internet, their parents had to buy a special satellite. In 2011 the Collisons founded Stripe, an online payment processing company whose backers include Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Today, Patrick, 28, and John, 26, are billionaires who live in a sundrenched apartment in San Francisco, and newcomers to Forbes's billionaires list. Each is worth an estimated $1.1 billion. Their success is due in large part to an obsession with technology and coding — each of the brothers taught themselves to code before the age of 10. "I went to the bookstore on a Saturday, I bought a book about programming, and I started programming," Patrick tells The Financial Times . Later, they both briefly attended prestigious universities. Patrick dropped out of MIT and John dropped out of Harvard University to co-found their first start-up, Auctomatic, a marketplace management system for companies like eBay. They would sell Auctomatic for $5 million and move on to their next idea, developing an easy way to accept mobile payments online. In 2009, the brothers started writing code for what would become Stripe. Soon after, they secured funding from start-up incubator Y Combinator, where they caught the attention of investors Thiel and Musk. In 2016, John became the world's youngest selfmade billionaire, taking the title from Snapchat cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel. Today, Patrick is Stripe's CEO and John is its president. When they're not running the company they cofounded, both are avid readers (the two are said to own more than 600 books ) who like to run and travel. Along with their talents, the brothers' trademark humility — despite their billionaire status — has earned them the confidence and enthusiasm of investors and clients. "Heartening as the success to date has been, we are so early in accomplishing the goals that we set out for ourselves," Patrick told Forbes in 2016. "If anyone here believes that Stripe has already made it, that would be hugely problematic for us. " Check out the eight books that influenced Elon Musk's career 2017-03-20 14:20 Marguerite Ward www.cnbc.com 78 / 141 0.1 The best gaming laptop deals in March 2017: cheap gaming laptops for every budget If you’re on the hunt for the best gaming laptop deals, then you’re in luck! We’ve scoured the internet for the best deals that will give you mobile gaming power without destroying your bank account. You may be looking for an affordable budget gaming laptop that you can take with you on journeys to play casual or indie games, or looking for a huge gaming behemoth that packs in top-ofthe-range components that would make a gaming desktop PC blush – no matter what your needs, we have you covered. We’ve got the best weekly deals on gaming laptops at the top of this page, bringing you the very latest bargains, and beneath that we have the best prices for our favourite gaming laptops. This gaming laptop won’t leave you penniless In a world full of overpriced gaming laptops with internals that overcompensate for their underqualified screen resolutions and short-lived batteries, the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming is a breath of fresh air. Ditching the Alienware moniker for something a little more mainstream, Dell has crafted yet another gaming PC masked as a productivity machine. Following in the footsteps of the Dell XPS Tower Special Edition , the Inspiron 15 is a gaming computer you wouldn’t be embarrassed to use in public. From the outside looking in, the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming is a class act. Better yet, it’s relatively powerful, long-lasting and, come to think of it, pretty damn affordable too. It's hard not to love a gaming laptop this good The Asus Strix GL502 may not boast the most innovative design, swapping out the usual black and red color scheme for one that makes it feel like Halloween year-round. But, it's undoubtedly one of the best when it comes to gaming in 1080p. In fact, we were able to crank the settings all the way up in Overwatch without taking a hit below 60fps. The battery life is janky, sure, but the screen, performance and onboard sound system more than make up for it. A premium desktop replacement sans the premium cost Like the GameCube of laptops, the HP Omen 17 has the build quality of a children’s toy. However, when you see what it can do, you’ll wonder why it didn’t cost more. At 7 pounds, you’ll have to forgive the weight of the HP Omen 17 if you want to benefit from its 17-inch Quad-HD display. Of course, although the GTX 1070 is more of a 1440p performer than a 4K one, you can still expect a consistent 30 fps in games like The Division at the highest graphical settings. Overall, the HP Omen 17 is HP’s Gigabyte P57X equivalent, but with Bang & Olufsen speakers that might tip you over the edge. Proof the GTX 980 is far from dead The Predator 17 X isn’t the kind of laptop you would take to a coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon to catch up on assignments. Unless you don’t mind lugging around a bulky power brick and a 10.03pound (4.67kg) computer, this is a notebook best left at home. The Predator 17 X is, however, one of the most well-rounded gaming laptops. A desktopclass Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, for instance, is built into the base of the machine, making it (just barely) capable of gaming in 4K. This is a smart move considering that, if you shell out a bit more cash over the base model, the 17 X boasts an Ultra HD display, complete with G-Sync functionality. Paired with more than enough ports to get the job done, the Acer Predator 17 X is well worth the steep asking price, even if it does take three-and-a-half hours to charge. A gaming-ready MacBook Pro rival For many gamers, Ultrabook is a four-letter word, but it doesn't have to be. The first time you get your hands on a Razer Blade, you'll be looking at a battery life of 3 hours and 35 minutes in-game (or six hours of non-stop video). While you could argue it does skimp as far as graphics are concerned, with the help of a Razer Core external GPU enclosure, you can strap an Nvidia Titan X inside if you want. 2017-03-20 14:20 Matt Hanson www.techradar.com 79 / 141 0.5 Researchers Turn Food Waste into Tires Tomato peels, eggshells and other food that gets discarded could be turned into sustainable rubber for use in tires, according to a new study. Researchers found that the petroleum-based material used as filler for rubber tires could be made from food waste and other trash, offering a petroleum alternative in tire manufacturing. And beyond tires, the scientists think using food waste as a filler could expand the potential applications of rubber, they said. Cindy Barrera, a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University (OSU) and co-author of the research, said that conventional fillers can make rubber stronger, but also less flexible. [ Changing Earth: 7 Ideas to Geoengineer Our Planet ] "We found that replacing different portions of carbon black [filler] with ground eggshells and tomato peels caused synergistic effects — for instance, enabling strong rubber to retain flexibility," Barrera said in a statement . About 30 percent of a tire is made up of carbon black, a petroleum-based filler usually obtained from overseas, according to the researchers. The material is becoming scarce as tire production continues to increase, and the researchers said there is no longer a surplus of carbon black filler. The scientists also noted that because carbon black is a petroleum product, the filler is not a sustainable option. On the other hand, food waste like eggshells and tomato peels is plentiful. According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), nearly 100 billion eggs are consumed by Americans each year. Half of those are used in commercial food factories, where the eggshells are taken to landfills by the ton, according to the researchers. "We're not suggesting that we collect the eggshells from your breakfast," study lead researcher Katrina Cornish, a biomaterials researcher and professor at OSU, said in the statement. "We're going right to the biggest source. " The porous microstructures of eggshells offer a larger surface area to fuse with the rubber, offering more stability, according to the researchers. Tomato peels remain stable at high temperatures, giving the rubber tires a better performance, they added. Tomatoes are also the second-most popular vegetable in the U. S., with the USDA estimating that about 13 million tons of tomatoes are consumed each year. Meaning there are plenty of tomato peels, and eggshells, for the new technology Cornish and her team obtained the eggshells and tomato peels from Ohio food producers, and are currently testing different combinations of the waste to create the most durable, flexible rubber. Their method of turning food waste into rubber filler is currently awaiting approval for a patent. Original article on Live Science . 2017-03-20 14:16 Kacey Deamer www.livescience.com 80 / 141 1.4 Sources: Tanium COO-CFO Leaves Company Suddenly, Despite IPO Plans On Horizon Page: 1 Tanium's chief operating officer and chief financial officer, Eric Brown, left the company suddenly last week, sources close to the company told CRN. Brown's exit comes as the Emeryville, Calif.-based company looks to lay the groundwork for an initial public offering. Tanium confirmed Brown's departure in an email to CRN, but said Brown left on "good terms. " [Related: Okta Looks To Raise $100M In IPO To Invest In Growth, Acquisitions ] "Eric has been a vital part of building Tanium to this point, and we're all deeply grateful for what he has contributed. He remains close to the company and will continue to advise us as needed. Eric has built a strong team with strong leaders, and business continues as usual," CEO Orion Hindawi said in an emailed statement to CRN about the departure. Brown declined to comment when reached directly by CRN. Tanium said it will look to hire a new CFO when the company finds the right candidate. Hindawi launched Tanium in 2007 with his father, David Hindawi, who is executive chairman. The two co-founded the company after selling a previous company, BigFix, to IBM in 2010. Tanium's peer-topeer technology lets organizations continuously scan all endpoints in a network to detect vulnerabilities and unmanaged devices. The technology is important as companies look to ramp up their security and management of endpoint devices, which Tanium helps discover and secure. Over the past few years, Tanium has been regarded as one of the hottest startups in the security space, raising a total of $262 million, with the latest round of $120 million in September 2016 reportedly coming at a valuation of $3.5 billion. Sources have told CRN that the company also saw acquisition bids from both VMware and Palo Alto Networks in late 2016, with the latter company bidding in excess of $3 billion. Brown's exit comes at Tanium looks to march toward the next phase of its growth: its initial public offering. In an interview with CRN last year, Hindawi said he believes the next step for Tanium is to go public, rather than pursue an acquisition. 2017-03-20 14:15 Sarah Kuranda www.crn.com 81 / 141 0.4 Media or tech company question at heart of ad row But one thing is clear - Google has a problem here. A serious problem that goes to the heart of what this company does, and what it stands for. Now, you might imagine that Google would consider itself a huge player in the media world. Look in the Oxford dictionary and you'll find that "media" refers to "mass communication", and not much can fall into that category more than our social media giants. YouTube collates a vast amount of information and content and, like Facebook, plays a pivotal role in the way news is consumed around the world. :: Google boss apology as M&S becomes latest to suspend ads over hate videos Over a billion people are regular YouTube users and hundreds of millions of videos - possibly billions, depending on which statistics you believe are watched every day. And yet Google says it's not a media company. It insists it is, instead, solely a technology company, and should be regulated as such. YouTube, runs that logic, is nothing more profound than a website for allowing people to post content online, rather than a structure for judging the worth of that content. It just so happens that it's one of the three most visited websites in the world. There are guidelines, and users are invited to report content that they find offensive. But YouTube doesn't proactively manage the content on its platform. It just jumps in when someone complains. What it does do, though, is charge advertisers for putting their content on YouTube, or any of Google's various other platforms. And that's why this row has such potential for changing the nature of Google, both as a company and as a service. Advertisers spend money because they want people to take an interest in their brand, or their products. :: What the firms are saying They want consumers - that's you and me - to feel positive or intrigued. What those advertisers emphatically don't want is for their new campaigns to appear next to offensive content. "It is frankly ridiculous that Google can take our money but not curate the content on its own website," one executive at a FTSE100 told me. "They want to have the money, but not the responsibility. " It is a view echoed, most notably, by Sir Martin Sorrell, the boss of WPP, the world's biggest advertising agency. He told me that both Google and Facebook had "for too long claimed to be digital pioneers and denied responsibility for their own content". It is a problem echoed in the ongoing debates over "fake news" - the simple fact that clever algorithms may be able to do almost limitless calculations, but presently struggle to tell apart lies and truth, or to differentiate between the offensive and the entertaining. The answer may be something very old-fashioned human beings monitoring content and sifting out what's acceptable, and what isn't. But whether Google and Facebook - and their lawyers - want to take overt responsibility for their own content may prove a thorny, decisive question. 2017-03-20 14:15 Business Correspondent news.sky.com 82 / 141 1.6 The 10 best computers of 2017: the best PCs ranked Update: Joining the ranks of the other best PCs on our list is the Dell XPS 27, an all-in-one computer that’s sharp in both appearances and performance, even if it’s on the opulent side when it comes to its price. Read on to number 8 on our list to find out more! It wasn’t but a few years ago that pundits were clamoring for the death of the traditional desktop computer. It’s 2017, though, and the PC hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, with AMD’s Ryzen processors finally here and its successor on the way , it’s only a matter of time before the PC space is littered with more powerful – not to mention more affordable – options. its successor on the way Performing hardware-intensive tasks such as gaming and video editing on a powerful rig with personalized components is like nothing you could experience on a tablet or laptop. Averting dead batteries and upgrade limitations are just two of the many benefits the best PC has to offer. PCs have an upgradeability factor that’s virtually unparalleled. If you want to save up for the inevitable GTX 1080 Ti to shove into your computer’s chassis, that’s your prerogative, and it’ll likely garner you that sweet 4K HDR sweet spot in top-end games such as Mass Effect: Andromeda. GTX 1080 Ti such as Mass Effect: Andromeda There is a wide range, however, of form factors to choose from when shopping around for a new PC. The minimalism and compact nature of all-in-ones like the HP EliteOne 800 G3 is sure to appeal to those desperate for accessibility. Meanwhile, the traditional desktop PC tower still trucks on alongside tiny computers that go under your TV stand called mini PCs. HP EliteOne 800 G3 Save for our Apple examples, which naturally come loaded with macOS Sierra , and the Chrome OSequipped Acer Chromebase, you can expect any one of the PCs on this list to support Windows 10 – whether out of the box or with an upgrade. macOS Sierra Windows 10 Don’t be fooled, this machine is a gaming PC at heart CPU: Intel Core i5 – Core i7 | Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 480 – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 | Storage: 1TB HDD – 512GB SSD; 2TB HDD | Communication: Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 7.09 x 14.02 x 15.22 inches Leave it to Dell to contrive a computer that’s not only affordable, but arguably one of the best options for gaming disguised as a regular productivity machine. It may not have “the look,” but the XPS Tower Special Edition is capable of far more than basic number crunching. Featuring anywhere from an Intel Core i5 to Core i7 Skylake processor paired with 8GB of RAM, that would be enough to make the Dell XPS Tower Special Edition sing. But Dell didn’t stop there. Rather, the computer company managed to squeeze in discrete graphics that, surprisingly for a pre-built machine, doesn’t cost an outrageous wad of cash. Not only that, but register your XPS Tower Special Edition with Dell and they’ll throw in complimentary customer support via the web. If you prefer your PCs with subdued, austere designs over those bedecked with aliens and snakes, this one does it all. Read the full review: Dell XPS Tower Special Edition Dell XPS Tower Special Edition A stylish all-in-one with a stunning screen CPU: Intel Dual-Core i5 - Quad-Core i7 | Graphics: Intel Iris Graphics 6000 | RAM: 8GB - 32GB | Storage: 1TB HDD - 3TB SSD | Communication: Wireless: 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 196 x 196 x 36mm The iMac is known for its essentialism. Easy-to-use hardware combined with the famed accessibility of macOS makes for a nigh-perfect computing experience. A built-in screen, speakers and 802.11ac wireless networking are only complemented by the fantastic Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse 2. All you need is a power cable to get it up and running. There's quite a range of iMacs, starting at £899 (around $1,365 or AUS$1,943) for an entry-level 21.9-inch model with a dual-core processor that's just enough for basic tasks, up to 27-inch iMacs with quad-core processors and even the optional 5K display. If you want a faster, quieter and more reliable storage option, you can opt for a hybrid solid state drive as well. Even on the low-end model, the IPS display is bright and vivid, with a clever design where the edges of the aluminum chassis are thinner than many standalone monitors. And as standard, the iMac runs macOS, although Apple makes it very easy to install Windows alongside if you want to continue using your existing Windows software. Read the full review: Apple iMac with 5K Retina display Apple iMac with 5K Retina display Still stylish, still stunning, but compact too CPU: Intel Quad-Core i5 | Graphics: Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 | RAM: 8GB 1867MHz LPDDR3 | Storage: 1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400RPM | Communication: Wireless: 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 45cm x 52.8cm x 17.5cm Boasting a vibrant Retina 4K display that's packed with color, Apple's new 21.5-inch iMac is a small bundle of aluminum joy. Its display's massive, 4,096 x 2,304 pixel-resolution is great for surfing the web in comfort with multiple windows side-by-side in El Capitan's Split View in addition to image and video editing, watching 4K video content and just about everything else. El Capitan's As expected from an Apple computer, it's a typically well-built machine that, in true iMac tradition, barely takes up more space on your desk than a larger laptop. Apple is bundling the 4K iMac with a superb set of accessories, too including the latest versions of its Magic Mouse 2, Magic Trackpad 2 and its allnew Magic Keyboard. Just make sure you upgrade the standard spinning hard drive to a 1TB Fusion Drive (or even better, the 256GB SSD) if you want to shell out a bit more cash to eliminate lengthy loading times. Read the full review: Apple iMac with 4K Retina display (21.5-inch, Late 2015) Apple iMac with 4K Retina display (21.5-inch, Late 2015) The cheapest way you can go Mac CPU: Intel Dual-Core i5 | Graphics: Intel Iris Graphics 5100 | RAM: 4GB - 8GB | Storage: 500GB HDD | Communication: Wireless: 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 196 x 196 x 36mm The Mac mini exhibits the luxury of an Apple desktop without the price tag to match. Starting at a mere $499 (£399, AU$779), the Mac mini is barebones yet affordable. Though it ships without the otherwise expected Magic Mouse and Keyboard peripherals, getting to choose your own accessories is, at the very least, liberating. And, while it hasn't been updated in quite some time on the hardware front, the Mac Mini's Haswellbased i5 processor still chugs along nicely. Plus, with Iris Graphics onboard, you'll get a bit more juice than expected. Combined with 500GB of storage space and 4GB of RAM, the Mac mini is arguably the best starting point for OS X newcomers even if a contemporary makeover is long past due. With an aluminum shell and simplistic industrial design, the Mac mini represents Apple at its very core. Where it mainly lacks, however, is in performance. Luckily the option for a Fusion Drive, which marries the power of both HDD and SSD technology, somewhat makes up for this inadequacy. A configuration sporting 8GB of RAM is an option too, but if you don't want to shell out the extra cash, the base model will do just fine. Read the full review: Apple Mac mini Apple Mac mini A stackable media PC with plenty of storage CPU: Intel Celeron N3050 – Core i5 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics – Intel HD Graphics 520 | RAM: 2GB – 8GB | Storage: 32GB SSD – 1TB HDD | Communication: 802.11ac, Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.0 + LE | Dimensions (W x D x H): 5.3 x 5.3 x 2.2 inches The Acer Revo Build is one of the few desktop computers you can actually take advantage of on the go in addition to with your at-home setup. Featuring upgradeability that’s as easy as stacking Lincoln Logs, the Revo Build is both the perfect media PC and a stellar charging station for your other devices. Unfortunately, that’s assuming you shell out enough for the most expensive configuration, which comprises an Audio Block for built-in sound output, a 1TB hard drive block and even a graphics block for Ultra HD video. The Revo Build packs in not one, but three USB ports, an SD card slot and even DisplayPort. Plus, if your phone is up to task, you can even utilize wireless charging. Read the full review: Acer Revo Build Acer Revo Build It's a prettier, if less-beefy, Mac Pro CPU: Intel Core i3 – Intel Core i5 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 530 – AMD Radeon R9 M470 | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 1TB HDD | Communication: 802.11ac, Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.2 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 6.81 x 6.62 x 9.25 inches The HP Pavilion Wave is the latest in a trend of desktops posing as entirely different hardware. This time it’s a speaker, thanks to a partnership with Bang & Olufsen, and the HP Pavilion Wave succeeds where others have failed. Rather than muddling the audio quality exerted from the Wave’s onboard speaker system. HP and B&O Play have devised a clever cylindrical design that actually improves on sound quality while looking good at the same time. The HP Pavilion Wave also manages to futureproof itself with Bluetooth 4.2 capabilities, three standard USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, DisplayPort and even a single USB Type-C port. Read the first look: HP Pavilion Wave HP Pavilion Wave A multimedia aficionado for the whole family CPU: Intel Core i5 – Core i7 | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti – GeForce GTX 960 | RAM: 12GB – 32GB | Storage: 2TB HDD + 128GB SSD – 2TB HDD + 256GB SSD | Communication: Lenovo AC Wireless, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.0 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 7.12 x 17.98 x 15.77 When it’s not busy perfecting its ThinkPad formula, Lenovo is hard at work on its bombastic series of entertainment-centric desktops. Stacked with one of the most powerful Skylake processors on the market combined with a discrete GPU of your choosing as well as your preferred hard drive and solid state drive pairing, the Lenovo IdeaCentre 710 is more than enough for 4K video playback and then some. Although it’s designed more for video editing than twitch-shooting, the IdeaCentre 710 can handle some light- to medium-weight gaming with ease. It might not run the latest Battlefield at the highest settings in 1080p, the IdeaCentre 710 is still far more capable than it has any right to be – and without costing a fortune at that. Aside from the limited GPU configuration options, the only complaint we have is that for such a highquality machine, the Lenovo IdeaCentre 710 ships with Windows 10 Home rather than Windows 10 Pro. As a result, you’ll need to upgrade manually if you want the option to defer updates or access your desktop remotely. A well-rounded jab at Apple’s ageing iMac CPU: Intel Core i5 – Core i7 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 530 | RAM: 8GB – 32GB | Storage: 1TB HDD – 2TB HDD; 32GB SSD | Communication: 802.11ac; Ethernet; Bluetooth 4.0 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 17.1 x 24.6 x 3.16 inches The Dell XPS 27 is an all-in-one that does it all, and it does so with pristine equity. Resting atop an articulating stand is a massive 4K Ultra HD touchscreen display and a whopping sextet of earnumbing speakers. Not only is it attractive, what with its silvery metallic finish and uniquely molded mouse and keyboard, but it’s also top-notch when it comes to delivering powerful specs. Its high asking price might see you turn your head in the opposite direction, especially when compared to the more modest cost of a similarly configured HP AIO 27 , but it’s arguably worth it for the advantages in both looks and performance – not to mention a snug set of peripherals attached. No, there’s no HDMI-in or pressure-sensitive stylus, but that’s because the Dell XPS 27 knows its audience. HP AIO 27 It doesn’t cater to gamers specifically, nor was it crafted with designers in mind. Unlike the Origin Omni or even the Surface Studio , the Dell XPS 27 feels most at home with entertainment enthusiasts. Whether you’re making your own beats or vibing out to someone else’s; watching films or editing them yourself, the Dell XPS 27 should be at the top of your list when shopping around for a new PC. Surface Studio Read the full review: Dell XPS 27 AIO Dell XPS 27 AIO The tiny computer that can CPU: Intel Core m3 – Core m5 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 515 | RAM: 4GB | Storage: 64GB eMMC | Communication: 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 38mm x 12mm x 125mm When we reviewed the original Intel Compute Stick, we were undeniably disappointed by its lackluster performance and ostensibly unnecessary fan integration. Well over a year later, Intel has addressed both of these complaints with one major change: the switch to the company’s Core M-series processors. Whether you’re appeased by the Core m3 or you need the slight bump in power exhibited by the Core m5, the Intel Compute Stick offers a solution. Of course, it’s still not ideal to pack a fan into a tiny dongle, especially when the Core M CPUs were designed with noise elimination in mind. But, the Intel Compute Stick still maintains a cost low enough to where it may not matter if it doesn’t run completely silent. Its tiny form factor and powerful (for the price) CPU is enough to tide you over nonetheless. Read the full review: Intel Compute Stick Intel Compute Stick A compact desktop for everyday computing CPU: Intel Celeron N3000 – Pentium N3700 | Graphics: Intel HD Integrated Graphics | RAM: 2GB – 8GB | Storage: 32GB – 128GB SSD | Communication: 802.11ac, Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.0 | Dimensions (W x D x H): 5.16 x 5.16 x 1.65 inches Asus is a unique PC maker in that it offers a wide range of computers for a variety of different types of users. You typically won’t find in a mini PC with this many configuration options that no matter which one you opt for, the underlying computer remains the same. The VivoMini UN45 may look like one of Asus’ DVD burners, but in reality, it’s a full-fledged desktop that can be used as a companion for watching 4K movies in your home theater or it can even be connected normally to a monitor or a TV. Moreover, the UN45 bears an M.2 SSD regardless of which model you opt for, ranging from 32GB to 128GB. However, if you don’t mind the reduction in performance and configure your VivoMini UN45 with an Intel Celeron N3000, you’ll get the liberty of a fanless design that’s completely silent even when the CPU is under full load. Find out how HoloLens will change computing forever HoloLens Gabe Carey has also contributed to this article 2017-03-20 14:14 By feedproxy.google.com 83 / 141 4.5 From supply chain to equity, seven real-world uses of the blockchain today Interest in the blockchain is continuing to grow, but why should businesses be interested? More and more businesses are hiring blockchain experts as adoption of distributed ledger systems goes mainstream A series of blockchain-based businesses have already signed up to use the standard, with support from IBM 2017-03-20 14:13 Tamlin Magee www.computerworlduk.com 84 / 141 1.9 Xbox One S vs PS4 Pro: Which is better? If you're in the market for a high-powered games console capable of the most advanced graphics, there really are only two options at the moment. You’ve got the recently released PS4 Pro , which is a pretty powerful upgrade over the original PS4 , and the Xbox One S , which adds an Ultra HD Bluray player and 4K upscaling to the original Xbox One. Some people will disagree with the idea of comparing these two consoles directly. After all, the Xbox One S is more similar in some ways to the new slimline PS4 that was introduced earlier in 2016. Shouldn’t we be comparing the Xbox One S to the slim PS4, and leave the PS4 Pro comparisons for the more powerful Project Scorpio when that launches later next year? In a way these criticisms are valid, but at the end of the day, if you want to buy a new console with 4K capabilities right now in 2017 then these are the two best consoles to consider. If you're not overly concerned with having the highest power and the latest graphics we'd throw the Nintendo Switch into the mix for your consideration and direct you to our comparison hub for that . As far as high-powered consoles go, the situation will of course change again when Project Scorpio is launched later this year, but until now we think that it’s a two horse race between the PS4 Pro and Xbox One S. This guide is focused on these two pieces of hardware specifically, but if you’re looking for a comparison of the two platforms as a whole then you should check out our full guide to Xbox One vs PS4 , which details everything from the console’s respective controllers, to their game libraries and online networks. The headline graphical feature of both consoles is their 4K output, but how exactly each console achieves this is a little different. With the Xbox One S its 4K output in games is generated by a process known as upscaling. The games themselves are rendered at a maximum resolution of 1080p (otherwise known as ‘Full HD’) and then stretched to have it fill the entirety of a 4K screen. Since 4K is four times the resolution of Full HD this means that with the One S each one of the game's pixels is being stretched across four of your television's pixels, and the result is an image that’s much less crisp and detailed than what 4K is truly capable of. Like the Xbox One S, the PS4 Pro is also not always capable of displaying native 4K content – some games, such as Skyrim, will hit those heady pixel heights - but more often it too will be a case of upscaling on Sony's machine. At least with the PS4 Pro however, it is slightly cleverer with how it fakes it. Each game handles its upscaling slightly differently, but a general theme so far has been that games will render at a resolution that’s between Full HD and 4K and then use a more advanced upscaling method called ‘checkerboard rendering’ to fill its 4K pixels. When talking about checkerboard rendering things can get complicated very quickly, but the important takeaway from this is that the images the PS4 Pro is capable of displaying look very close in quality to native 4K content, which is a far cry better than what the Xbox One S’ upscaling is able to achieve. The PS4 Pro has given itself a big boost with the addition of its aptly named 'Boost Mode' in its 4.5 firmware update. To really take advantage of the PS4 Pro's power a game's developers would ideally enable "Pro Mode" which is an additional line of code in software that allows the game to take advantage of the more powerful hardware. However, the addition of Boost Mode has meant that even games that don't have this patch are able to take advantage of the console's extra power with more stable frame rates and improved performance. Going forward, most (if not all) games will support the Pro’s extra functionality, but it's good to know that the vast majority of the console's existing games can benefit too. Aside from 4K, HDR is the other big recent development in image technology, and both consoles support it to varying degrees. With the Xbox One S the list is confined to games that have been specifically upgraded to support HDR and Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, whereas with the PS4 Pro most of the games that have a Pro mode should support it. The PS4 Pro, however, does not have a 4K Blu-ray player - but more on that in a little bit. This means the amount of games that support HDR is currently much longer for the PS4 Pro than the Xbox One S. Of course, graphics are only important if you want to play the games in the first place, and although both consoles have a number of excellent exclusives, there's also a great deal of overlap in the games available. Recently the Xbox One has seen some great exclusives come its way. We’ve seen the Gears of War series make a fantastic comeback with Gears of War 4 , and Forza Horizon 3 has delivered some fantastic arcade racing action. Xbox is also the home of the Halo series, and while the games haven’t been quite the same since development duties passed from Bungie to 343 Industries, Halo 5 was still an excellent shooter in its own right. A final point in Xbox’s favor is that its backwards compatibility is currently in a far better state than the PS4’s. Although you can’t play every Xbox 360 game that was ever released during the console's 10-year lifespan, there’s an ever-increasing list of 360 games that will work on the Xbox One S. Meanwhile the PS4 has a number of excellent exclusives of its own. These range from Uncharted 4 , to Horizon: Zero Dawn, to excellent remakes of The Last of Us and the original Ratchet and Clank. Where the PS4 is weaker in terms of exclusives is with its racing games. The Xbox One has several great entries in the Forza series, while the PS4 has had to make do with just a single (admittedly now quite good) racing title, Driveclub. However, debating over specific releases aside, the vast majority of this generation’s biggest games have come to both consoles. Titanfall 2, Battlefield 1, Overwatch and Hitman have all appeared on both the PS4 and Xbox One this year, and going forward most third-party publishers are expected to support each console more or less equally (the occasional timed-exclusive notwithstanding). or exclusive DLC If you want a full breakdown of the best games available for each console (exclusive or otherwise) then check out our guides to the best Xbox One games and the best PS4 games . Films and media is another area where the two consoles are similar in some respects, but very different in others. Let’s start with the headline difference, the Xbox One S’ Ultra HD Blu-ray player, which allows it to play Ultra HD Blu-rays in all their uncompressed 4K HDR glory. The discs aren’t exactly easy to come by at the moment, but when a movie or TV show is available in the format, it’s well worth opting for the 4K version, and as time goes on the format is slowly going to take over in much the same way as Blu-ray has taken over from DVD. When it comes to streaming, both consoles are on much more even footing, and are both equipped to handle Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube in all of their 4K/HDR glory. Both video streaming and Ultra HD Blu-rays have their drawbacks. You’ll need to have a pretty meaty internet connection to get a good quality 4K stream (Netflix, for example, recommends a connection speed of 25mbits or above), and 4K discs are expensive and not available for the vast majority of movies and TV shows. However, while they both have their drawbacks, the Xbox One S gives you the choice between them, whereas with the PS4 Pro your choice has been made for you by the lack of an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive. Although we’d love for money to be no object when it comes to gaming, the reality is that for most people price is a significant factor in determining what to buy, and that’s especially true around the holiday season. In the price department, the Xbox One S has the advantage. At $349 (£299 / AU$499), the console is just that little bit cheaper than the PS4 Pro’s $399 (£349/ AU$559.95). However there are always offers to be had, particularly in this console generation, so be sure to keep an eye on our best Xbox One deals and best PS4 deals pages if you want to snag a discount. However if you don't want to wait, today's best Xbox One S and PS4 Pro details are listed below. Ok it’s conclusion time, which means we’re going to have to draw the line on how the two consoles are currently stacking up against one another. Both pieces of hardware have their strengths, and which console ends up being the one for you will come down to what matches your specific needs. If you care first and foremost about 4K gaming, then the PS4 Pro has the edge right now. While the Xbox One S uses some pretty standard upscaling, the PS4 Pro uses some much more intelligent processes to make its games look very close to 4K. As time goes on the list of Pro-enabled games is only going to increase and its Boost Mode has been a nice addition for existing games on the console. The big advantage the Xbox One S has is its Ultra HD Blu-ray player. Many have argued that the future of home cinema is in streaming, and we’d be inclined to agree, but while the two major streaming providers Netflix and Amazon Prime Video already support 4K, you’ll need a pretty speedy internet connection to actually be able to see it. As internet speeds improve this will be less of a problem in the future, but as it currently stands there are plenty of people out there who won’t be able to stream 4K content. So there you have it. One excellent all-round media machine, and one 4K gaming console with a small (but growing) number of games that are actually in 4K. 2017-03-20 14:09 Jon Porter www.techradar.com 85 / 141 1.2 The LG Watch Style is now $70 cheaper at Best Buy Want to get in on the Android Wear 2.0 party? Best Buy has slashed the price of the LG Watch Style down from $249 to $179. Android Wear 2.0 LG Watch Style Among the latest to come out of a collaboration between Google and LG, the Style is one of the most elegant smartwatches out there. And while it may not be the most feature-packed offering, missing marquee features like built-in GPS and a heart rate monitor, you’ll find the Snapdragon Wear 2100 and the rotating crown that work together to deliver arguably the best Android Wear experience yet. Not just that, the Style offers native applications and an integrated Play Store, so you can leave your phone at home. On iPhone? This smartwatch is totally compatible for you, too. While its original asking price was rather high, the discounted price is pitch-perfect for this device. Now, the next generation of Android Wear comes at a much more digestible price. Via 9to5Google 2017-03-20 14:03 By feedproxy.google.com 86 / 141 1.6 Optiv Security Acquires Comm Solutions, Expands In Northeast In First Post-Private Equity Purchase - Page: 1 Optiv Security has made its first move since being acquired by private equity firm KKR , saying Monday that it has acquired network and security solution provider Comm Solutions to further expand its presence in the Northeast market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Comm Solutions, based in Malvern, Pa., is ranked No. 273 on the 2016 CRN Solution Provider 500 and was recognized as a 2016 CRN Triple Crown winner, having placed on the Solution Provider 500, CRN Fast Growth 150 and CRN Tech Elite 250 lists. [Related: Optiv Closes Blockbuster Acquisition By Private Equity Firm KKR & Co ] The acquisition further expands Denver-based Optiv's presence in the Northeast market, particularly in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York. Optiv first broke into that market in June 2016 with the acquisition of Portsmouth, N. H.based Adaptive Communications, which expanded the company's consulting reach into the region. Tim Hoffman, executive vice president of worldwide client solutions at Optiv, said the Northeast region, in particular, is important to Optiv because of its high concentration of Fortune 500 and large enterprise companies. Companies like Comm Solutions and Adaptive Communications have done a "great job of building relationships with those companies," something he said Optiv could continue to grow by adding its breadth of consulting, architecting, orchestration and security operations capabilities. "It allows [Optiv] to accelerate in an area where there is a huge addressable market for us," Hoffman said in an interview with CRN. "It's been a huge focus of ours, right out of the gate. " The acquisition also adds capabilities around certain technology vendors. Hoffman said the top 10 vendors of both companies have "nice mapping. " Comm Solutions has top-level partnerships with network and security companies including Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, LogRhythm, Nimble Storage, Palo Alto Networks, Riverbed and more, according to the company's website. "It gives us a better footprint with those clients and the partners in this market," Hoffman said. "We're excited about some of the different services offerings we bring to bear to those clients, given the size and scale of Optiv. " Comm Solutions CEO Paul Black said the Optiv acquisition will help bring the scale it needs to help its clients succeed in today's difficult security landscape. In particular, he said Optiv will be able to bring security operations and stronger security consulting services to existing Comm Solutions clients. 2017-03-20 14:01 Sarah Kuranda www.crn.com 87 / 141 0.8 The Best Video Editing Software of 2017; Video Editing Another impressive effect that has made its way into consumer-level video editing software is motion tracking, which lets you attach an object or effect to something moving in your video. You might use it to put a blur over the face of someone you don't want to show up in your video. You specify the target face, and the app takes care of the rest, tracking the face and moving the effect to follow it. This used to be the sole province of special effects software such as Adobe After Effects. Corel VideoStudio was the first of the consumer products to include motion tracking, and it still leads the pack in the depth and usability of its motion-tracking tool, though several others have followed suit. Support for 4K video source content has become pretty standard in video editing software, but the support varies among the products. For example, some but not all of the applications can import Sony XAVC and XAVC-S formats, which are used by Sony's popular DSLRs, mirrorless cameras , camcorders, and professional video cameras. The same holds true for the relatively new H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. Several of the products here (Adobe Premiere Elements is a notable exception) still support 3D video editing if that's your thing, though the this has been replaced by 360-degree VR footage like that shot by the Samsung Gear 360 as the current home-theater fad. As is often the case, our Editors' Choice, CyberLink PowerDirector was the first product in this group to offer support for this new kind of video media. Many video editing apps now include tools designed to please users of action cameras such as the GoPro Hero4 Silver. For example, several offer automated freeze-frame along with speedup, slowdown, and reverse time effects. CyberLink PowerDirector's Action Camera Center pulls together freeze frame with stabilization, slo-mo, and fish-eye correction, and color correction for underwater footage. Magix Movie Edit Pro 2016 Premium includes the third-party NewBlue ActionCam Package of effects. I've been seeing a lot of attention paid to creating title effects in the applications over the past year. Apple Final Cut Pro X has added 3D title creation, which is pretty spiffy, letting you extrude 2D titles and rotate them on three axes. PowerDirector's Title Designer offers transparency, gradient color, border, blur level, and reflection in titles; and Magix has impressive title templates, complete with animations. Look for an application that lets you edit titles in WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) mode, so that you can type, format, and time it right over the video preview. Video editing is one of the most computingintensive activities around, so you'll want the best laptop or desktop you can afford if you're serious about cutting your own movies. Most applications help speed up the editing process by creating a proxy file of lower resolution, so that normal editing and previewing aren't slowed down by the huge full-resolution files. Particularly intensive is the process of rendering your finished product into a standard video file that will by playable on the target device of choice, be that an HDTV, a laptop, or a smartphone. Most of the software can take advantage of your computer's graphics processor to speed this up. Be sure to check the performance section in each review linked here to see how speedy or slow the application is. Other measures of performance include startup time and simple stability. Again, video editing is a taxing activity for any computer, involving many components. In the past, video editing programs took longer than most other apps to start up, and unexpected shutdowns were unfortunately common, even in top apps from top developers such as Adobe and Apple. In my testing this time around, however, program crashes were few and far between across the board. The stability situation has greatly improved, but the complexity of the process, which increases as more powerful effects are added, means crashes will likely never be fully eliminated. Though Mac users don't have the sheer number of software choices available for PCs, Apple fans interested in editing video are well served, by four products in particular. At the entry level, the surprisingly capable and enjoyable-to-use iMovie comes free with every Mac sold since at least 2011. iMovie only offers two video tracks, but does good job with chroma-keying, and its Trailers feature makes it easy to produce slick, Hollywood-style productions. In the midrange, there's Adobe Premiere Elements, which is cross-platform between Macs and PCs, and offers a lot more features and lots of help with creating effects. Professionals and prosumer have powerful, though pricey options in Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro. Final Cut is a deceptively simple application that resembles iMovie in its interface and ease of use, but it offers massively deep capabilities, and many third-party apps integrate with it for even more power. It also makes excellent use of the Touch Bar on the latest MacBook Pro , as shown in photo above. Premiere Pro uses a more traditional timeline and adds a large ecosystem of companion apps and plug-ins. It also excels in collaboration features. We still live in the days of talkies, so you want to be able to edit the audio in your digital moves as well as the images. Most of the products included here offer canned background music, and many, such as Pinnacle Studio, can even tailor the soundtrack to the exact length of your movie. All of these programs can separate audio and video tracks, and most can clean up background noise and add environmental audio effects such as concert hall reverb. A couple of the products have recently added an auto-ducking feature, which lowers background music during dialog—a definite prolevel plus. The video editing application you choose will depend on your budget, the equipment you're using, and how serious you are. Fortunately, you're spoiled for choice with the products available. Dig into our in-depth reviews of enthusiast-level video editing software reviews linked below to see which is the right one for you. 2017-03-20 14:00 Michael Muchmore uk.pcmag.com 88 / 141 0.6 Is Huda Kattan the Kim Kardashian West of Beauty Bloggers? Every month there seems to be a newly minted beauty star — someone whose social media feed highlights trends, how-tos, product reviews and more to her plentiful followers. But in the world of influencers, not all fight in the same weight class. And one woman in particular has emerged as a force to be reckoned with, a Kim Kardashian West of the beauty influencer economy, if you will: Huda Kattan of @HudaBeauty , who has 18 million Instagram followers, heads a namesake makeup line and is introducing a Huda Beauty emoji collection called Hudamoji (not unlike Ms. Kardashian West’s Kimoji) this spring. That there is a resemblance to Ms. Kardashian West in looks (dark and curvaceous), style (glamorous and sexy) and family (Ms. Kattan’s business partner is her sister Mona Kattan; her sister Alya is her social media manager) only fuels the comparisons. Based in Dubai, Ms. Kattan was in New York recently for a Women’s Wear Daily beauty event — last year the publication anointed her the Digital Innovator of the Year in the “prestige” beauty category. “I can understand getting compared to the Kardashians,” she said, reclining on a plush seat at the Park Hyatt in Midtown. “We’re 2017 women who are ultimately going out there, pursuing something out of passion and making a business out of it. I just can’t wait for the comparisons to stop.” With what she has in store this year, Ms. Kattan, 33, may just step out from the Kardashian shadow. Her makeup line, Huda Beauty, which she introduced in 2013 with a false lashes collection, successfully expanded last year with the addition of hit lip liners, liquid matte lipsticks and an eye shadow palette. Sephora, for one, was surprised at how well her lip liners (called Lip Contours because Ms. Kattan uses them to make her lips look bigger, she said) sold. As a category, lip liners are often an afterthought because they were created to support lipsticks. Yet Ms. Kattan’s Lip Contour release last May was “one of the biggest launches in years,” said Artemis Patrick, the senior vice president for merchandising at the retailer. Certainly Sephora is no stranger to makeup lines driven by social media. Anastasia Beverly Hills, Kat Von D and Natasha Denona all wield social media might. But Ms. Kattan is unique for a global reach that spans the United States, the Middle East and beyond. “It’s rare for one person to be relatable across so many countries and cultures,” Ms. Patrick said. “Obviously, it’s the power of the internet, but it’s a testament to her business acumen that she can translate and harness the power of her followers.” Indeed, Huda Beauty continues to be a top makeup brand at Sephora Middle East. And at Harrods in London, there have been lines for Huda Beauty ever since the company set up a counter in August. It’s “one of our fastest growing color makeup brands,” said Annalise Fard, the beauty and home director at the store. Relatable and sometimes giggly, Ms. Kattan is not in the makeup game to make a quick buck. “We’ve had really big brands approach us because they’re interested in investing,” she said. “But we own this, and I’m building a brand.” Though social media fame can seem immediate, it didn’t come overnight for Ms. Kattan. An IraqiAmerican who was raised in Cookeville, Tenn., and Boston, she was, like many teenagers, obsessed with beauty products. “We didn’t grow up superwealthy,” Ms. Kattan said, noting that her father was an engineering professor, while her mother stayed home to raise her and four siblings. “D. I. Y. was supercool because it was affordable and you could do it really easily.” (Ms. Kattan is known for some of her zanier D. I. Y. experiments on YouTube, including trying alternative makeup primers — in one video, she found Vagisil superior to KY Jelly and Milk of Magnesia. “I honestly thought the lube was going to be the best primer, but it didn’t work at all,” she said, laughing. “People in the Middle East did not necessarily like it. Ha! Sometimes I get a little chastised.”) As for her renowned brow-defining skills, they were cultivated early. “I’m hairy,” she said girlishly. “If you’re hairy, you have to figure out how to do them at a young age.” Her lighthearted approach to beauty later translated to a WordPress blog she started in 2010 at her sister Mona’s urging. Ms. Kattan had taken a makeup course in California and was hoping to build a makeup clientele in Dubai, where she moved after her father took a job teaching at the American University of Sharjah. Ms. Kattan was particularly inspired by “originals, like Michelle Phan,” she said, adding, “Her YouTube videos were like watching a movie.” But her favorite was Kandee Johnson, because, she said, “she did really good transformations.” Eventually, Ms. Kattan would eclipse them all. Though she dabbled in YouTube, she never felt comfortable on the platform. “I fell in love with Instagram,” she said, even rattling off the exact month (October 2012) and phone model (iPhone 4) she had when she started her account. A couple of years later, she reached a million followers. Asked about her social media strategy, she shared the usual: Be true to yourself, share other users’ posts to gain a community and be “superinvolved” with both followers and customers by engaging in conversations. There is also the fact that she rarely accepts paid posts. “Everyone is up in arms about paid posts,” said the beauty publicist Alison Brod, who likens them to commercials or print ads. But by not taking money for her content, Ms. Brod said, Ms. Kattan appears more credible to her followers. That has translated to both social media currency and actual dollars. Ms. Brod’s client Alterna Haircare saw its Instagram following jump up by 5,000 after Ms. Kattan featured its products in a post. This year will test how well Ms. Kattan can truly capitalize on her following. She is releasing a 3D highlighter palette in April ($45 at shophudabeauty.com ), has a foundation collection in the works and, more ambitiously, is planning a rollout to 125 Sephora and Sephora inside J. C. Penney doors starting in July. For all that, Ms. Kattan will need to distinguish Huda Beauty from other social-media-driven brands that rely on a similar product assortment: liquid lipsticks, highlighters and eye shadow palettes. (See: Kylie Jenner’s lip kits, highlighters and, yes, eye shadow palettes.) Ms. Patrick, of Sephora, said it would come down to innovation and telling the product story well. Ms. Kattan said, “I think my fun is work.” Yet as her star rises, she has begun to draw a line between her work and personal life. She said she had not fully embraced Snapchat because it had “no virality because you can’t track,” and because the platform was more personal than Instagram. “My day is boring,” she said. “I don’t know if people want to see me in meetings all the time.” Even her favorite weekend activities include “SWOT-ing” — that is, assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — and practicing the kaizen productivity philosophy (a Japanese practice of continuous improvement). Selfconfessed “nerd” she may be, but one with “Pinky and the Brain” ambitions. Her ultimate goal is “global domination,” she said unwaveringly. “That probably sounds weird, but why not?” 2017-03-20 13:58 BEE SHAPIRO www.nytimes.com 89 / 141 0.2 Docker and Core OS plan to donate their container technologies to CNCF Containers have become a critical component of modern cloud, and Docker Inc. controls the heart of containers, the container runtime. There has been a growing demand that this critical piece of technology should be under control of a neutral, third party so that the community can invest in it freely. [ To the cloud! Real-world container migrations ] It should not be a surprise to anyone. The last two LinuxCons looked more like Dockercon than a Linux event, because containers are everywhere. The Foundation also hosts the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Docker is donating containerd to CNCF. “Today we took a major step forward towards delivering on our commitment to the community by following the Cloud Native Computing Foundation process and presenting a proposal to the CNCF Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) for containerd to become a CNCF project. Given the consensus we have been building with the community, we are hopeful to get a positive affirmation from the TOC before CloudNativeCon/KubeCon later this month,” wrote Docker founder Solomon Hykes in a blog post. These moves ensure that the critical piece of the container world will remain independent, stable without any undue influence from any company. But containerd is not the only container runtime. Core OS has been developing its own competing container runtime technology called ‘rkt’. Efforts by Core, have to a great degree, forced Docker to play nice with the community. It was the pressure from Core OS that lead to the creation of docker container image format and runtime. They also forced Docker to include many security features that were missing. “Further, the rkt project has contributed indirectly to the creation of several important new APIs, specifications, and discussions in the container ecosystem. CNI, the container network plugin system used by Mesos, Kubernetes, rkt, and others, comes directly from the initial rkt plugin system and has become a multi-organization and industry-wide effort. The team working on rkt also created appc, the App Container Spec, which kicked off an industry discussion on container standards that has culminated in OCI, the Open Container Initiative,” wrote Brandon Phillips in a blog post. Now Core OS wants CNFC to take control of rkt, alongside containerd, so that both technologies are being managed by the same body. Once the proposal is accepted by CNCF and both containerd and rkt become part of the foundation, they hold the potential to be used in a much larger ecosystem. 2017-03-20 13:57 Swapnil Bhartiya www.cio.com 90 / 141 1.5 Partners: Intel Needs To Return Focus On 'Core Customer Base' With Future Acquisitions - Page: 1 Intel needs to drastically change its acquisition strategy to keep up with its core customer base – and its channel, according to partners interviewed by CRN. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has been bolstering its acquisition strategy around new areas, such as autonomous vehicles, immersive sports technologies, and the Internet of Things – but channel partners wish Intel would instead focus on its core customer base. Erik Stromquist, chief operating officer of CTL, a Portland, Ore.-based system builder and distributor of components to the channel, said Intel has had a "lousy track record" with its acquisitions over the last decade, and needs to focus on its core base. [Related: Intel Drives Roadmap For Connected Cars With $15.3 Billion Mobileye Acquisition ] "I'm concerned that Intel may neglect its core customer base that produces the majority of its profits," he said. "I think investors and core customers are equally concerned with [the] acquisition [of Mobileye]. " In 2016, Intel executed an array of acquisitions focused not on its primary business, the client compute group, but instead new technologies, most notably autonomous vehicles. Most recently, the company last week announced plans to acquire connected car chip manufacturer Mobileye for $15.3 billion , a move that CEO Brian Krzanich said would help Intel accelerate its efforts around computer vision, localization and mapping, machine learning and artificial intelligence in the autonomous vehicle space. The announcement is only the latest among of a plethora of Intel's acquisitions around connected cars; in 2016, Intel shelled out money for companies like computer vision manufacturer Movidius, automotive machine vision startup Itseez, and car safety tool company Yogitech. Beyond autonomous vehicles, the company has also bolstered its strategy around immersive sports technology and IoT with acquisitions in 2016 of such companies as Recon Instruments, Replay Technologies, and Lantiq. Martin Smekal, president and CEO of Torrance, Calif.-based Intel partner TabletKiosk, said he would like to see "similar-size investments in [Intel's] current core markets beyond the building of new fabs. " "I wasn’t excited by the acquisition of Mobileye as it pertains to channel business and helps to expand the markets we all can and do serve," he said. "As a channel partner I would prefer to see greater focus and depth placed on traditional channel business, such as healthcare, hospitality, security, finance, and manufacturing. " 2017-03-20 13:51 Lindsey O www.crn.com 91 / 141 1.5 Android O: Is this the Oreo feature list we'll see at Google I/O 2017? With Android Nougat comfortably settled into a bunch of different smartphones, with Google's annual I/O conference just two months away, all eyes in the mobile world now turn to what Google's got planned for Android's next revision. Android SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer has pointed to Android O's codename kicking off with a buttery biscuit Oreo base, but little else has even been hinted at yet. However, sources speaking to 9to5Google have let slip a few rumored features that we may now expect to see come the update's anticipated May unveiling. 9to5Google It's a fairly long list of items, and none of this is confirmed or complete, but if we are going just on rumors, there's a distinct lack of a headline feature to match last year's Google Assistant launch. Potential new features include: Picture in picture mode: As is already seen on the iPad and some bespoke third-party launchers, as well as Google's own Android TV platform, this would let you have one app (or app function, such as a video player) remain open and on top of another separate app plane. iPad Android App icon badges: On oldie that's been knocking around for years on iOS and some third-party launchers, this would bring at-a-glance waiting notification number bubbles to app icons on the homescreen, as a native Android feature. Restricted background activities: A power saving feature, this would de-prioritise app functions running in the background, going easier on your battery at the possible expense of having to reload some app functionality that would otherwise have been ticking over in the background. Notifications: A vague suggestion that new notification types could be brought to Android, or that their current way of being displayed would change. Smart selection: Perhaps the most interesting and potentially useful teased feature, this would integrate with Google Assistant to scan app text, pre-emptively highlighting important information (like phone numbers and addresses) for more easy copy-and-pasting between apps and text entry fields. Adaptive app icons: As the name suggests, this would let app icons change dynamically on homescreens. As a crude example, think of a calendar app icon that changed to show the appropriate date on a daily basis. All this comes in addition to new, undisclosed features that will make Android more relevant and attractive to enterprise users. For now, take the list of features with a pinch of salt until fully confirmed, though there's nothing here that sounds massively beyond the realms of possibility. 10 best Android phones : the best Google-powered phones money can buy in 2017 10 best Android phones 2017-03-20 13:47 By feedproxy.google.com 92 / 141 1.5 CRN IoT Roundtable: Closing The Door On The 'Open Invitation' To Hackers - Page: 1 Securing IoT Devices? Customers looking at Internet of Things applications all cite a similar concern – security. Security is also top of mind for solution providers interested in applying their own skill sets to generate revenue from IoT. Executives from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco Systems and Forescout Technologies discussed the challenges – and opportunities – surrounding IoT security during a CRN-hosted roundtable, which took place during the XChange Solution Provider 2017 conference in March. The roundtable included Tom Bradicich, vice president and general manager of servers, converged edge and IoT systems at HPE; Bryan Tantzen, general manager of Cisco's connected industry and manufacturing business unit; and Todd DeBell, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Forescout. Following are excerpts of the discussion around IoT security from the roundtable. 2017-03-20 13:47 Lindsey O www.crn.com 93 / 141 1.1 Research reveals inner workings of liquid crystals New research led by Juan de Pablo, the Liew Family Professor at the Institute for Molecular Engineering, uncovers previously unknown features that develop from the interface between air and certain widely studied liquid crystals. "Liquid crystals are high-fidelity reporters of molecular events, and their effectiveness relies on controlling their molecular orientation at an interface," de Pablo said. "The precise understanding of this interface gained from our research will enable the design of better liquid crystal sensors and displays. " For the research published Feb. 8 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society , de Pablo worked with a team of scientists at the University of Chicago, including Binhua Lin and Benoit Roux, and at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Wisconsin. They used advanced synchrotron X-rays at Argonne National Laboratory and large-scale simulations to reconstruct the molecular details. Liquid crystals exist in a state between liquids and solids, allowing them to flow like a liquid but also have some properties of a solid. Their molecules have a rod-like structure that can be organized in various ways. Certain liquid crystals go through phase transitions in response to changes in temperature. In the nematic phase, the rod-like molecules line up in a disorderly yet parallel fashion. In the smectic phase, they also line up in parallel—but in organized layers. "Our research revealed a number of previously unknown features," de Pablo said. "For example, our findings indicate that the interface imprints a highly ordered, solid-like structure into the liquid crystal material. This structure then propagates well into the bulk of the liquid crystal, particularly for nematic and smectic phases. " The research found similar characteristics between widely studied liquid crystals nematic 4-pentyl-4′cyanobiphenyl and smectic 4-octyl4′cyanobiphenyl. Both align perpendicularly at the air-liquid crystals interface and exhibit well-defined, surface-induced layers at the interface. When both were heated to a fully liquid phase, only a single layer of structured molecules was formed at the interface between the liquid and the air. The researchers plan to study the interfaces of liquid crystals and aqueous electrolytes to understand the effects of electrostatic interactions and the liquid crystal orientational ordering. "These results will be particularly important in guiding the design of responsive liquid crystal interfaces for sensing chemicals and biological molecules," the paper concluded. Explore further: At smallest scale, liquid crystal behavior portends new materials More information: Monirosadat Sadati et al. Molecular Structure of Canonical Liquid Crystal Interfaces, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2017). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b00167 2017-03-20 13:46 phys.org 94 / 141 1.7 Star-spangled find may lead to advanced electronics They recently found one such material, but it was nothing anyone expected. In an article published online March 10 in the journal Advanced Materials , Dr. Moon Kim and his colleagues describe a material that, when heated to about 450 degrees Celsius, transforms from an atomically thin, two-dimensional sheet into an array of one-dimensional nanowires, each just a few atoms wide. An image caught in mid-transformation looks like a tiny United States flag, and with false colors added, is arguably the world's smallest image of Old Glory, Kim said. "The phase transition we observed, this new structure, was not predicted by theory," said Kim, the Louis Beecherl Jr. Distinguished Professor of materials science and engineering at UT Dallas. Because the nanowires are semiconductors, they might be used as switching devices, just as silicon is used in today's transistors to turn electric current on and off in electronic devices. "These nanowires are about 10 times smaller than the smallest silicon wires, and, if used in future technology, would result in powerful energyefficient devices," Kim said. The lead authors of the study are Hui Zhu and Qingxiao Wang, graduate students in materials science and engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. Just a Phase? When certain materials are subjected to changes in external conditions, such as temperature or pressure, they can undergo a phase transition. A familiar example is when liquid water is cooled to form a solid (ice), or heated to form a gas (steam). For many materials, however, a phase transition means something a little different. As external temperature and pressure change, these materials' atoms rearrange and redistribute to make a material with a different structure and composition. These changes can affect the new material's properties, such as how electrons move through it. For scientists interested in new applications for materials, understanding such transitions is paramount. In most cases, a type of graphic called a phase diagram helps researchers predict structural and property changes in a material when it undergoes a phase transition. But nothing predicted what Kim's team observed as it conducted experiments on a material called molybdenum ditelluride. Nanoflags and Nanoflowers Using a transmission electron microscope, the researchers started with atomically thin, twodimensional sheets of molybdenum ditelluride, a material made up of one layer of molybdenum atoms and two layers of tellurium atoms. The material belongs to a class called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), which show promise in replacing silicon in transistors. "We wanted to understand the thermal stability of this particular material," Kim said. "We thought it was a good candidate for next-generation nanoelectronics. Out of curiosity, we set out to see whether it would be stable above room temperature. " When they increased the temperature to above 450 degrees Celsius, two things happened. "First, we saw a new pattern begin to emerge that was aesthetically pleasing to the eye," Kim said. Across the surface of the sample, the repeating rows, or stripes, of molybdenum ditelluride layers began to transform into shapes that looked like tiny six-pointed stars, or flowers with six petals. The material was transitioning into hexamolybdenum hexa-telluride, a one-dimensional wire-like structure. The cross section of the new material is a structure consisting of six central atoms of molybdenum surrounded by six atoms of tellurium. As the phase transition progressed, part of the sample was still "stripes" and part had become "stars. " The team thought the pattern looked like a United States flag. They made a false-color version with a blue field behind the stars and half of the stripes colored red, to make a "nanoflag. " Not in the Textbooks "Then, when we examined the material more closely, we found that the transition we were seeing from 'stripes' to 'stars' was not in any of the phase diagrams," Kim said. "Normally, when you heat up particular materials , you expect to see a different kind of material emerge as predicted by a phase diagram. But in this case, something unusual happened—it formed a whole new phase. " Each individual nanowire is a semiconductor, which means that electric current moving through the wire can be switched on and off, Kim said. When many of the individual nanowires are grouped together in bulk they behave more like a metal, which easily conducts current. "We would want to use the nanowires one at a time because we are pushing the size of a transistor as small as possible," Kim said. "Currently, the smallest transistor size is about 10 times larger than our nanowire. Each of ours is smaller than 1 nanometer in diameter, which is essentially an atomic-scale wire. "Before we can put this discovery to use and make an actual device, we have many more studies to do, including determining how to separate out the individual nanowires, and overcoming technical challenges to manufacturing and mass production," Kim said. "But this is a start. " Explore further: Removing lines of atoms in thin electronic materials creates 'veins' that could benefit solar panels More information: Hui Zhu et al. New MoTeSub-Nanometer-Diameter Nanowire Phase from 2H-MoTe, Advanced Materials (2017). DOI: 10.1002/adma.201606264 2017-03-20 13:45 phys.org 95 / 141 0.8 Bio-inspired gel material could help engineers control movements of soft robots The resulting pH- and ion-sensitive material is able to respond and react to its environment. Understanding this naturally-occurring process can be particularly helpful for active control of the motion or deformation of actuators for soft robotics and sensors without using external power supply or complex electronic controlling devices. It could also be used to build autonomous structures. "The ability of dramatically altering the material properties, by changing its hierarchical structure starting at the chemical level, offers exciting new opportunities to tune the material, and to build upon the natural material design towards new engineering applications," wrote Markus J. Buehler, the McAfee Professor of Engineering, head of CEE, and senior author of the paper. The research, recently published in ACS Nano , shows that depending on the ions and pH levels in the environment, the protein material expands and contracts into different geometric patterns. When the conditions change again, the material reverts back to its original shape. This makes it particularly useful for smart composite materials with tunable mechanics and self-powered roboticists that use pH value and ion condition to change the material stiffness or generate functional deformations. Finding inspiration in the strong, stable jaw of a marine worm In order to create bio-inspired materials that can be used for soft robotics, sensors, and other uses— such as that inspired by the Nereis—engineers and scientists at LAMM and AFRL needed to first understand how these materials form in the Nereis worm, and how they ultimately behave in various environments. This understanding involved the development of a model that encompasses all different length scales from the atomic level, and is able to predict the material behavior. This model helps to fully understand the Nereis worm and its exceptional strength. "Working with AFRL gave us the opportunity to pair our atomistic simulations with experiments," said CEE research scientist Francisco Martin-Martinez. AFRL experimentally synthesized a hydrogel, a gellike material made mostly of water, which is composed of recombinant Nvjp-1 protein responsible for the structural stability and impressive mechanical performance of the Nereis jaw. The hydrogel was used to test how the protein shrinks and changes behavior based on pH and ions in the environment. The Nereis jaw is mostly made of organic matter, meaning it is a soft protein material with a consistency similar to gelatin. In spite of this, its strength, which has been reported to have a hardness ranging between 0.4 and 0.8 gigapascals (GPa), is similar to that of harder materials like human dentin. "It's quite remarkable that this soft protein material, with a consistency akin to Jell-O, can be as strong as calcified minerals that are found in human dentin and harder materials such as bones," Buehler said. At MIT, the researchers looked at the makeup of the Nereis jaw on a molecular scale to see what makes the jaw so strong and adaptive. At this scale, the metal-coordinated crosslinks, the presence of metal in its molecular structure, provide a molecular network that makes the material stronger and at the same time make the molecular bond more dynamic, and ultimately able to respond to changing conditions. At the macroscopic scale, these dynamic metal-protein bonds result in an expansion/contraction behavior. Combining the protein structural studies from AFRL with the molecular understanding from LAMM, Buehler, Martin-Martinez, CEE Research Scientist Zhao Qin, and former PhD student Chia-Ching Chou '15, created a multiscale model that is able to predict the mechanical behavior of materials that contain this protein in various environments. "These atomistic simulations help us to visualize the atomic arrangements and molecular conformations that underlay the mechanical performance of these materials," Martin-Martinez said. Specifically, using this model the research team was able to design, test, and visualize how different molecular networks change and adapt to various pH levels, taking into account the biological and mechanical properties. By looking at the molecular and biological makeup of a the Nereis virens and using the predictive model of the mechanical behavior of the resulting protein material, the LAMM researchers were able to more fully understand the protein material at different scales and provide a comprehensive understanding of how such protein materials form and behave in differing pH settings. This understanding guides new material designs for soft robots and sensors. Identifying the link between environmental properties and movement in the material The predictive model explained how the pH sensitive materials change shape and behavior, which the researchers used for designing new PHchanging geometric structures. Depending on the original geometric shape tested in the protein material and the properties surrounding it, the LAMM researchers found that the material either spirals or takes a Cypraea shell-like shape when the pH levels are changed. These are only some examples of the potential that this new material could have for developing soft robots, sensors, and autonomous structures. Using the predictive model, the research team found that the material not only changes form, but it also reverts back to its original shape when the pH levels change. At the molecular level, histidine amino acids present in the protein bind strongly to the ions in the environment. This very local chemical reaction between amino acids and metal ions has an effect in the overall conformation of the protein at a larger scale. When environmental conditions change, the histidine-metal interactions change accordingly, which affect the protein conformation and in turn the material response. "Changing the pH or changing the ions is like flipping a switch. You switch it on or off, depending on what environment you select, and the hydrogel expands or contracts" said Martin-Martinez. LAMM found that at the molecular level, the structure of the protein material is strengthened when the environment contains zinc ions and certain pH levels. This creates more stable metalcoordinated crosslinks in the material's molecular structure, which makes the molecules more dynamic and flexible. This insight into the material's design and its flexibility is extremely useful for environments with changing pH levels. Its response of changing its figure to changing acidity levels could be used for soft robotics. "Most soft robotics require power supply to drive the motion and to be controlled by complex electronic devices. Our work toward designing of multifunctional material may provide another pathway to directly control the material property and deformation without electronic devices," said Qin. By studying and modeling the molecular makeup and the behavior of the primary protein responsible for the mechanical properties ideal for Nereis jaw performance, the LAMM researchers are able to link environmental properties to movement in the material and have a more comprehensive understanding of the strength of the Nereis jaw. Explore further: Controlling the stiffness of a material at the nanoscale More information: Chia-Ching Chou et al. Ion Effect and MetalCoordinated Cross-Linking for Multiscale Design ofJaw Inspired Mechanomutable Materials, ACS Nano (2017). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.6b07878 2017-03-20 13:45 phys.org 96 / 141 0.7 Want to eat fish that's truly good for you? Here are some guidelines to reeling one in Omega-3s are today's darling of the nutrition world, and many observational studies have indeed shown them to benefit a range of conditions such as high blood pressure, stroke, certain cancers, asthma, Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. However, there isn't complete scientific agreement on the health benefits of omega-3s, especially when considering the lack of strong evidence from randomized clinical trials. The strongest evidence exists for a cardiovascular health benefit, and from consuming seafood (not just fish oil), which is significant because heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U. S. One of the things I research is Americans' meat and protein consumption. Though many of us are concerned about getting enough protein, most Americans actually get more than enough protein in their diets. Rather, the problem is that most of us don't include enough variety of protein sources in our diet. We eat a lot of poultry and red meat but not as much seafood, nuts, beans, peas, and seeds. For seafood in particular, consumption is estimated to be closer to 2.7 ounces of seafood per week per person , well below the recommended eight ounces. So the solution might seem simple: Increase public health messaging along the lines of: "Seafood is healthy. Eat more of it. " But it's a bit more complicated than that. Complication #1: Omega-3 fatty acids vary from fish to fish Here's the catch: If you are dutifully eating your two servings a week, but it's from tilapia, shrimp, scallops or catfish, you won't actually be getting much of the health benefits from the omega-3 fatty acids . That's because seafood varies in its omega-3 fatty acids content , and many commonly consumed seafoods are not actually that high in omega-3s. The top five seafood products consumed in the U. S. are shrimp, salmon, canned tuna, tilapia and Alaskan pollock (think fishsticks). Together, these seafood products total about three-fourths of U. S. seafood consumption . Let's take a look at the omega-3s content of these top seafood choices. Salmon is a good choice here, even though the total of omega-3s varies considerably by type of salmon (the species and whether it is farmed or wild-caught). Regardless of the type, salmon is still one of the best omega-3 sources. Canned tuna is an okay source, but it's a bit of mixed bag (white tuna has more omega-3s than light tuna). Meanwhile, the other top seafood products – shrimp, tilapia and Alaskan pollock – are all fairly low in omega-3s . In short, we're not eating a lot of fish to begin with, and much of the fish we do eat is not actually that high in omega-3 fatty acids. Complication #2: Mercury A naturally occurring heavy metal in rock, mercury is released into the environment primarily through human processes, such as the burning of fossil fuels. Mercury makes its way into our waterways and bioaccumulates in the marine food chain. Generally speaking, small fish and shellfish are low in mercury, while the most mercury accumulates in big, long-lived, predator fish, such as king mackerel, marlin, orange roughy, shark, swordfish, ahi (or yellowfin) tuna and bigeye tuna. Humans, of course, are also part of that food chain. When we eat those big, long-lived predator fish, we ingest the mercury that's accumulated in them. Consuming mercury is definitely not a good thing. A little bit here and there is probably not going to harm the average adult, but with high exposure, mercury can damage key organs. Fetuses, infants and young children are vulnerable to mercury toxicity, as high exposure can cause serious, irreversible developmental and neurological damage. To minimize mercury exposure in women and young children, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Federal Drug Administration (FDA) announced new mercury in seafood guidelines on Jan. 18, 2017. There are three categories – Best Choices, Good Choices and Choices to Avoid, and while most types of seafood clearly fall in just one category, some classifications are species-specific. Tuna shows up in all three categories: canned light tuna is a Best Choice, canned white tuna is a Good Choice, but watch out for Bigeye tuna - it's a Choice to Avoid. For optimizing the health benefits, the best seafood choices are those high in omega-3s and low in mercury. ChooseMyPlate lists several seafood options that fit nicely in both categories , including salmon, trout, oysters, herring and sardines, and Atlantic and Pacific mackerel. Complication #3: Sustainability There is also the issue of sustainability. Let's again take the case of tuna. For certain species, the method of harvest and the location of harvest matter a great deal. Here's an example from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch guide: If you purchase a can of light tuna that's trawl-caught in the East Pacific – that's a Best Choice. But if that canned light tuna is caught with a deepset long line in the Hawaii Western Central Pacific, now it's a Good Alternative. And canned light tuna caught on a purse seine in the Indian Ocean? Now we're squarely in the Avoid category. By now you are probably asking if there are any win-win-win fish. Yes! Alaskan salmon is a popular one, but Alaskan salmon is sold at a premium price. Most of the salmon sold in the U. S. is farmed Atlantic salmon, which typically has a poor sustainability rating. Pacific sardines, farmed mussels, farmed rainbow trout and Atlantic mackerel (not trawled) are some other "win-win-win" options. How can I make an informed decision? Making informed choices about seafood isn't easy, and it is complicated by seafood fraud. But there are some resources to help. Eco-certification labels can help you make a decision without doing all the research yourself. Not all eco-labels are created equal, though, so a good place to scope out what to look for is the Seafood Watch website. There, you can find a list of ecocertification labels for specific seafood products that, at a minimum, meet yellow "Good Alternative" recommendations. There are also a number of consumer seafood guides, and with a little upfront research, these can help you make purchasing decisions when you get to the grocery store or restaurant. Many guides use a traffic light system to clearly designate choices with a green, yellow or red light signs. Additionally, the new Seafood Import Monitoring Program , a governmental program that goes into effect this year, will help to combat the problem of seafood fraud. But you should still always be vigilant for prices that seem too good to be true. If your only concern is reducing mercury content, the EPA and FDA guide "Eating Fish: What Pregnant Women and Parents Should Know " should suffice. For sustainability concerns, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch guide allows you to search for options using a traffic light system, or you can look for information by the type of seafood. If you're looking for a fish that meets all three criteria, the Environmental Working Group's Consumer Guide to Seafood and the Environmental Defense Fund's Seafood Selector both provide comprehensive information. When making food choices, sometimes we're fortunate and the health and sustainability goals line up. Eating less red and processed meat, for example, is a choice that's good for your health and better for the environment. Unfortunately, with many seafood choices, these three important considerations – omega-3s, mercury and sustainability – sometimes, but don't often, align as we might like them to. Explore further: Consumer pregnant women to avoid tuna reports advises 2017-03-20 13:45 phys.org 97 / 141 0.3 Researchers discover that chaos makes carbon materials lighter and stronger Fewer, more chaotically arranged carbon atoms produce higher-strength materials , MIT researchers report in the journal Carbon. They find a tangible link between the random ordering of carbon atoms within a phenol-formaldehyde resin, which was "baked" at high temperatures, and the strength and density of the resulting graphite-like carbon material. Phenol-formaldehyde resin is a hydrocarbon commonly known as "SU-8" in the electronics industry. Additionally, by comparing the performance of the "baked" carbon material, the MIT researchers identified a "sweet spot" manufacturing temperature: 1,000 C (1,832 F). "These materials we're working with, which are commonly found in SU-8 and other hydrocarbons that can be hardened using ultraviolet [UV] light, are really promising for making strong and light lattices of beams and struts on the nanoscale, which only recently became possible due to advances in 3-D printing," says MIT postdoc Itai Stein SM '13, PhD '16. "But up to now, nobody really knew what happens when you're changing the manufacturing temperature, that is, how the structure affects the properties. There was a lot of work on structure and a lot of work on properties, but there was no connection between the two. ... We hope that our study will help to shed some light on the governing physical mechanisms that are at play. " Stein, who is the lead author of the paper published in Carbon , led a team under professor of aeronautics and astronautics Brian L. Wardle, consisting of MIT junior Chlöe V. Sackier, alumni Mackenzie E. Devoe '15 and Hanna M. Vincent '14, and undergraduate Summer Scholars Alexander J. Constable and Naomi Morales-Medina. "Our investigations into this carbon material as a matrix for nanocomposites kept leading to more questions making this topic increasingly interesting in and of itself. Through a series of contributions, notably from MIT undergraduate researchers and Summer Scholars, a sustained investigation of several years resulted, allowing some paradoxical results in the extant literature to be resolved," Wardle says. By "baking" the resin at high temperature in inert gas, a process commonly known as pyrolysis, the researchers formed a type of disordered graphitelike carbon material that is often called glassy carbon. Stein and Wardle showed that when it is processed at temperatures higher than 1,000 C, the material becomes more ordered but weaker. They estimated the strength of their glassy carbon by applying a local force and measuring their material's ability to resist deformation. This type of measurement, which is known to engineers as the Vickers hardness test, is a highly versatile technique that can be used to study a wide variety of materials, such as metals, glasses, and plastics, and enabled the researchers to compare their findings to many well-known engineering materials that include diamond, carbon fiber composites , and metal carbides. The carbon atoms within the MIT researchers' material were more chaotically organized than is typical for graphite, and this was because phenolformaldehyde with which they started is a complicated mix of carbon-rich compounds. "Because the hydrocarbon was disordered to begin with, a lot of the disorder remains in your crystallites, at least at this temperature," Stein explains. In fact, the presence of more complex carbon compounds in the material strengthens it by leading to three-dimensional connections that are hard to break. "Basically you get pinned at the crystallite interface, and that leads to enhanced performance," he says. These high-temperature baked materials have only one carbon atom in their structure for every three in a diamond structure. "When you're using these materials to make nanolattices, you can make the overall lattice even less dense. Future studies should be able to show how to make lighter and cheaper materials," Stein suggests. Hydrocarbons similar to the phenol-formaldehyde studied here can also be sourced in an environmentally friendly way, he says. "Up until now there wasn't really consensus about whether having a low density was good or bad, and we're showing in this work, that having a low density is actually good," Stein says. That's because low density in these crystallites means more molecular connections in three dimensions, which helps the material resist shearing, or sliding apart. Because of its low density, this material compares favorably to diamond and boron nitrides for aerospace uses. "Essentially, you can use a lot more of this material and still end up saving weight overall," Stein says. "This study represents sound materials science— connecting all three facets of synthesis, structure, and property—toward elucidating poorly understood scaling laws for mechanical performance of pyrolytic carbon ," says Eric Meshot, a staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who was not involved in this research. "It is remarkable that by employing routinely available characterization tools, the researchers pieced together both the molecular and nanoscale structural pictures and deciphered this counterintuitive result that more graphitization does not necessarily equal a harder material. It is an intriguing concept in and of itself that a little structural disorder can enhance the hardness. " "Their structural characterization proves how and why they achieve high hardness at relatively low synthesis temperatures," Meshot adds. "This could be impactful for industries seeking to scale up production of these types of materials since heating is a seriously costly step. " The study also points to new directions for making low-density composite structures with truly transformative properties, he suggests. "For example, by incorporating the starting SU-8 resin in, on, or around other structures (such as nanotubes as the authors suggest), can we synthesize materials that are even harder or more resistant to sheer? Or composites that possibly embed additional functionality, such as sensing? " Meshot asks. The new research has particular relevance now because a group of German researchers showed last year in a Nature Materials paper how these materials can form highly structured nanolattices that are strong, lightweight, and are outperformed only by diamond. Those researchers processed their material at 900 C, Stein notes. "You can do a lot more optimization, knowing what the scaling is of the mechanical properties with the structure, then you can go ahead and tune the structure accordingly, and that's where we believe there is broad implication for our work in this study," he says. Explore further: 3-D printing with high-performance carbon fiber More information: Itai Y. Stein et al. Structure-mechanical property relations of non-graphitizing pyrolytic carbon synthesized at low temperatures, Carbon (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2017.03.001 2017-03-20 13:45 phys.org 98 / 141 1.2 Researchers map fear and happiness in historic London But can they convey people's feelings? Or are emotions "unmappable"? A collaboration between Stanford's Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) and its Literary Lab offers a solution. The Literary Lab's newest pamphlet , " The Emotions of London ," illustrates the ways 18th- and 19th-century British novels associate feelings with various parts of England's capital. Take, for instance, the stark difference between London's West End, an enclave for the rich, and the City, a bustling district marked by poverty as well as enterprise. According to Ryan Heuser, a doctoral candidate in English who co-authored the pamphlet, the divide between these neighborhoods registers in the literature of the period as "an emotional binarism between positive [happy] and negative [fearful] affective associations. " Most readers of the period were members of the middle and upper classes. The way the era's novels depict real-world locations, such as the impoverished Clare Market, helps us understand how London's bourgeoisie imagined areas in their city where they would never tread. Still, for the co-authors of "The Emotions of London," these literary portrayals are more imaginary than real. The London of 18th- and 19thcentury fiction differs markedly from the historical London of the same period. And while novels of the era could be intensely emotional, those emotions are not always associated with the locations named in the study. London, real and imagined According to the pamphlet, the population of London exploded between 1700 and 1900, ballooning from roughly 600,000 to more than 4.5 million. During the same period, its physical territory swelled significantly from what was just a strip along the Thames River. However, the "imaginary" geography of London's literature stayed much the same, sticking to the West End and to the City. Because of this, the locations employed by England's earliest novelists, such as Daniel Defoe and Henry Fielding, largely resemble those drawn on by authors throughout the following two centuries. A 19th-century "silver-fork author," such as Catherine Gore, focused on the upper-crust West End, while the "Newgate novelist" W. H. Ainsworth set his melodramas in the City's famous prison. "It is fascinating to measure how novelists both reflect normative space and diverge from 'real' space," said Erik Steiner, co-director of CESTA's Spatial History Project and the pamphlet's primary cartographer. "London novels tended to be slow to adopt new places as they were populated over time. " One reason for this was the unique inertia of London's well-to-do. Whereas the moneyed classes of Paris and New York tended to move around, affluent Londoners stayed put in the West End through the two centuries in question. The West End's boundaries, Steiner said, "only somewhat enlarged … to allow for the osmosis of the old and new ruling class. " The City also remained well represented throughout the period's literature – although for a different reason. The City's dense population and variety of industries – such as finance, law, trade and the press – provided authors with ample material to tell an array of stories. So, while a Gothic novelist like Ainsworth might focus on Newgate or the Tower of London, authors like Charles Dickens and William Thackeray told stories situated in the City's legal and financial districts. Unemotional city The researchers used Named Entity Recognition technology, which labels sequences of words in a text, to plot literary references on a map of London. "The named locations we were searching for, the majority of which are necessarily of public sites," said Heuser, "might actually dampen the degree of emotionality" as compared to passages that focus on private or interior spaces. Added Heuser, "This surprised us. " For the period's literature in general, though, "public places are less emotionally charged than private spaces," Steiner said. Despite the pamphlet's findings on fear and happiness, its co-authors discovered that literary references to specific places often lacked emotion. As a result, they produced "less a map of the emotions of London than of their absence. " Occasionally, a setting would evoke fear – such as the "bleak, dilapidated street" in Dickens' Bleak House (1853) – but did not match any real location on the map. The pamphlet suggests that, with the exception of particularly sinister settings such as Newgate Prison, novels relied on "geographic reticence" as a "key ingredient of narrative fear. " Not knowing where something took place, it seems, was enough to send chills down the reader's spine. Crowdsourcing and literary mapping The makings of "The Emotions of London" go back several years, when the Literary Lab began extracting geographic data from a large body of 19th-century novels. The pamphlet took shape more recently when CESTA received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to apply crowdsourcing techniques in the digital humanities. The grant allowed the Literary Lab to crowdsource readings to freelancers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform. Readers were asked to identify happiness or fear (or their absence) in some 15,000 passages from novels set in London between 1700 and 1900. Their responses were then compared to close readings by graduate students in English and to the findings of a computer program that gauges sentiment. To date, said Heuser, the study "may be the most comprehensive attempt to unite the quantitative methods of digital literary geography – counting the number of mentions of locations – and qualitative methods of pre-digital literary geography," whereby scholars like Franco Moretti, professor of English and pamphlet coauthor, examine geography in literature on a smaller scale. While the pamphlet is a Literary Lab publication, the study itself pooled a variety of resources from across CESTA, notably the Literary Lab and Spatial History Project, with significant contributions from former research assistants Van Tran (BA '16) and Annalise Lockhart (BA '14). "CESTA is built around the idea that we can and should work closely together on meaty challenges," said Steiner. "So, aside from the work of the lead authors on the project, this was truly a collaborative effort. " "More collaborations between these labs will undoubtedly arise, for the mutual benefit of all," Heuser said. Explore further: Research shows reading classic literature can improve personal ethics 2017-03-20 13:45 phys.org 99 / 141 0.3 Planet or dwarf planet—all worlds are worth investigating Pluto has been known as a dwarf planet for more than a decade. Back in August 2006 astronomers voted to shake up the solar system , and the number of planets dropped from nine to eight. Pluto was the one cast aside. There was some outcry that Pluto had been destroyed in an instant and was no longer important, and the reverberations were most keenly felt across America. After all, Pluto was "their planet", discovered in 1930 through the meticulous observations of American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. At the time of the vote, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was only seven months into its nine-year journey to Pluto. There was concern that when it finally arrived, would people even care about a dwarf planet? For many astronomers , the demotion of Pluto was a defining moment. It wasn't a gesture of destruction and it wasn't aimed specifically at Pluto. What it signalled was a major leap forward. In that moment the world's astronomers acknowledged significant progress in our understanding of the solar system, an achievement to be proud of – even if everyone was not entirely happy. What's in a name? The first step to understanding a group of objects is to classify them. We group like with like to examine the aligned characteristics or any significant differences between groups. With this insight comes a deeper understanding of how things work, form or evolve. The planets were originally grouped together because the ancient Greeks saw them as "the wanderers", travelling across the sky. Five bright objects – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – may have looked like stars, but while stars stayed fixed within their constellations, these planets moved independently from them. The cause of this planetary motion was eventually established by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, bringing with it a new revelation. Planets were more than wanderers, they were objects in orbit about the sun and with this understanding Earth became a planet too. Defining a planet in the 21st century More than 400 years and many discoveries later, a new storm began brewing in our understanding of the solar system. Since 1992, astronomers had begun to find objects orbiting the sun out in the realm of Pluto. Were they planets too? Conversely, Pluto was a bit of an oddball. It was smaller than several moons of other planets, and it had a highly inclined orbit that made it stand out from the others. Was it truly a planet or was it part of a much larger family of objects? With the discovery of Eris (originally known by its designation 2003 UB313) in 2003, a decision could no longer be avoided. Eris was about the size of Pluto and certainly more massive. Was Eris a planet? And if not, where did that leave Pluto? Astronomers have a forum for such deliberations via the International Astronomical Union ( IAU ). Representing astronomers worldwide, the IAU is the recognised authority responsible for naming and classifying planetary bodies and their satellites. The IAU formed a Planet Definition Committee to consider the scientific, cultural and historical issues at hand. A draft proposal was put forward, and during the 2006 IAU General Assembly in Prague, with the world's astronomers gathered together, the Committee's proposal was vigorously debated. A revised proposal was presented to the IAU membership on the final day of the General Assembly and was passed with a large majority . For the first time, a planet was formally recognised as being "a celestial body that": (a) is in orbit around the sun (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. Since Pluto had not "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit", it was not a planet but would be recognised as a "dwarf planet". A colleague of mine, Martin George, director of the Launceston Planetarium , was there when the vote was taken and captured the excitement and the nuance of the event. There was quite a buzz in the room and we knew we were about to make history. Did everyone agree on the exact wording? Perhaps not. However, I think it would have been worse to see media headlines reading 'Astronomers cannot decide what a planet is'. Size matters and location too The distinction of planet and dwarf planet brings a consistency to how objects are named across the universe. On the grand scale, there are galaxies and there are dwarf galaxies. Within our Milky Way Galaxy, the sun is a yellow dwarf star that in billions of years will evolve to become a red giant before ending its life as a white dwarf. These distinctions among galaxies and stars helps astronomers interpret and understand them, tracing their evolution. Planets and dwarf planets are distinct because of their size and their location in the solar system. It provides a way to examine how planets and dwarf planets may have originated and evolved differently. Planetary resemblance At present, the IAU has officially recognised five dwarf planets. They are Pluto , Eris , Makemake and Haumea , which orbit the sun beyond Neptune, and Ceres , which is the only object in the asteroid belt massive enough to be spherical. Detractors and also supporters of the standing planet definition can point to problems with it. For instance, it only applies to objects orbiting the sun. But what about exoplanets? And what is meant by "cleared its neighbourhood"? If Earth was located farther away from the sun, would it be able to clear its orbit? But, as astrophysicist Ethan Seigal explains, minor qualifications to the planet definition can bring it in line with exoplanets and allows the definition to work with renewed clarity. Whereas the latest proposal to reinstate Pluto, advocates a geophysical definition of planet. Namely, that a planet should be large enough to be round, but not so big that it is a star. This broad definition casts the net wide, and not only Pluto, but also the moon and more than 100 other solar system objects would become planets. Now wouldn't that be a leap backwards in regards to structuring and understanding our solar system? How much of it is driven by the notion that nothing but a planet is worth exploration? There's a plethora of " not-planets " in our solar system that are worlds worthy of attention. This includes the fiery volcanoes of Io , the icy geysers of Enceladus , the reddish surface of Makemake , the crazy spin of Haumea and the mystery of hundreds of worlds unknown orbiting beyond Neptune. So let the official word on planets and dwarf planets be as passed in 2006 and let our exploration of the solar system continue to amaze us. Explore further: How many planets are in the solar system? 2017-03-20 13:45 phys.org 100 / 141 0.3 Microsoft issues KB 4015348 emergency fix for Windows 10 In the past hour, Microsoft released a new cumulative update for Windows 10 Anniversary Update, version 1607. The latest incarnation of Win10 Anniversary Update now stands at 14393.969. KB 4015348 appears to solve two of the big problems introduced by last Tuesday's cumulative update, KB 4013429, but it looks like the CRM bug persists. According to the Windows 10 update log , this outof-band patch fixes two bugs introduced last week: There's no mention I can find about the Internet Explorer bug introduced last Tuesday that munges certain report formatting with Microsoft's Dynamics CRM 2011 and CRM 2013 OnPremise. We're still looking for a comprehensive fix to that bug. Interesting that Microsoft didn't use the hotfix method it deployed twice in January. Instead, it's rolled out yet another cumulative update to the forced-update masses. 2017-03-20 13:45 Woody Leonhard www.infoworld.com 101 / 141 0.3 Asian flu strains can enter North America through Alaska, study finds In 2014 and 2015, an outbreak of H5N8, H5N1, and H5N2 influenza affected poultry farms in North America, resulting in the culling of nearly 50 million chickens and turkeys. The new study finds that an epidemic flu strain, which originated in Southeast Asia, was most likely carried into Alaska by wild migratory birds. In Alaska, the viruses mingled with local flu strains and eventually evolved into the deadly strains that spread south to poultry farms in Washington, Oregon, and California. "We think there's strong evidence that those viruses moved through the Bering strait through wild bird populations and began a process of evolution that ended up with them infecting poultry populations and becoming a big agricultural issue," says Jonathan Runstadler, an assistant professor of biological engineering and comparative medicine at MIT and the senior author of the study. The paper's lead author is MIT postdoc Nichola Hill. Researchers from the U. S. Geological Survey, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the J. Craig Venter Institute, the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the University of California at Davis also contributed to the study. Influenza migration Influenza strains come in many subtypes, which are classified by the structure of two proteins (abbreviated H and N) found on the surface of their viral envelope. In 1997, an outbreak of H5N1 that began in birds infected 18 people in Hong Kong and killed six of them. The virus then re-emerged in southeast Asia in the early 2000s, killing many birds and causing small pockets of human disease. Since then, H5N1 and other H5 strains have continued to circulate in wild bird populations, raising concerns that bird flu could spread again into poultry or into humans. Part of Runstadler's recent research has focused on trying to understand how these viruses evolve in wild bird populations, with a particular focus on Alaskan birds because many wild birds migrate from southeast Asia to Alaska. Alaska hosts huge flocks of migratory waterbirds, such as ducks, geese, and gulls, which fly north from both Asia and southern regions of North America. "Water birds spread virus easily, and a lot of these birds migrate intercontinentally. They make a great host for influenza viruses," Hill says. This intermingling of birds gives flu viruses a chance to undergo a process called genetic reassortment, which allows them to develop new traits such as the ability to infect a different host. Flu viruses have eight genetic segments that are independent and unattached, and when two different viruses infect the same host, they can swap segments. "The virus then comes out of that cell with the mixture of the two viruses," Runstadler says. "This reassortment seems to be a major mechanism by which the influenza virus can move between different hosts. " Runstadler and Hill have previously shown that reassortment occurs in wild birds in Alaska during the breeding season, and that the process occurs at an even greater frequency as the birds move south. This led them to hypothesize that Alaska could be the entry point for highly pathogenic H5 viruses from Asia, and that these viruses could diversify and spread south into the United States. The researchers got the chance to test this hypothesis after the U. S. poultry outbreak began in late 2014. The MIT team and another group from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and the USGS had taken flu samples from wild birds in 2014 as part of a larger project on flu virus evolution. After the poultry outbreak began, the researchers went back to their samples to try to determine whether they were predecessors to the viruses that caused the poultry sickness. Analyzing these sequences and comparing them with viruses taken from birds infected at lower latitudes of North America revealed that the virus had come into Alaska from southeast Asia. Once the virus arrived in Alaska, it began swapping genes with less harmful flu viruses already present in the Alaskan wild bird population. "As the highly pathogenic H5 virus entered into North America, along the way it reassorted with locally circulating, less pathogenic strains from North American wild birds," Hill says. "We've been able to understand the trajectory of how the virus moved in and reassorted by looking at the strains that these birds in Alaska were shedding. " This genetic reassortment allowed the flu strains to diversify in ways that made it easier for them to spread among the wild bird population and eventually infect poultry as the wild birds migrated south. "This data is very important to our understanding of flu evolution and shows the importance of timely sampling in surveillance," says Ralph Tripp, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Georgia's College of Veterinary Medicine, who was not involved in the research. "We don't know enough" The researchers say that the study highlights the need for surveillance of potentially dangerous flu strains that could enter through Alaska and spread south. Such strains could pose a threat to not only agricultural operations but also human heath, because viral reassortment can make it easier for the virus to spread among people. "I think it's fair to say that the circulation of H5 viruses anywhere is cause for concern because of the fact that the influenza virus can do this reassortment," Runstadler says. "If one of these viruses that was circulating in North America, or one of the ones still circulating in Asia, happened to be able to infect a person who is also sick with a seasonal H1N1 virus, you'd have some concern that those viruses would reassort and you might get a novel virus produced that is able to transmit between humans and could be a public health risk. " The researchers also plan to investigate how human activities, such as urbanization and agriculture in Alaska and elsewhere in North America might influence the flu virus' ability to evolve and infect new hosts by changing the distribution and susceptibility of wild birds. "Humans have used and altered landscapes that provide food sources for populations of birds , and affected migration patterns," Runstadler says. "We don't know enough about influenza virus to say what's really a risk and what's not. That's one reason why we do what we do, to try to figure that out better. " Explore further: Migration routes hold key to bird flu spread, global study finds More information: Nichola J. Hill et al. Reassortment of Influenza A Viruses in Wild Birds in Alaska before H5 Clade 2.3.4.4 Outbreaks, Emerging Infectious Diseases (2017). DOI: 10.3201/eid2304.161668 2017-03-20 13:44 phys.org 102 / 141 0.6 Trump's proposed EPA cuts would have 'unimaginable' impact, public health expert says President Donald Trump's proposed budget unveiled Thursday signals a major change to government's approach to environmental health. His recommended 30 percent cut to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency would mean the loss of 3,200 positions and dozens of programs. While the proposed budget will not likely be adopted as is by the House and Senate, the recommended cuts have ignited a strong defense of environmental and public health programs. To put the issues in context, Global Health NOW turned to Tom Burke, who served as EPA science adviser and deputy assistant administrator until January of this year. Burke, who has since returned to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a professor of Health Policy and Management, shares his insights into the likely effects of the proposed budget cuts, the EPA's role in public health, and responses to the proposal. President Trump unveiled his budget recommendations on March 16, including a proposed 30% cut to the EPA. What will be the biggest loss if the proposed drastic cuts to the EPA budget go through? If we cut off the most preeminent, important research organization and supporter of research in environmental public health, we lose our ability as a nation to be effective in core functions in environmental health. It's about understanding exposure, the long-term health effects of exposures in the environment. The losses to the global scientific community are really unimaginable. To go back—let's imagine life before the EPA. I would like everyone to look at a piece of the sky in New York City in Thanksgiving of 1966, the great air inversion, and think about just how far we've come in protecting public health, reducing cancer risk, risks to our elderly and youngest and improving quality of life, and understanding the incredibly important connection between our environment and our health. To turn back the clock on that—for someone who has given his life to these issues—is unthinkable. You and colleagues Jon Samet and Bernard Goldstein wrote a NEJM commentary March 1 making the case for environmental health and the EPA's role in preserving public health. Did it have any effect? We certainly hope so. We need to get the word the out to the broader public health and medical community. And what better forum than the New England Journal of Medicine (read the commentary). It's really had a tremendous reach. I've had comments from people in Europe, staffers on Capitol Hill, and calls from reporters at major news outlets. I think those kinds of things present the argument for making sure we preserve the scientific process and support the scientific enterprise that's so essential to our decision making. We tried to emphasize that science doesn't change and it's nonpartisan. We have to go with the evidence and the very strong evidence on so many public health issues shows that we need to heed it. Is there any silver lining to the proposed cuts to EPA and other agencies? The silver lining is I think we've awakened a whole new generation of folks to just how fragile our environment is and how important it is to have that assurance we are protecting our natural resources. This is a wake-up call for public health and the scientific community. And I think the message has been well received, but we've got work to do. Maybe you have to be an old guy like me to understand that public health and particularly environmental health is a roller coaster ride, that there is a pendulum that swings back and forth between stakeholders and more anti-regulatory forces being in control. For the most part we strike a balance. You can't have healthy communities without a healthy environment. And frankly you can't have a healthy economy without a healthy environment, either. What do you hear from colleagues who are currently at EPA? How worried are they? First of all, I have to say I have a hands-off approach to that. I've served in a very senior capacity at EPA, and I respect the changes in leadership with the new administration. But I am very concerned about people in junior positions, postdocs, and leaders of the future. I'm very concerned about the brain drain. It will be tremendously difficult to rebuild. It took a long time to rebuild agencies after Reagan's cutbacks. This is a time of considerable mistrust of government and regulations. How would you make the case for environmental regulations to those who are opposed? First of all, the evidence is very clear. The EPA does not stifle jobs. Just look at the economic recovery. The Obama administration in the last eight years was devastating for jobs? Not true. There's been a tremendous recovery [in job numbers]. Some of the most booming industries in the world are related to the environment in the renewable energy sector. The auto industry has tremendously recovered since 2008. If you look systematically at the accusation of job-killing regulations, it just doesn't hold water. What's your advice to people as the budget process and the possible effects on EPA and other agencies unfold? I would just hope that people would understand what environmental protection is to their personal lives. When you wake up in the morning and brush your teeth and flush the toilet, no one gives a thought of the incredible infrastructure. You can trust your environment now, and for most of us, it is something we don't think about. I think recently we've learned just how fragile that is. My own experience in Flint, Michigan, [and elsewhere] is that when you lose that confidence, it is incredibly difficult to regain. We in the public health community have to think about how we can engage in the process and make our voices heard. Explore further: Trump budget 'cripples' environment, science, critics say (Update) 2017-03-20 13:44 phys.org 103 / 141 1.2 AT&T Adds APIs To Help Partners Move More Mobility Products, Services - Page: 1 Providing an enterprise with 1,000 special-purpose mobile devices for a big IT project would have been a time-consuming chore for a solution provider just a few years ago. It required lots of paperwork, probably some phone calls to a master agent and a few days of waiting while the telco on the other end (manually) provisioned each device on its network. Today, solution providers like New York-based MetTel don't have to build big delays into their schedules, thanks to the use of a mobility activation application programming interface (API) from AT&T. Dallas-based AT&T has provided MetTel and other companies in its Partner Exchange program with access to three new APIs, each aimed at helping cut down the time and effort required to deliver mobile devices and services to enterprises. [Related: Partners Eager For Access To AT&T's IoT Network As Telecom Giant Readies LTE-M ] In much the same way that Windows or macOS makes personal computers easier for humans to use, APIs provide ways for machines, networks, and applications to "talk" to one another via a common software interface. All "software needs an interface that makes it easy to consume data and/or functionality," writes Programmable Web Editor-inChief David Berlind. For solution providers, APIs can help save time, money and effort, as well as cut down on data entry mistakes. "The APIs [from AT&T] replace [older] back-end processes, and users can get immediate responses to their requests," explained MetTel's vice president of mobility, Max Silber. "It allows for us to scale our overall business faster. " In telecom, APIs are a huge help. When an enterprise user selects a phone from an online portal or store, it touches off a complicated activation process. There's a handshake between the carrier's billing and provisioning systems, the solution provider's device management systems and a company's internal systems. On the carrier side alone, the provisioning includes selecting or porting the phone number, assigning a SIM card to a device, and activation. Indeed, a lot has to happen for the device to "just work. " With its use of APIs in its Partner Exchange, AT&T is now shaving minutes and seconds off each of those processes. It may even go unnoticed to the user, but when procuring and activating thousands of devices a month, Silber said the scale become incredibly important. Not only that, use of APIs cuts down on manual data entry and programming, so there is less of a chance of a human data entry error, which could lead to a device activation delay or a bill being sent to the wrong place. Those little efficiencies add up in other ways. For MetTel, which also sells IoT, cloud computing, SDWAN and other technology services through the channel, the right APIs between systems can help it automate how it provides services to its partners. "A lot of our success and growth has been through the channel community," Silber said. "We provide our channel with instant access to a variety of different state-of-the-art technologies. " MetTel has been part of AT&T's Partner Exchange since the program's inception four years ago. The company has thousands of customers, from SMBs to large enterprises and employs about 400 people. Separately, AT&T is expanding its training courses for partners. In tandem with its strategic use of APIs, the courses are aimed at helping solution providers get to market more quickly. "Solution providers can earn professional-level certifications in both Network Services and Mobile Services in half the number of courses and in up to 58 percent less time than before," AT&T said in a press release. 2017-03-20 13:30 Phil Harvey www.crn.com 104 / 141 0.3 iPhone 8 rumors: Camera to get augmented reality capabilities similar to Snapchat filters We’ll keep track of the latest rumors and how plausible they are, and we’ll put them in one spot (this one!) so you can pop on over whenever you want to read the latest. If you passed on the iPhone 7 to wait for the iPhone 8—or the iPhone 7s or whatever name Apple decides to use—it sounds like the next phone could be the design refresh you were waiting for. Just don’t expect the headphone jack to return. What could AR on the iPhone look like? Bloomberg reports that iPhone users may be able to change the depth of a photo in post-editing or rotate the subject of the photo in 180-degrees. Furthermore, the iPhone camera could be able to overlay visual effects similar to Snapchat selfie filters. It makes sense that Apple would use the iPhone as a vehicle to introduce AR. Snapchat and Pokémon Go have given us successful implementations of mobile AR, so something similar could be expected. But although Bloomberg is a reliable source, we also know that Apple is testing several iPhone models, so not all these features are guaranteed to come to fruition. Even Bloomberg makes it clear that Apple could decide to shelve the technology if it’s not ready. The cause for the delay? Apparently, STMicroelectronics, the new supplier of the iPhone’s 3D camera sensors needs more time to ramp up mass production. The 3D camera is expected to be a major new feature on the iPhone 8/Edition, will the potential to do facial recognition and augmented reality. However, it’s very unlikely that Cupertino will push back the iPhone launch date even by a few weeks. Plus, Digitimes doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to iPhone rumors. And considering that we’ve also heard rumors of Apple starting iPhone 8 production early, our best bet is still September. According to Kuo, Apple doesn’t have enough incentive to use USB-C. First of all, USB-C takes up more space inside the iPhone, which would change the form factor. In addition, since USB-C is universal, switching to it would remove the MFi royalties that Apple gets from licensing its property Lightning technology to third-party iOS accessorymakers. However, we can’t totally dismiss the WSJ report. Perhaps Apple has considered switching to USB-C. It would make its iOS products more compatible with third-party accessories and peripherals, a benefit now that the iPad Pro is being advertised as a PC replacement. The switch to USB-C would certainly be more user-friendly, but it might also counter Apple’s closed ecosystem strategy, which doesn’t seem to be a drawback for iPhone and iPad sales. This is huge. Apple just did away with the iPhone’s headphone jack and included Lightning EarPods in the box instead of the 3.5mm earphones it has shipped with previous generations of iPhones. Now it appears that those Lightning earphones are already being phased out. Apple is getting its curved OLED displays from Samsung, who started producing those displays for its own phones back in 2014 and is the only manufacturer who can make enough of the curved OLED panels to supply Apple. The iPhone 8 is also reportedly ditching the physical home button, though it’s unclear if Apple is ready to make the move to iris recognition for phone unlocking or if the company will find a way to embed the Touch ID sensor in the display itself. The front-facing camera’s new features would have big implications for games. Players would no longer need avatars—instead, the new camera system would generate a three-dimensional selfie. Kuo noted that Apple is planning to put a 3D sensor in the iPhone’s rear-facing camera next year, which would negate the need for a dual-lens system. Good news: Kuo now expects Apple to put wireless charging in all of its 2017 iPhones , including the next-generation 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch versions of the 7 and 7 Plus. Apple could decide to limit the feature to its anticipated 5.8-inch bezel-less iPhone 8, but with the 7s and 7s Plus expected to be remade with all-glass casing, the addition of wireless charging might encourage more people to upgrade. Kuo is counting on it. According to supply chain rumors, more iPhones are expected to be produced in the latter half of 2017 than ever before. Suppliers are reportedly getting ready to churn out 120-150 million iPhones, beating out the 110-120 million iPhone 6 models produced in late 2014. OLED offers a lot of benefits over LCD. Besides being more responsive, OLED gives Apple the option to create a bezel-less iPhone with a curved or bendable display, which would certainly boost the iPhone 8’s wow-factor. This time around, the iPhone 8 is rumored to be “revolutionary.” 2017-03-20 13:27 Caitlin McGarry www.itnews.com 105 / 141 2.0 Tech Roundup: Will Robots Replace Lawyers? Robots have worked in factories for years. They’re starting to do the driving for you. Now some people believe the next advance by artificial intelligence into the workplace will involve the legal profession. But advancing into the workplace is not the same as replacing the people who work there. As Steve Lohr writes , big law firms are both investing in and testing artificial intelligence to do tasks like document searches and even some contract writing. Recent research concluded that “putting all new legal technology in place immediately would result in an estimated 13 percent decline in lawyers’ hours.” A more realistic adoption rate would cut hours worked by lawyers by 2.5 percent annually over five years. Could that slow down hiring? Absolutely. But artificial intelligence has a way to go before it has an effect similar to the transformation that basic digitization — spreadsheets, word processing software, online access to historical documents — brought to the legal community’s work force. More tech news: Two more executive join the exodus at Uber. Jeff Jones, Uber’s president of ride sharing, has left the company after just six months, and Brian McClendon, vice president of maps and business platform at the company, also plans to leave, the company said. The Silicon Valley venture capitalist who is helping Uber get back on track. Bill Gurley is a rare figure in Silicon Valley, vocally chiding some of the biggest start-up stars to show some discipline. Now he is involved in helping the ride-sharing company move past its difficulties. Data on one billion Yahoo user accounts appears to be for sale. After federal prosecutors unsealed indictments this week against four men they say were responsible for a data breach that affected 500 million user accounts, data on one billion accounts — stolen in another attack on the company a year earlier — appeared to remain available on underground hacker forums. 2017-03-20 13:25 JIM KERSTETTER www.nytimes.com 106 / 141 1.0 Silicon Valley is no longer #1 for talent says huge global startup report There’s no cooler biz on the planet than startups, and there’s no denying Silicon Valley is the startups capital of the world… for now. Cities all over the world are vying to knock the crown off this tech king. And Startup Genome has all the cities doing their best to keep up with San Fran sultan in its new Global Startup Ecosystem Report and Ranking 2017. Startup Genome Global Startup Ecosystem Report and Ranking 2017 “We're hunting for awesome startups” Run an early-stage company? We're inviting 250 to exhibit at TNW Conference and pitch on stage! CHECK IT OUT Run an early-stage company? We're inviting 250 to exhibit at TNW Conference and pitch on stage! CHECK IT OUT Who knows — maybe one will be home to the next Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. The 150-page report is based on a year’s worth of research, spanning a whopping 10,000 startups and 300 partner companies. This is Startup Genome’s third comprehensive report, based on speaking with entrepreneurs and massive amounts of data on startups. Startup Genome examined how cities help growing and sustaining vibrant startup ecosystems through eight major factors: funding, market reach, global connectedness, technical talent, startup experience, resource attraction, corporate involvement, founder ambition and strategy. It may not come as a great surprise but this year’s top three startup ecosystems are Silicon Valley, New York, and London. However, there is a lot more to the report than the top few places. We at TNW wanted to take a closer look at each of the four regions detailed in the report. We reached out to JF Gauthier, CEO of Startup Genome, to discuss the report and to give us a clearer view of noteworthy cities in each region. The biggest news for the Americas is perhaps that the US is losing dominance to Asia and Europe. Los Angeles and Chicago, for example, had the biggest drop of the top 20 cities, mainly due their lowered scores in ‘global connectedness’. However, the US is still prominent within the Americas (and the world), with seven US cities in the top 20. Silicon Valley is still number one in most categories; however, the tech mecca has been ousted by Singapore when it comes to talent. High salaries are one of the main factors why Silicon Valley has lost first place, along with the difficulties of early-stage startups to attract experienced talent. Despite two cities in the Americas having lost their seat in the top 20, Montreal and São Paulo, there are a lot of interesting startup ecosystems outside the US to look out for. Gauthier especially points out the Toronto-Waterloo innovation corridor. Toronto moved up on place and is now number 16 in the rankings. According to Gauthier, this is mainly because of how well Toronto-startups are connected to the global community. The main challenge in Toronto is that early-stage startups have some difficulties with accessing experienced technical and growth talent. One of the people that are especially happy with Toronto’s startup scene is Salim Teja, Executive Vice President of Ventures at MaRS Discovery District , one of the world’s largest urban innovation hubs. Teja feels that the city’s startup ecosystem has matured over the past decade and today it’s reached a tipping point: MaRS Discovery District The Canadian venture capital community has grown substantially and savvy international investors are recognizing that Toronto is an undertapped market for technology, in fields including AI, fintech and health. As a result, we’re seeing higher raises and record venture capital funding. I think where Toronto really stands apart from other North American cities is on talent. Toronto is the most diverse city in the world, so founders are able to build diverse teams and take on a global approach to business from the beginning. Teja also points out that there is a rich pool of graduates for startups to choose from. University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo are two of the top schools for engineering and entrepreneurship in Canada and most their students’ top choice for employment is working locally for a startup. Europe has six representatives in the top 20 in this year’s report: London (#3), Tel Aviv (#6), Berlin (#7), Paris (#11), Stockholm (#14), and Amsterdam (#19). After all the Brexit-mess of 2016, it is interesting to see that London’s vibrant startup environment hasn’t been destroyed. In fact, London moves up three places since the last report, improving in categories such as funding and startup experience since 2015. London is still Europe’s tech capital with 4,300 to 5,900 tech startups and has the fourth highest startup output in the world. Gauthier says that the London ecosystem is far from stopping to improve: The London startup ecosystem has been undeniably growing rapidly over the last few years and it’s reflected in the ranking, with London rising to the third place, ahead of even Beijing. They have worked hard to build a strong and well-balanced ecosystem. Of course ecosystem growth and more scale-ups also results in some challenges for its early-stage startups in competing for experienced talent. However, when it comes to Europe the big news is Stockholm. For Gauthier, Stockholm had the most impressive upward movement this year by jumping into number 14, making its debut in the top 20: Clearly they have special skills at scaling startups, and we have to say they do so at an amazing rate considering the small size of its ecosystem. Lean and mean they are. Its startups reported challenges with getting access to talent with startup experience, but that’s an issue that can come with fast ecosystem growth. Its about time that one of the cities in the Nordic countries reach the top 20, because as we already know, Scandinavia has great work culture. One of Stockholm’s greatest strengths is the outwards looking of its startup scene. The domestic market consists of less than 10 million, so it’s considered common sense to get straight into global expansion. Scandinavia has great work culture The forward thinking of the Swedes has paid off as the startup ecosystem in Stockholm is in the top ten for the subcategories of global connectedness, funding quality, and exit values. This is evident by the huge success stories out of Sweden, such as Spotify and King , the company behind the crazy addictive Candy Crush. Spotify King Candy Crush Asia and Europe are gaining on the US when it comes to thriving startup ecosystems. Many governments in Asia and Europe have set clear goals to support growth of their innovation ecosystem, while the US has trusted in its private sector to maintain growth. Singapore is one of the places where the government had an active role in creating a startupfriendly environment. This year, Singapore ranks number one in talent which is an amazing feat. This can be accredited to Singapore’s innovative policies that began in the 1990s. This long-term thinking has been the key to Singapore’s success as a great startup city. The government has been patient and kept its support, but Singapore only appeared in the top 10 ranking for the first time in 2015. China is also making headway in leading the charge when it comes to startup ecosystems, according to Gauthier: For the first time we can all see the comparative strengths of Beijing and Shanghai with the rest of world. Beijing’s amazing performance at creating large scale-ups is confirmed with its second place in our performance factor, and third place overall, but the lack of global connections of its startups was also clear. Shanghai takes a surprising eighth place overall with its strong early-stage funding, how it attracts talent and resource from all over the world, and how globally connected its startups are. The city has strengths in every factor that Gauthier and his team analyzed, with strong exits, global networking, and funding. However, some indicators of success gave some concerns, especially the number of startups and their total valuations. Sadly, no African city reached the top 20 this year, however, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any thriving tech startup ecosystems on the continent. The three African cities that were discussed in the report were Lagos in Nigeria, and Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa. The startup ecosystem in Lagos doesn’t rank high in global comparison, but at two billion dollars it is the most valuable one in Africa. Lagos is not particularly well connected and the tech scene is relatively inexperienced. The city makes up for this with English-speaking low cost engineer talent and you shouldn’t be surprised if Lagos will work its way into headlines in the future. However, Cape Town is still the largest startup ecosystem of the continent with 700 to 1,200 active tech startups. Just like Lagos, Cape Town scores pretty low in global connectedness which isn’t good news as a high score is a predictor of success. Still, Cape Town scores high in regional context in funding and has low cost engineering which might propel its startup scene to a higher level. Insights Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 13:20 Már Másson feedproxy.google.com 107 / 141 1.2 Swift reaches TIOBE’s top 10, BlackBerry Dynamics Communication APIs, and 97 Things Programmers Need to Know Swift has made it into the TIOBE Index’s top 10 programming languages for the first time. Swift is a programming language Apple created about three years ago to replace its other development language Objective-C. application “The expectations were high right from the start, but adoption took off slowly. That is for good reasons by the way because the installed base of Objective-C code is quite large. New applications are written in Swift, whereas old apps that are written in Objective-C are not actively migrated to Swift. This is also what we observe at customer sites. Since Swift is mainly intended to write applications in Apple’s ecosystem, it is expected that it won’t rise much further,” TIOBE wrote in its index. Other top languages include: Java, C, C++, C#, Python, Visual Basic. NET, PHP, JavaScript and Delphi/Object Pascal. BlackBerry introduces new APIs BlackBerry has announced the BlackBerry Dynamics Communication APIs. The newly introduced APIs are designed to securely connect enterprise app servers. “BlackBerry Dynamics provides APIs to protect data in transit when making a socket or HTTPS request. When these APIs are used to send data from a client application, BlackBerry Dynamics encrypts and sends the data securely to enterprise application servers behind the enterprise firewall,” the BlackBerry team wrote in its developer blog. Red Hat’s OpenSCAP 1.2 gets NIST certification Red Hat announced OpenSCAP 1.2, an opensource Security Content Automation Protocol scanner, has been certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as a US government evaluated configuration and vulnerability scanner for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7-based systems. With this certification, OpenSCAP can analyze and evaluate automation content as well as provide the functionality and documentation required by NIST. “Continuous, repeatable scanning processes are key to keeping modern, increasingly-complex computing environments more secure and safe, and open standards help to make these processes achievable. NIST’s new certification of OpenSCAP on the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform provides a flexible, powerful SCAP scanner built on open standards, making it easier for agencies and other organizations to add verifiable, repeatable security scanning to their repertoires,” said David Egts, chief technologist for the public sector at Red Hat. 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know O’Reilly Media published 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know, and today, all 97 of these items are available for free, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3. The collection contains varied perspectives on what it is that contributors to the project feel programmers should know, according to O’Reilly Media. It includes everything from code-focused advice to cultural, algorithms, implementations, languages, technology, and more. The collection can be reviewed here . GNU APL 1.7 released GNU APL, a free implementation of the ISO standard “Programming Language APL, Extended,” released version 1.7. This release contains bug fixes, SQL and DLX updates. In this release, GNU APL gets an interface from the programming languages Erlang and Elixir. With his interface a developer can use APL’s vector capabilities in programs written in Erlang or Elixir or from the Phoenix web framework. Also, all bug fixes reported before March 17, 2017 were fixed, writes Jürgen Sauermann, author and maintainer of GNU APL in a thread. 2017-03-20 13:19 Christina Cardoza sdtimes.com 108 / 141 0.2 How to Keep Key Personnel When Layoffs Come Down No one wants to face the uncertainties that accompany layoffs. It’s a stressful time for everyone in the company. That’s why you need to be receptive to new opportunities to get beyond the current situation. Setting up a variety of bonus, incentive, and reward programs can go a long way toward retaining your top employees when layoffs occur. Here are some tips that can alleviate their angst. Free soda, snack foods, and fatty lunches may be well received in the moment, but the associated morale boost is just that: temporary. Employees who indulge in these unhealthy perks may suffer from fatigue and lethargy, which can have a direct impact on productivity and creativity. Consider, instead, offering onsite perks that contribute to employees’ quality of life by improving their mental and physical health. Massage services and fitness classes allow employees to truly rejuvenate during their work break so that they come back feeling refreshed. Employees benefit from both the short- and long-term health benefits, while employers benefit from increased productivity and happy employees. Layoffs may create a sense of panic as employees wonder, “Am I next?” You can assure employees that you value them by giving them access to or investing in their career development with onsite corporate education. These classes also help employees feel like they are taking control of their future by developing marketable skills. There are few things people value more than time. We never seem to have enough, and we’re always seeking ways to do more in less so that we can have more time to do the things we enjoy, whether that’s being with family or working on a side project. Giving employees time off doesn’t necessarily solve the problem since they tend to work more preparing for and returning from vacation. Instead, give employees onsite access to the services that normally eat into their free time. Access to automotive services (oil change, tire repair, etc.), dry cleaners, alterations, and eye glass repair, to name a few, allow employees to complete these necessary chores without sacrificing valuable personal time. And because the services are onsite, employees don’t have to spend work hours on the road to get them done. You can’t get any closer to giving employees the gift of time. Nobody likes layoffs, but with a little thought and planning, employers can give their top employees perks they value and that deliver benefits to the company as well. Find our more at love.espresa.com 2017-03-20 13:18 Espresa www.computerworld.com 109 / 141 0.6 Super Mario Run makes the jump to Android this week Super Mario Run was the breakout mobile game of 2016, but sadly it was an iOS affair… Until now. Nintendo has announced that the long-awaited hit game will land on Android on March 23, which is this Thursday. iOS Android Android version of #SuperMarioRun will be available on 3/23 with the Ver.2.0.0 update! Preregister now: https://t.co/dAxzTlppnG pic.twitter.com/nQ0T4znOBt #SuperMarioRun https://t.co/dAxzTlppnG pic.twitter.com/nQ0T4znOBt — Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 18, 2017 March 18, 2017 Follow TNW at SXSW 2017! We're covering the weird and wonderful tech at SXSW, join us in the fun. PARTY TIME We're covering the weird and wonderful tech at SXSW, join us in the fun. PARTY TIME To recap, Super Mario Run has you play as the titular character. Gameplay is slightly different compared to the old-school SNES games of yore. Rather than being able to traverse the 2D world of your own accord, you have no control over Mario’s velocity, instead controlling when he jumps. It’s your job to ensure that he avoids obstacles, and racks up points. As before, the game will offer a ‘taste’ for free, but to unlock the full game, you’ll have to open your wallet. This model paid dividends for Nintendo, netting the company ¥6 billion ( or roughly $53 million ) in less than a month, but it’ll be interesting to see how it translates on Android, where consumers are more reticent to pay for content. or roughly $53 million Android Apps Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 13:10 Matthew Hughes feedproxy.google.com 110 / 141 0.7 Wi-Fi on wheels: Google helps students get online, on the go For some rural American school children, tech giant Google is stepping in to help ensure they can get online to do their homework during their often lengthy commutes to and from school. On Monday, Google unveiled one of more than two dozen school buses it's outfitted with Wi-Fi for students in South Carolina's Berkeley County. Some students in the sprawling district spend two hours a day riding to and from school. A grant to the school district also provides for 1,700 Chromebooks, the Google laptops on which public school children do class assignments and homework as school books are largely replaced by online worksheets and articles. Google hopes to eventually expand the program around the country. ——— Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP. Read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/meg-kinnard/ 2017-03-20 13:02 By abcnews.go.com 111 / 141 1.8 Why Work-Life Balance Is More Important than Salary Work-life balance means different things to different people. For some, it means traveling the world while working full time. For others, it means working from home a couple days a week. The bottom line, however, is the same: Work-life balance means getting all one’s work done while running errands, staying healthy, and having time for family and leisure. Regardless of how employees envision it for themselves, work-life balance is taking on increasing importance. In fact, for many, it’s more important than salary. As companies strive to attract and retain top talent, demonstrating that they respect employees’ personal time is critical. According to a study by Fidelity Investments , when evaluating a job offer, 58% of Millennials and 53% of Gen-Xers cite improved quality of work life as more important than financial benefits. That comes as no surprise when you consider other workplace and lifestyle trends that employees have to contend with. As a society, Americans are busier than ever. It’s a challenge to complete a full day’s work in eight hours, never mind raise a family (in the case of Gen-Xers) and manage a side project (as Millennials are apt to do). Meanwhile, employees are increasingly aware of the fate that has befallen boomers who pledged their loyalty and best working years to their employers, only to discover that retirement is further off than they expected. As a result, Millennials seek careers that speak to their sense of purpose and allow them to integrate work with their lifelong pursuits. Flexible work schedules and work-from-home policies can help employees achieve the work-life balance they crave, but they don’t work for everyone or every company. Employees who work well at home often have a tendency to overwork and risk burn out, while others are more productive when working alongside colleagues in the office. And, of course, some companies simply need their employees on-site. What’s more, these policies don’t eliminate the need to take care of mundane tasks that eat away at personal time, like getting the oil changed in the car or dropping off the dry cleaning. An alternative way to demonstrate respect for employees’ personal time—and help them achieve work-life balance—is to provide those services onsite. Instead of allowing employees to leave work early to go to the mechanic’s, for example, some companies are bringing the mechanic to them. The same goes for notary or passport services. Employees are able to take care of these necessary but low-value tasks with greater convenience and efficiency. Providing onsite services benefits both employees and employers. Employees have more “down” time that would otherwise be spent on errands. Now they can use that time for activities that improve their quality of life so that they return to work truly recharged. Employers, on the other hand, can benefit from employees’ increased productivity. Time that would be spent traveling to and from these services is now spent working onsite. Onsite services are also a validation of your company’s commitment to work-life balance. Flexible work schedules and work-from-home policies can be difficult to validate. Individual managers may have different attitudes about the policies and permit them to a greater or lesser extent. Onsite services, however, can be accessible to everyone in the company and encourage employees to be onsite as well. Both parties benefit, and at little cost to the company. Find out more at love.espresa.com 2017-03-20 12:58 Espresa www.computerworld.com 112 / 141 1.2 Redmi 4A selling for $90 in India with 5-inch 720p display and impressive specs You’ll be able to start buying the Redmi 4A (if you’re in India) beginning March 23 on Amazon India, and will have three colors options : dark grey, gold, and rose gold. It certainly seems like a good option for both your wallet and your needs, and could be promising for Xiaomi’s future in India and beyond. 2017-03-20 12:57 Lulu Chang www.digitaltrends.com You are about to activate our Facebook Messenger news bot. Once subscribed, the bot will send you a digest of trending stories once a day. You can also customize the types of stories it sends you. Click on the button below to subscribe and wait for a new Facebook message from the TC Messenger news bot. Thanks, TC Team Foursquare Founded 2009 Overview Foursquare is a technology company that uses location intelligence to build meaningful consumer experiences and inform business decisions. We have two mobile apps: Foursquare and Swarm, and a suite of enterprise and advertising tools. For consumers, we believe the world is full of amazing experiences. We make two apps to help guide you to them: Foursquare and Swarm. The Foursquare app helps you … Location New York, NY Categories Advertising Platforms , Guides , Private Social Networking , Apps , Location Based Services , Big Data , Mobile Website https://foursquare.com Full profile for Foursquare Foursquare Founded 2009 Overview Foursquare is a technology company that uses location intelligence to build meaningful consumer experiences and inform business decisions. We have two mobile apps: Foursquare and Swarm, and a suite of enterprise and advertising tools. For consumers, we believe the world is full of amazing experiences. We make two apps to help guide you to them: Foursquare and Swarm. The Foursquare app helps you … Location New York, NY New York, NY Categories Advertising Platforms , Guides , Private Social Networking , Apps , Location Based Services , Big Data , Mobile Advertising Platforms Guides Private Social Networking Apps Location Based Services Big Data Mobile Website https://foursquare.com Full profile for Foursquare Full profile for Foursquare Dashboard Description Dashboard was launched in 2012 Website http://www.gosquared.com Full profile for Dashboard Dashboard Description Dashboard was launched in 2012 Website http://www.gosquared.com Full profile for Dashboard Full profile for Dashboard SEE ALL NEWSLETTERS Walmart Acquires Modcloth | Crunch Report Walmart Acquires Modcloth | Crunch Report Watch More Episodes Director, Marketing at Multitouch Americas, Inc (Mountain View, CA, United States) Director, Marketing at Multitouch Americas, Inc (Mountain View, CA, United States) Online Research Specialist at C+R Research (Chicago, IL, United States) Online Research Specialist at C+R Research (Chicago, IL, United States) Consultant (SharePoint, Mission Outreach) at Arc Aspicio (Washington, DC, United States) Consultant (SharePoint, Mission Outreach) at Arc Aspicio (Washington, DC, United States) Human Resources Specialist at cleverbridge (Chicago, IL, United States) Human Resources Specialist at cleverbridge (Chicago, IL, United States) Marketing Campaign Manager at cleverbridge (Chicago, IL, United States) Marketing Campaign Manager at cleverbridge (Chicago, IL, United States) More from CrunchBoard 2017-03-20 12:57 Fitz Tepper feedproxy.google.com 114 / 141 0.8 Battle of the bulge: Engineers eliminate camera bump with slide-out module Does the camera bump on your sleek new smartphone have you down? Researchers have developed a concept camera that is 3.5mm thin , eliminating that bump at the back of the phone but with an odd compromise. As smartphones slim down, cameras haven’t quite caught up — the glass optics required to snap those photos is tricky to thin out, so manufacturers compromised with a small bump at the back of the smartphone. Engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, however, have developed a solution: A modular camera unit that actually pulls out from the side of the smartphone, then retracts back into the phone when not in use. More: The speedy stacked sensor of the Sony RX100 IV could be coming to smartphones The camera is actually four sensors and mirrors to enable both front- and back-facing views. The team started with a single sensor, but the camera didn’t perform well with closeups. A second sensor was added and while that cleared up the closeup issue, there were stitching errors between the two views. With a set of four sensors, the team was able to eliminate the closeup issue and allows software to detect and remove the stitching errors. The result is a camera that is half the height of a traditional smartphone camera, but with similar quality and a 20- megapixel resolution. The question the group faces now is if manufacturers — and consumers — are willing to forgo the usual for such a radically different smartphone camera than the universal built-in camera. While the concept is a bit odd, as PC World points out , the pop-out camera has the added benefit of security, since if someone does hack into your camera while it’s not in use, it’s tucked away inside the phone and can’t see anything anyways. The pull-out smartphone camera joins the Fraunhofer Institute’s earlier imaging concepts, including a smartphone camera inspired by bug eyes and an app that uses only a smartphone camera to conduct spectral analysis of everyday objects. 2017-03-20 12:55 Hillary Grigonis www.digitaltrends.com 115 / 141 0.0 This Is What Spring Looks Like from Space Take a peek at a satellite's view of spring in Earth's Take a peek at a satellite's view of spring in Earth's Northern Hemisphere — officially beginning today, March 20 — as a spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit captures the changing seasons, marked in shifting sunlight. [Full Explanation] 2017-03-20 12:47 Judi Stroh www.livescience.com 116 / 141 2.1 One Minute Review: Microsoft Wireless Display Adaptor Not the most versatile gadget, but certainly very handy. This cleverly designed device is, in effect, a wireless HDMI cable. Using the open Miracast standard, it allows any Miracast-compatible device to sling its screen to a TV. Thus, your desktop is viewed on the big screen, and controlled by your device. It supports resolutions up to 1920x1080 and two-channel stereo and 5.1 surround, However – performance is laggy and stuttery with video, so it’s not a tool for that job. One end goes into an HDMI port, and another into USB for power. Unlike Chromecast, it does not require a Wi-Fi network or router, big plus there. In testing with a Surface 4 Pro, it connected perfectly first time via Action Center/Connect, but the second time I connected the Surface froze during the connection process, needing a cold boot. A third attempt worked, but after disconnecting the Surface would no longer connect to the home Wi-Fi, requiring another restart. On an Android phone it worked perfectly. Using it regularly over a month, it continues to crash the Surface almost 50% of the time, so, terrific device, but it highlighted the Surface’s instability. 2017-03-20 12:46 Ben Mansill www.pcauthority.com.au 117 / 141 1.4 Solution Providers Say Focus On Application, DevOps Security At All-Time High Page: 1 The latest trend on the rise in the security market has solution providers and vendors making investments to position themselves to help customers secure their applications. Andrew Howard, CTO of Switzerland-based Kudelski Security, said a growing threat landscape and an expanding application footprint have laid the groundwork for increased demand for web and application security. "We're absolutely seeing growth in that area," Howard said. [Related: 2017 Security 100: 20 Coolest Web, Email And Application Security Vendors ] Application security has always been on customers' radar but seems to be moving up the priority list, according to Howard, who added that it is now one of the top five security priorities for most chief information security officers. CISOs are looking to move beyond application security as a compliance checkbox, launching full application security teams and looking to boost their capabilities around securing applications, he said. That's a trend that wasn't there a year ago, said Jane Wright, principal analyst at Technology Business Research. However, in the past nine months or so, she said the conversation has shifted and customers are looking to invest in application security, particularly around web and email applications. Driving that shift is a rise in ransomware, the move to cloud-based applications and more customization capabilities. That uptick in application security investment is showing, Wright said. According to TBR research, 17 of the companies covered by the firm have significant application security offerings. Those offerings grew revenue at those companies 19 percent from the second half of 2015 to the second half of 2016, significantly higher than the 11 percent the security market grew overall, she said. "It is outpacing the market. … It's really picking up," Wright said. Doug Cahill, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, said he sees a couple of factors driving the focus on application security. First, he said there is an increased use of Agile software development and DevOps, which is allowing for more conversations around how to streamline security into the development process. That is only accelerated with increased adoption of the cloud, he said. "I think there's awareness of the fact that we're in an application economy and that code has to be secure. Code is everything, so code has to be secure. … Application security just makes so much sense. … It's fundamentally about moving security upstream," Cahill said. After the development process, there are more opportunities around application security, including dynamic security testing, virtual patching and web application firewalls, he added. 2017-03-20 12:44 Sarah Kuranda www.crn.com 118 / 141 0.6 Meet Samantha: a smart sex robot that you need to seduce before you get busy Do you ever stop and ponder what it would be like if Siri or Alexa possessed the same ability to answer everyday questions, but had a propensity for orgasms, was shaped (more or less) like a human woman, and was way more difficult to explain to your houseguests? If so, you may be interested in Barcelona-based engineer Sergi Santos’ new robotic dolls. Called Samantha, the life-size dolls are designed to replicate, erm, sexual acts — but with artificial intelligence that means she’ll respond to different touches by showing supposed emotional reactions. In essence, it’s a chatbot, but one with the added “bonus” of having a body to go alongside the voice. Touch Samantha’s hands and she’ll say things like “I love this,” while kissing her or touching her mouth will yield a different response. Other body parts also behave accordingly. Oh, and occasionally she’ll request songs on Pandora to improve the mood! More: Whether a robot that you have to seduce is a step toward a consent-oriented approach to sex dolls or a weirdly reductive, gamified version of a human relationship remains to be seen (could it have hints of both?), but Samantha is certainly a unique way of spending that $5,374 paycheck that’s hanging around your bank account. “Tools like [Amazon’s] Alexa are interesting, but the ultimate goal of everybody is to build something with a body and a brain, right?” Santos told Digital Trends. “I wanted to do something that would make my mother say ‘wow’ when she sees it. My mother never said that about any of the other things that I showed her. She’d always say they were funny and then go off and do something else. This project was different.” Without getting into what Freud would make of that rationale, Santos insists there’s more to Samantha than simply cybercoitus. “I’ve got a Samantha in the family home that can give philosophy quotes or health information,” he continued. Over time, he thinks the robot will evolve to be a more fleshed-out (no pun intended) companion, with the ability to link different touch sensitive body parts to verbal or communicative cues yielding all types of fun interactions. No, we don’t think we’ll be buying a Samantha robot to chat with our grandmas, but it’s hard to deny that he’s thinking big with his plans. And with ambitions to make the software open source, who knows what will come out of the project long-term? 2017-03-20 12:43 Luke Dormehl www.digitaltrends.com 119 / 141 1.5 NY officials warn of scam to get employee tax information ALBANY, N. Y. (AP) - New York officials are warning about a tax-season scam in which email fraudsters pose as company executives to get employees’ Social Security numbers. State tax officials say at least 65 companies with New York employees have been victimized by the identity thieves, compromising 7,100 Social Security numbers. Scammers posing as company executives send emails to payroll and human resource departments requesting lists of employees and personal information. Officials urge people not to respond to emails demanding payroll data and Social Security numbers. 2017-03-20 12:41 By www.washingtontimes.com 120 / 141 1.2 Team to offer suggestions on Lincoln papers’ digitization SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - A review team of experts will offer suggestions about the digitization of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project. The State Journal-Register reports (http://bit.ly/2noSh2c ) that the team will help the current staff to publish Lincoln’s papers and make recommendations on the organizational structure and where to focus. Recommendations will be made by April. A deadline for the documents’ online publication has not been set. A spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency says he hopes the review team provides guidance on the most quick, efficient and userfriendly way to release the documents. The project has been in the works since 1985 when the Lincoln Legal Papers project sought to find surviving records from his legal career. Their mission expanded in 2000 to making documents accessible in a digital format. ___ Information from: The http://www.sj-r.com State Journal-Register, 2017-03-20 12:41 By www.washingtontimes.com 121 / 141 0.0 Stopping Video Autoplay on Google Chrome Q. I had Google Chrome for Windows set so web pages couldn’t start playing videos, but I have noticed over the past few months that the clips play anyway. I didn’t change any of the browser settings, so what happened? A. You may not have changed the browser’s settings, but the websites you use may have changed the way they handle video. For years, many sites used additional plug-in software like Adobe Flash to show videos — and most web browsers had settings to stop the plug-in software from automatically playing the clips when the page loaded. However, many sites have gradually switched from using the video plug-in software and are now using HTML5 , which is a language for creating web pages that embeds the clips in the page. Because the plug-in software you are blocking in the browser settings no longer controls the video, the clip often starts rolling when the page loads. While most browsers do not include easily reached settings to stop the autoplay videos, you do have some workarounds. For Google Chrome, one option is to go to the online Chrome Web Store and search for the free Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension. Once you install the extension, it should prevent audio and video clips on web pages from playing automatically. You can turn the extension off or on from its icon in the Chrome toolbar. A version of the Disable HMTL5 Autoplay extension is also available for those using the Opera browser. 2017-03-20 12:39 J. www.nytimes.com 122 / 141 1.9 Bill Gates again tops world's billionaire list Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, was the world's richest person in 2016, the fourth year in a row he has headed the list, Forbes said today. But Gates' fortune did not rely on the Microsoft shares he held, filings with the U. S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) showed. Forbes pegged Gates' total worth at $86.8 billion , more than $9 billion more than the next-richest person on the planet, Warren Buffet. However, in a February filing with the SEC, Gates said that he owned 174,992,934 Microsoft shares. At Monday's opening price, that portfolio would be worth approximately $11.4 billion. That amount represented 13.1% of Gates' wealth as estimated by Forbes . Gates has regularly sold chunks of his Microsoft holdings. For more than a decade he has sold about 80 million shares annually -- usually 20 million per quarter -- in a long-standing plan to fund the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In several transactions last month, Gates sold exactly 20 million shares for a total of $513.3 million. As of Sept. 30, 2016, Gates owned about 2.5% of all Microsoft shares, according to another SEC filing. But even if Gates' fortune was limited to his Microsoft holdings, he would still have appeared on Forbes 's billionaire list. The $11.4 billion in Microsoft would have put the 60-year-old Gates in a tie with Lukas Walton -- an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune -- for the No. 120 spot. At that place on the list, Gates would have edged out Eric Schmidt, chairman of Alphabet and former CEO of Google (No. 121) and easily beaten other technology names, including Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel (No. 199), and Garrett Camp, cofounder and chairman of Uber (No. 233). 2017-03-20 12:39 Gregg Keizer www.computerworld.com 123 / 141 0.2 Android creator lost out on a big investment, and Apple may be to blame, report says Andy Rubin, a co-creator of Android, lost out on a $100 million investment from SoftBank , as Apple deepened ties with the Japanese investor, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. Rubin's company, Essential Products, is reportedly planning to release a new high-end smartphone this spring, and SoftBank planned to market that phone in Japan, the Journal said. But then Apple agreed to commit $1 billion to SoftBank's Vision Fund, a move that "complicated" SoftBank's investment in Rubin's Essential Products, the Journal reported on Monday. Apple did not directly block the deal, the Journal said, though Rubin's premium phone would be released ahead of the highly anticipated 10th anniversary iPhone. The deal was "nearly complete," sources told the Journal. Rubin was the CEO of Android, which Google bought in 2005 to form the basis of its smartphone operating system. At Google, Rubin's leadership of its smartphone business helped turn Android into the most widespread smartphone platform in the world. Rubin left Google in 2014 to start various projects, including an incubator for hardware startups. He has not publicly discussed Essential or its plans. The deal's fallout highlights the growing influence of SoftBank's Masayoshi Son, who made a splashy announcement last year to invest $50 billion in the U. S. , aiming to create 50,000 jobs. For more on the story, see the full article at WSJ.com 2017-03-20 12:36 Anita Balakrishnan www.cnbc.com 124 / 141 2.9 Vodafone to merge India operations with Idea Cellular Vodafone will own 45.1 percent of the merged entity, after it transfers about 4.9 percent to promoters of Idea and/or their affiliates for 38.74 billion rupees ($592.15 million) in cash, Idea said. The combined Vodafone-Idea group would India's largest telecom operation with almost 400 million customers, or 35 percent market share. The merger comes after India's mobile industry was thrown into turmoil with the launch last year of Reliance Jio Infocomm, the new 4G mobile broadband network built at a cost of more than $20 billion by India's richest businessman, Mukesh Ambani, as part of his Reliance Industries ( RELI. NS ) conglomerate. Jio has made an impact with free voice calls and cut-price data services, forcing India's three biggest operators - Bharti Airtel ( BRTI. NS ), Vodafone and Idea - to slash prices and accept lower profits. Idea said the companies expected cost and capex synergies of about $10 billion in net present value after integration costs and spectrum payments. Idea will have the sole right to appoint the chairman, while Vodafone will appoint the chief financial officer, it said. The appointment of a chief executive officer and a chief operating officer would require the approval of both companies, which would get the right to nominate three board members each. Vodafone, the world's second-largest cellphone operator, has endured a tumultuous ride since it entered India in 2007, with fierce competition and a high-profile tax battle making a business contributing more than 10 percent of its revenues and profits its most unpredictable by far. Shares in Idea rose as much as 14.25 percent immediately after the merger news but gave up gains to be trading up 3.2 percent at 0432 GMT. (Reporting by Rafael Nam; Additional reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Stephen Coates) 2017-03-20 12:36 Reuters Editorial feeds.reuters.com 125 / 141 0.0 Enormous swarms of midges teach about interconnected landscapes Ecologists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison are trying to understand why the midge population can fluctuate by 100,000-fold across a decade, and what impact these massive swarms have on the surrounding landscape. It's becoming clear that the billions of midges falling on land fertilize and alter the vegetation on the lakeside, but the cause behind such large fluctuations in the insects' population remains a mystery. The research aims to better understand lakedominated environments, including those of Wisconsin. Lake Myvatn sits at the edge of the Arctic Circle, where the sun barely sets during summer field work from May to August. The ecosystem is extreme, yet simple—a relatively small number of species, like the midges, dominate. This bare-bones environment is perfect for exploring complex interactions within ecosystems. In 2005, when Claudio Gratton, a UW–Madison professor of entomology, first saw the huge numbers of midges rising out of the lake and dying on land, he thought of them as a living transfer of nutrients from water to shore. Gratton calculated that the midges were the nutritional equivalent of scattering a half-million Big Macs around the edge of the lake, which is about the size of Lake Mendota in Madison. He wondered how the lakeside responded to this nutritional glut. To test how the midges alter the landscape, Gratton's laboratory set up experimental plots in the vegetation around the lake. In some, they added dead midges; in others, they used netting to exclude them. Over the years, Gratton's team saw that where they added midges, grasses flourished. Normally starved of nutrients in the poor soil and outcompeted by heartier plants, the grasses took off in response to the influx of rotting-midge fertilizer. The research explained why grass grew in some areas and withered in others. "Only by understanding the linkage between midges and grass can you explain this pattern in nature," says Gratton. "The lake is causing that to happen. " Local shepherds have long called the grass in midge-infested areas "midge grass"—they harvest the grass and feed it to their flocks. Gratton's work suggested that the shepherds' folklore contained a kernel of truth, and that midges might indirectly nourish the sheep by encouraging more grass growth. Gratton was originally introduced to Lake Myvatn by Tony Ives, a UW–Madison professor of zoology, who has a lifelong connection to the island. "I've been going to Iceland since I was a kid," says Ives, whose middle name, Ragnar, was given to him in honor of an Icelandic farmer and friend of his father. Ives learned about the unpredictable and large swings in midge population through Arni Einarsson, the director of the Lake Myvatn research station, who has studied the lake since the 1970s. In a 2008 article in the journal Nature , Ives, Einarsson and their collaborators laid out a straightforward mathematical framework that might explain how the midge population spikes and crashes so dramatically and unpredictably. They suggested that small, random environmental changes—too much wind one year, or a late spring the next—could send the population crashing. But the true causes of this hair-trigger sensitivity remain elusive. In the nine years since, the team has been searching for clues that can help them understand the population changes better. Each year, they measure water quality, nutrient concentrations, and the amount of lakebed algae among other factors that might affect the insects. Then they wait for the midges. "Every year around this time I start holding my breath," wondering how the dynamic midge population will respond in spring, says Ives. "It's kind of like slow-motion suspense. " Supported by a 10 year National Science Foundation grant for long-term research, Ives and his collaborators are waiting for the natural experiment to proceed through an entire population boom and bust. This year, the researchers might see the population crash—but they don't know. As the ecologists work to better understand the spare Lake Myvatn ecosystem, they are also extending their studies to the lake-filled Wisconsin landscape. Gratton and UW–Madison postdoctoral researcher Mireia Bartrons, now at the University of Vic in Spain, developed a model of how insect emergences from Wisconsin lakes affect lakeside ecosystems. With more than 15,000 lakes and 34 percent of the state lying within 200 meters of a lake or stream, the scientists expect aquatic insects to affect a large share of the state. Gratton sees ecosystems, whether in Iceland or the American Midwest, as an interwoven tapestry of interactions rather than isolated patches of land or water. "The character of the land would change without these lakes," says Gratton. "Our landscapes are completely interconnected. " Explore further: Icelandic swarms may provide hints on ecosystems More information: Anthony R. Ives et al. High-amplitude fluctuations and alternative dynamical states of midges in Lake Myvatn, Nature (2008). DOI: 10.1038/nature06610 Mireia Bartrons et al. Regional-Level Inputs of Emergent Aquatic Insects from Water to Land, Ecosystems (2013). DOI: 10.1007/s10021-0139688-6 2017-03-20 12:34 phys.org 126 / 141 0.9 As lava hardens, a revelation bubbles up What he learned gave him a fresh perspective on lava and inspired him to develop a new method of estimating the historic elevation of the Earth's land surfaces. "At the lecture," says Sahagian, who is now a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Lehigh, "an atmospheric physicist showed how larger raindrops fall faster because they have a greater volume-to-surface-area ratio and thus a higher terminal velocity than smaller raindrops. "Because of this, the larger drops catch up to the smaller drops and coalesce with them. The raindrops then grow in size, causing the size distribution to get bigger. " At the time, Sahagian was studying the vesicles, or air bubbles, that become suspended in the hardened flows of basaltic lava, a highly fluid form of molten rock spewed by volcanoes. The vesicles form and are trapped in the top and bottom layers of the lava flow; the middle layer, the last to solidify, remains bubble-free. The physicist's lecture led to a Eureka moment for Sahagian. "I turned the heavens upside-down, so to speak," he recalls. "I imagined the larger lava bubbles flowing upwards, like the bubbles in champagne or soda, and catching up to the smaller bubbles and then coalescing and rising faster still. " The top and bottom layers of the lava, Sahagian assumed, should contain roughly the same sizes of bubbles and the same distribution of bubble sizes. He did some mathematical calculations and wrote a model describing the rise, growth and coalescence of bubbles in a lava flow. "But then one day I realized that the size distribution of the bubbles at the top of the flow should differ from the distribution at the bottom even though the lava comes from the same volcanic magma," he said. "That's because at the top, the bubbles are subjected only to atmospheric pressure, while at the bottom, they're subjected to atmospheric pressure as well as to the hydrostatic pressure from the weight of the lava above. " Thus, Sahagian reasoned, by calculating the ratio between modal bubble size in the top and bottom layers of the lava, and relating this to the thickness and the age of the lava flow, he could determine the atmospheric pressure that prevailed when the lava emplaced, or hardened into its final position. (The modal size is the size range with the greatest population of bubbles.) "In other words, the ratios of the volumes of the bubbles should be the same as the ratio of the pressures. If we can measure the bubble volumes and the thickness of the lava, we can solve for atmospheric pressure. " And given that atmospheric pressure declines as a function of increasing elevation, Sahagian further deduced that it should be possible to determine at what elevation the lava emplaced. Several years later, Sahagian, by this time a faculty member at Ohio State University, headed to Hawaii to test the formula in basaltic lava flows that had hardened during the 1959 eruption of Mauna Loa volcano. "When in doubt," he says, "go to Hawaii. " Sahagian and his student, Joe Maus, measured bubble sizes and distribution in samples taken from the base of Mauna Loa at sea level and from its summit at 12,000 feet elevation. To avoid skewed results, they sampled only simply emplaced, wellpreserved and exposed lava flows that had not been altered—through inflation or drainage—after the upper and lower parts of the flows had solidified. "We did a lot of scouting around before we found the right kind of flows," Sahagian said. "We wanted to make sure that the vesicularity we measured was truly a function of stratigraphic position in the flow. " The researchers calculated the ratio between average bubble size in the top and bottom layers of the lava at the base of Mauna Loa and then determined the same ratio for the lava at the volcano's summit. The difference between the two ratios was significant, and it corresponded roughly to the difference in atmospheric pressure between the summit and base of Mauna Loa. Sahagian and Maus reported their results in Nature magazine in 1994 in an article titled "Basalt Vesicularity as a Measure of Atmospheric Pressure and Paleoelevation. " "If atmospheric sea-level pressure is known (or assumed)," they wrote, "vesicle size distributions in basalt flows can thus be used as an indicator of the paleoelevation of emplacement. Analysis of the vesicle size distribution of basalt samples collected from the summit and base of Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii [show] that the technique provides estimates of ambient pressure that provided estimates of elevation with a resolution of about 400 meters. " "We were excited about this," says Sahagian. "There weren't really any good geologic paleoaltimeters to tell you how high a land feature was unless it was at sea level. We could measure water depth better than we could measure elevation. "But now I had made a paleoaltimeter out of a trivial mathematical formula, and it worked. " Sahagian next took his new technique to the Colorado Plateau, which covers large portions of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Scientists using different methods to measure the plateau's geologically recent rise in elevation had arrived at seemingly contradictory conclusions as to when—and thus why—the uplift was occurring. "We tried to settle a dispute between those who said this was a recent uplift and those who said it was ancient. It turned out that both groups were right. The plateau has been uplifting for at least 30 million years but it's been uplifting faster in the last five to ten million years than it was before. " Most recently, Sahagian has traveled to the Hangay Mountains of central Mongolia to take on another geological puzzle: How did a relatively high region —the Hangay is a plateau with peaks reaching 13,000 feet in elevation—occur in a continental interior where elevations are usually low? Also, the Hangay are located near major rift zones that are stretching and that might be expected to have a flattening effect on the topography. Sahagian and his collaborator, Alex Proussevitch of the University of New Hampshire and formerly of the Siberian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, Russia, are part of an interdisciplinary team of two dozen researchers that has spent seven years studying the Hangay with a grant from the National Science Foundation. The team includes Lehigh faculty members Peter Zeitler, a geochronologist, Anne Meltzer, a seismologist, and Bruce Idleman, a senior research scientist. The researchers hope to shed light on the geologic history of the Earth and on the connections linking continental deformation, the development of topography and global climate. In Mongolia, the first order of business for Sahagian and Proussevitch and their colleagues was to search for samples of well-exposed, unaltered lava whose thickness could be accurately measured. As the Hangay Mountains are a region of rugged topography with few roads and little if any infrastructure, the group considered itself fortunate to find a Russian-speaking driver with an all-terrain van. "We did a lot of scouting around and collected samples," says Sahagian. "We tried to make sure these lava sites had good exposure and that we could see the top and the bottom of a lava flow. We went all over the Hangay Plateau and the surrounding areas, including the Gobi Desert, where there were lava flows as well. " The group collected samples drilling 1-inch- diameter cores. The specimens were dated by Zeitler and his students in Lehigh's Geochronology Lab and found to range in age from 100,000 years to 3-4 million years to 9.5 million years. "We were fortunate to get a good distribution of ages," says Sahagian. The researchers next used high-resolution computed x-ray tomography scanning to measure bubble sizes and distributions in the top and bottom layers of each lava specimen. They then determined the ratio of average vesicle sizes between the layers and, subsequently, the atmospheric pressure at the time of emplacement. The group reported its results last year in an article in the Journal of Geology titled "Uplift of Central Mongola Recorded in Vesicular Basalts. " Its main conclusion: the Hangay Mountains have risen in elevation by approximately 1 kilometer, plus or minus a few hundred meters, in the last 10 million years. When this uplift occurred, and whether it happened all at once, gradually or in fits and starts, has yet to be determined. Sahagian says that much work remains to be done in the Hangay Mountains. "This is one of our first results. Many different hypotheses have been suggested as to why the Hangay region is high and why it is uplifting. We're hoping to test these and develop a hypothesis of our own. We're waiting for the results of seismic work that will tell us more about the deep structure of the mantle and upper and lower lithosphere. "But as far as our basaltic vesicularity work is concerned, our result is robust. One kilometer in 10 million years is not an abnormal rate of uplift. It's very consistent with what others are finding. How do we interpret that result? That's the bigger picture, and it still has to be resolved. " Explore further: New methods revealing formation history of the Hangay Dome in Mongolia More information: D. Sahagian et al. Uplift of Central Mongolia Recorded in Vesicular Basalts, The Journal of Geology (2016). DOI: 10.1086/686272 2017-03-20 12:33 phys.org 127 / 141 1.0 ZTE Quartz: News and Rumors With Android Wear 2.0 out now, more and more manufacturers are announcing smartwatches for Google’s revamped operating system. ZTE is reportedly jumping on the bandwagon with its firstever smartwatch running Android Wear, which may be unveiled within a few months. According to a report from VentureBeat written by well-known leaker Evan Blass, the new ZTE watch will be called the ZTE Quartz, and it was recently spotted getting its Bluetooth certification with the model number ZW10. The news isn’t all that surprising — we heard in January that ZTE this year from ZTE USA CEO Lixin Cheng. More: So what will the new watch look like? We got our first idea of the Quartz’s design back in February, when VentureBeat revealed an image from promotional materials. It showed a device that could be mistaken for a classy-looking nonsmartwatch, and thanks to Android Police , we now have photos of what looks to be the real thing. As we can infer in these pictures, the Quartz sports a metal body with a black, textured band. There’s a small button visible on the right side of the watch, and it doesn’t appear to be a rotating dial. The charging cradle looks as though it’s of the standard, four-pin variety. We can’t verify the authenticity of the photo. The Quartz could offer a little more functionality than most other smartwatches — according to Bluetooth SIG, the device will offer 3G cellular connectivity to complement Wi-Fi, meaning that it won’t necessarily need to be connected to your smartphone all the time to get things like notifications. The images supplied by Android Police show the device running Android Wear 2.0, the updated version of Android Wear that launched in February. That same report alleges the Quartz lacks NFC, as well as heart-rate monitoring, which would make it akin to the LG Watch Style. Otherwise, we still don’t really know all that much else about the hardware powering the upcoming watch. This isn’t ZTE’s first attempt at a smartwatch — just its first attempt at one running Android Wear. At MWC 2016, the company showed off the Venus 1 and Venus 2 smartwatches, but those were mainly fitness trackers that didn’t offer a fully fledged operating system. As VentureBeat notes, ZTE actually already has a device called the Quartz — a 5.5-inch smartphone with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean launched in 2015. This article was originally published on 02-07-2017 by Christian de Looper. Updated on 03-20-2017 by Adam Ismail: Added leaked image of the ZTE Quartz. 2017-03-20 12:32 Christian de www.digitaltrends.com 128 / 141 1.1 Score $110 off a Garmin Vivoactive GPS smartwatch for a limited time If you live an active lifestyle, you can get even more insight into how you’re performing each day with a GPS smartwatch, such as the Garmin Vivoactive , currently discounted over $100 off on Amazon. More: The Best Fitness Tracker You Can Buy The Garmin Vivoactive has built-in sport apps that help your track your activity and see your improvement no matter what your activity of choice. Easily get activity stats for your running, biking, golfing, swimming, and more. The watch features a built-in accelerometer and wrist-based speed and cadence trackers, that allow you to see your stats for both indoor and outdoor activities, from running on a track to running on a treadmill. The Auto Length accelerometer-based technology automatically gauges total and interval distance, laps, calories burned, session average, interval and length pace, and stroke count, including the number of strokes per length and interval and session average. Easily set up vibration alerts for heart rate, pace, and run or walk intervals to help motivate you and keep you informed throughout your workout. Additional training features such as autolap and autopause further help to ensure your tracking is accurate. The smartwatch allows you to receive notifications while you’re participating in activities, meaning you never have to stop what you’re doing and pull out your phone. Text messages include sender information and message, while email notifications include sender and subject line. Go a step further to receive notifications from apps, such as weather and temperature alerts, as well as notifications from all your most-used social networks. You can personalize your Vívoactive screen with free downloads from our Connect IQ store, which allows you to customize your watch face, add data fields, and get apps and widgets that provide information that is easiest for you to read. The Garmin Vivoactive normally retails for $250 but is currently discounted to $140 on Amazon , giving you a $110 or 44-percent discount. Buy it now from: Amazon 2017-03-20 12:31 Kara Kamenec www.digitaltrends.com 129 / 141 3.0 New Detector Could Soon Narrow Down GravitationalWave Sources 0 minute ago — Jen Christiansen 0 minute ago — Samuel L. Stanley Jr. 11 minutes ago — Daniel Barron March 20, 2017 — Jeremy Hsu 14 hours ago — Caleb A. Scharf 15 hours ago — Darren Naish 2017-03-20 12:30 Katherine Wright www.scientificamerican.com 130 / 141 2.1 What Snapchat learned from Google Whenever I see Snap Spectacles mentioned somewhere, I smile. Though it’s not because I think it’s an amazing product and going to be hugely successful. I don’t know much about these things, but I do like how they sometimes work out. I especially enjoy comparing the introduction of Google Glass to that of Spectacles. When Google Glass was launched, the collective reaction was “I’ll look silly with those things on!” At the same time, Google responded as “You won’t look silly! It’s going to be mainstream!” Boy how much I wish that had happened, though. Follow TNW at SXSW 2017! We're covering the weird and wonderful tech at SXSW, join us in the fun. PARTY TIME We're covering the weird and wonderful tech at SXSW, join us in the fun. PARTY TIME I’d love to have some version of smart glasses to help recognize, record and display stuff. Unfortunately, Google abandoned Google Glass and that was that. Then Spectacles were introduced. If you’d have asked me if it was too soon to introduce new smart glasses, without hesitation I would have said yes. Not even Apple could pull it off. But Snap did. How? They doubled down on the dorkiness factor. Spectacles are meant to be worn at a party – in social gatherings in general – and by people who’ve accepted dorkiness and made it a lifestyle: hipsters and teenagers. To them, being dorky is a lifestyle choice. It’s who they are and Spectacles exemplify that. And with that simple understanding, Snap has done something remarkable: They’ve made it possible for me to wear a pair and feel good about it. If someone says “Wow, those glasses look dorky!” I can simply smile and say “Yeah, cool huh?!” And so can you. We’re giving 100 Spectacles to people who order our special Snap Pass tickets to TNW Conference in May. That means you can buy a ticket and get a pair, and not bother with how to get them delivered to Europe, or how to pay for them. And ultimately, not bother with looking like a glasshole. Snap Pass tickets TNW Conference in May Google Snapchat Sit back and let the hottest tech news come to you by the magic of electronic mail. Prefer to get the news as it happens? Follow us on social media. 1.76M followers 1M likes Got two minutes to spare? We'd love to know a bit more about our readers. Start! All data collected in the survey is anonymous. 2017-03-20 12:24 Boris Veldhuijzen feedproxy.google.com 131 / 141 1.2 Adidas takes the sweat out of sweater shopping with instore machine The sportswear group is working on several initiatives to cut the time it takes to get new designs to stores from the 12 to 18 months now standard in the sneaker industry, including opening factories mainly operated by robots in Germany and the United States. It hopes the drive will help it adjust better to fickle fashion trends, allowing it to sell more products at full price as it seeks to meet a new goal to bring its operating profit margin closer to rival Nike's by 2020. At a pop-up Adidas store in a mall in Berlin, customers designed their own merino wool sweaters for 200 euros ($215) each and then had them knitted in the store, finished by hand, washed and dried, all within four hours. Shoppers first entered a darkened room where swirling camouflage and spider web patterns were projected onto their chests, with options to shift the light using hand gestures picked up by sensors, like in an interactive video game. Dozens of possible options were recorded and the customers picked their favorite ones on a computer screen, where they could also experiment with different color combinations. Customers chose standard sizes or stripped down to their underwear for laser body scans. Then the personalized pattern was sent to an industrial knitting machines in the store. "It is very individual. It is like knitting your own sweater," said Christina Sharif, adding she ordered shorter arms on her electric blue sweater than the standard model. Adidas wants 50 percent of its products to be made in a faster time frame by 2020, double the rate in 2016, which it expects will increase the proportion of products sold at full price to 70 percent from less than half now. "If we can give the consumer what they want, where they want it, when they want it, we can decrease risk ... at the moment we are guessing what might be popular," Adidas brand chief Eric Liedtke told investors last week. The "Knit for You" store is part of a research project supported by the German government in cooperation with academics and industrial partners. A store assistant said it had sold up to 10 sweaters on busy days, particularly before Christmas. An Adidas spokeswoman said the data and feedback from the project were now being evaluated before the company decided whether to pursue the concept. (Editing by Mark Potter) 2017-03-20 12:23 Emma Thomasson feeds.reuters.com 132 / 141 0.8 ‘Arms’: Meet the cast and weapons of the upcoming Switch fighter When Arms first appeared at the Nintendo Switch press event in January, it was easy to draw comparisons to both Punch-Out! and Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots. Arms , however, may have a bit more depth. Nintendo released two new overview trailers that show off the various styles of brawling featured in its upcoming fighter. The character trailer detailed the game’s five announced fighters. More: ‘Arms’: Our first take From the weapons trailer, while the fighters have default weapons, it seems that each character can equip multiple sets of gloves. Fighters can also mix and match sets, as you aren’t tied down to using the same type for both arms. Interestingly, Ninjara’s coiled arms don’t appear in the weapons trailer, but the clip briefly showed two additional unnamed weapons: a torpedo-esque arm on Master Mummy, and a spiked glove on Spring Man. Additionally, the fighter handling the Sparkies was not named in the character trailer. Bottom line: While these two trailers gave us names to faces and weapons, they aren’t all encompassing. It seems as if we can expect at least six characters and nine sets of weapons, but probably more of the latter. The game does not have a firm launch date, but it’s still slated for spring, exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. 2017-03-20 12:22 Steven Petite www.digitaltrends.com 133 / 141 1.8 FBI director fact-checks Trump’s tweets You are about to activate our Facebook Messenger news bot. Once subscribed, the bot will send you a digest of trending stories once a day. You can also customize the types of stories it sends you. Click on the button below to subscribe and wait for a new Facebook message from the TC Messenger news bot. Thanks, TC Team National Security Agency Overview The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is home to America's codemakers and codebreakers. The National Security Agency has provided timely information to U. S. decision makers and military leaders for more than half a century. The Central Security Service was established in 1972 to promote a full partnership between NSA and the cryptologic elements of the armed forces. NSA/CSS … Location Fort Meade, FL Categories National Security Website http://www.nsa.gov/ Full profile for National Security Agency National Security Agency Overview The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is home to America's codemakers and codebreakers. The National Security Agency has provided timely information to U. S. decision makers and military leaders for more than half a century. 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The mission of the FBI is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal … Location Washington, DC Washington, DC Categories Search Engine , Intelligent Systems , Business Intelligence , Law Enforcement Search Engine Intelligent Systems Business Intelligence Law Enforcement Website http://www.fbi.gov Full profile for Federal Bureau of Investigation Full profile for Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey Full profile for James Comey James Comey Full profile for James Comey Full profile for James Comey Donald J. Trump Bio Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American business magnate, investor, author, television personality and the newly elected President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization, and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. 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Trump SEE ALL NEWSLETTERS Walmart Acquires Modcloth | Crunch Report Walmart Acquires Modcloth | Crunch Report Watch More Episodes Director, Marketing at Multitouch Americas, Inc (Mountain View, CA, United States) Director, Marketing at Multitouch Americas, Inc (Mountain View, CA, United States) Online Research Specialist at C+R Research (Chicago, IL, United States) Online Research Specialist at C+R Research (Chicago, IL, United States) Consultant (SharePoint, Mission Outreach) at Arc Aspicio (Washington, DC, United States) Consultant (SharePoint, Mission Outreach) at Arc Aspicio (Washington, DC, United States) Human Resources Specialist at cleverbridge (Chicago, IL, United States) Human Resources Specialist at cleverbridge (Chicago, IL, United States) Marketing Campaign Manager at cleverbridge (Chicago, IL, United States) Marketing Campaign Manager at cleverbridge (Chicago, IL, United States) More from CrunchBoard 2017-03-20 12:21 Kate Conger feedproxy.google.com 134 / 141 1.5 Get 57% off the red-on-black Beats by Dre Pro headphones at Walmart.com If listening to music is your thing, there’s no reason not to invest in headphones that are designed for premier music playback. The Beats By Dre Pro Over the Ear Headphones are one such model, and it they are currently available at 57 percent off from Walmart. More : The Best Headphones You Can Buy Beats by Dre headphones are both comfortable to wear and powerful t0 hear. They feature a lightweight over-the-ear design, with soft earcups and an ergonomic bellow taht work together to help ensure a custom fit. A smartly designed durable housing and a cushioned headband make them easy to wear for hours in the studio or anywhere else. The headphones are wired, using a oneeighth-inch mini jack, and this model specifically comes in a fashionable red-on-black color scheme. The over-the-ear headphones provide precision sound using DSP software, which helps to simulate the experience of listening to music live. Enjoy clear highs and low lows — exactly how the artist intended the music to be heard. Go a step further and share what you hear using dual audio ports with a daisy chain connection. Using the RemoteTalk cable, you can also take calls and control your music. The RemoteTalk cable is generally compatible with iOS devices, but functionality may vary by device. The headset comes with everything you need to improve your music listening experience. Along with the headphones, you get a coiled cable with 3.5mm twist lock plug, audio adapter, in-line remote and mic cable, and convenient carrying pouch. The Beats by Dre Pro Over the Ear Headphones regularly retail for $400, but right now the price is slashed by more than 50 percent, meaning you can snag a pair for only $169 from Walmart. 2017-03-20 12:18 Kara Kamenec www.digitaltrends.com 135 / 141 0.0 50% off Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration For PlayStation 4 - Deal Alert Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration includes the critically acclaimed Rise of the Tomb Raider with over 50 hours of gameplay, and all-new content created to celebrate 20 years of the iconic Lara Croft. Experience high-octane action moments, conquer beautifully hostile environments, engage in brutal guerilla combat, and explore aweinspiring deadly tombs in the evolution of survival action. The full “Blood Ties” story chapter can be experienced in PlayStation VR -- experienced VR users can select “Free Mode” to move and look around using the thumb sticks. Manipulate HD relics, examine documents, and control the flashlight with the Sixaxis controller motion as you unlock the mystery of Lara’s childhood home in first-person. The immersive HD beauty of Croft Manor is perfectly suited to VR, and for the first time in franchise history, players can explore the world through Lara’s eyes. The list price on Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration for Playstation 4 has been cut 50%, for now, to just $29.99. See this deal on Amazon. 2017-03-20 12:13 DealPost Team www.itnews.com 136 / 141 0.0 Bye bye Android: Has Donald Trump finally upgraded his phone? Donald Trump appears to have ditched his infamous Android phone – at least when it comes to tweeting. The President of the US has not tweeted from an Android device for almost two weeks, since he noted a survey that showed positive employment news. Instead, every tweet sent since 8 March from his Twitter account has been sent using Twitter for iPhone. Where previously, observers tended to assume that tweets sent from an iPhone were written by more cautious aides, as opposed to the impulsive tweets posted from the president’s personal device, now both types seem to be sent from the same app. That includes extremely Trump-styled posts: As well as the more conventional political tweets most assume are sent by Trump’s aides: It isn’t clear yet whether the president has decided to switch his personal phone from an Android device to an iPhone, or if he is simply dictating his tweets to an underling. If the former, it would represent a stark climbdown for the President. Once an avid iPhone user, he called for a boycott of Apple and himself switched to Android ( barring a brief relapse ) in the wake of Apple’s battle with the FBI over whether it could be forced to unlock an iPhone belonging to a dead terrorist. Trump’s continued use of an Android phone since his inauguration as President has prompted widespread concern among information security experts. The device he carries on him has been identified as a Samsung Galaxy S3 , first released in 2012. That phone is so old that it can no longer run the latest, and most secure, versions of Android, and there are known unfixed vulnerabilities in the operating system that can be used to take complete control of the device. The distinction between tweets posted from Android and iPhone had been a goldmine for observers trying to get a glimpse into the mind of the president. One data analyst observered that “Trump’s Android account uses about 40%-80% more words related to disgust, sadness, fear, anger, and other “negative” sentiments than the iPhone account does. (The positive emotions weren’t different to a statistically significant extent).” 2017-03-20 12:11 Alex Hern www.theguardian.com 137 / 141 1.7 CRN Exclusive: Arrow President On New IoT Partner Program, Pursuing Tech Data-Avnet TS Solution Providers - Page: 1 With Change Comes Opportunity Arrow Electronics said there is "uncertainty" among solution providers stemming from Tech Data's acquisition of Avnet Technology Solutions, revealing last month that the Centennial, Colo.based distributor has closed on more than $350 million in annual business coming from competitors. Sean Kerins, president of Arrow's Enterprise Computing Solutions (ECS) business, spoke exclusively with CRN about why solution providers are switching to Arrow, how aggressively the distributor has been pursuing legacy Avnet TS partners, and the benefits of a pure-play specialty distribution model. Kerins also dished on Arrow's plans to roll out a new partner program focused on industrial IT and the Internet of Things, the distributor's track record in attracting new types of channel partners, and why the company has doubled down on infrastructure and enterprise software. Read on to learn why Kerins believe Arrow will be successful in the changing distribution landscape. 2017-03-20 12:11 Michael Novinson www.crn.com 138 / 141 1.0 Can science produce better passport control officers? Passport officers often have to scrutinise hundreds of people each day. They have just a few seconds to stare through their glass screens at the impatient and perhaps slightly dishevelled traveller facing them and decide if their face matches the tiny photograph in their passport. And this isn’t just their job – it’s a matter of great national security. In laboratory studies, under optimal conditions, people are about 90% accurate when they are asked if two photos of unfamiliar people feature the same or different individuals. But face-matching accuracy decreases when you also have to look at written biographical data such as age and sex , if the subject puts on (or takes off) glasses , and as the time increases between when the photo was the taken and when the matching is done. Biometric technology such as iris scanners and facial recognition software mean that one day passports may not be needed at all. But these are far from perfect yet and most countries are likely to continue using human passport checkers for many years to come. So is there a way you can train passport officers to become better at spotting when someone’s face doesn’t exactly match their photo? The art of face recognition isn’t just made harder by the fact that people frequently change their hairstyles and facial hair. Research has shown that repeatedly trying to match faces, as passport officers have to do, leads to a decline in performance. Specifically, participants are more likely to match different identification photos to the same individual, and these errors cannot be mitigated through simply switching rooms or taking breaks. Face recognition is often thought of as the task of telling two different people apart. But often the face of the same person looks very different under different conditions, for example when the lighting or facial expressions change. It then becomes a challenge not only to detect differences between people, but also to identify information that is stable for each person across different photographs. Passport officers need to be quite confident about a mismatch to risk challenging someone. The ability to match faces consistently on different days can also vary from person to person. But a recent study suggested that experienced passport officers are on average no better than undergraduate students when it comes to accurately identifying individuals from their ID documents. Multiple attempts have been made to improve face matching accuracy within psychological laboratories. For example, participants can be given feedback after every trial on whether they got a match right or not. This appears to mitigate some performance decline, and even brings those performing poorly up to the levels of those with higher aptitude for face matching, although still below 80% accuracy. But it would be impossible to give feedback in real-life scenarios, such as during passport control when you don’t know for sure whether the ID really does belong to the person using it. There has also been some success in training people to recognise target individuals , for example by providing various still images of one person. This could be useful to passport officers who are looking to stop a specific person at the country’s border. Surprisingly, experience on the job doesn’t seem to help much. One study of passport officers suggests that the length of service is unrelated to the officers’ face-matching accuracy. This finding ties in with other lines of evidence that show face-processing ability is innate and has limited plasticity after reaching its peak in adulthood. But all is not lost. One possible method of improving our border security could be to modify the working environment for passport officers. Studies suggest that working in pairs or even larger groups increases face-matching accuracy, as individuals can confer and discuss with each other. Another solution could be to require more than a single photo per passport. Studies have shown that allowing participants to look at several photos , specifically ones that look different from each other in terms of things like lighting or pose, can improve matching performance. As most passports now have biometric information encoded inside, it should be easy to store several pictures. Finally, another method to improve border security is to employ individuals with naturally superior face matching. Those in the top 2% for face recognition ability are typically called “super-recognisers”. Studies show they are much more capable of matching people who they are unfamiliar with, and are sought after for jobs including police CCTV work. London’s Metropolitan Police has an entire super-recogniser unit for this purpose. However, in the absence of an army of super-recognisers to guard national frontiers, researchers like ourselves will keep trying to find out what enables their abilities to new ways of improving the accuracy of identity checks. 2017-03-20 12:10 Anna Bobak theconversation.com 139 / 141 1.9 PCMag Daily Deals: The Best Tech, Gaming & Gadget deals Welcome to PCMag’s Daily deals homepage, where we will update you daily with all the greatest deals throughout the year. Check back everyday for the best deals and bargains. Today's Big Deals Amazon Echo Has Reduced by £15 For Mother's Day week, the Amazon Echo has reduced to £134.99 at retailers. Amazon Devices on Sale for Mother's Day Week Take advantage of Amazon's Mother's Day sale on Amazon devices and buy the perfect gift: The No.1 Choice for Video Editors is Having a Flash Sale PowerDirector is one of the fastest and most capable consumer-level video editing software for Windows around, and it's the first to support 360degree VR footage. Today, Cyberlink have an announced a Flash Sale on PowerDirector software: £30 Xbox Live Credit for £25.90 The savings are clear on this one (and you can buy multiple amounts). Get £30 Xbox Live credit for £4 less at Amazon. Acer RT280K 28" 4K Ultra HD LED Monitor £319.97 £224.98 Corsair CH-9000224-UK K30 Red Backlit Gaming Keyboard - £49.99 £32.99 Connect Your iPhone or iPad to Your TV The Oculus Rift has Dropped in Price for the First Time Ever Before today, the Oculus Rift was sold everywhere at a retail price of £549.00. Now it's dropped by £50 which sees you picking up the award-winning Virtual Reality Headset for just £499.00 Anker 6ft Nylon Braided iPhone Charger is £19.99 £6.99 Anker claim that the 20,100mAh version of their PowerCore charges the iPhone 6 seven times, the Galaxy S6 five times or the iPad mini twice before you need to charge it. More portable chargers on sale: NETGEAR EX2700-100UKS WiFi Booster is £26.99 £14.99 Get Amazon's #1 Best Seller in Networking Equipment here today. TP-LINK Archer T4UH AC1200 High Gain Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter is £35.99 £27.99 Jawbone Up Move Activity and Sleep Tracker is £39.99 £15.99 2017-03-20 12:10 PCMag Staff uk.pcmag.com 140 / 141 1.5 ‘American Crime Story’ casts its Donatella Versace for third installment We already know that the upcoming third instalment of the American Crime Story anthology series from Ryan Murphy, Versace, will cover the murder of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace. And now we know who will play his sister and current vice president of The Versace Group, Donatella Versace: Penelope Cruz, reports Variety. Gianni Versace, who will be played by Edgar Ramirez ( The Girl on the Train, The Bourne Ultimatum ) in the FX series, was killed outside of his Miami Beach home by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. Darren Criss, who has worked with Murphy on several other of his projects, including American Horror Story and Glee, has been cast as Cunanan. It was initially rumored that Lady Gaga, who appeared in the last season of American Horror Story , might be a shoe-in for Donatella. But this news puts those rumors to rest. More: Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is on the list of topics ‘American Crime Story’ will cover This will mark Cruz’s first regular television series acting gig. The actress is best know for her lengthy movie career, starring in a string of films across many genres, including Vanilla Sky, Blow, Vicky Cristina Barcelona , and, most recently, the comedies The Brothers Grimsby and Zoolander 2. She has a number of firsts to her credit as well, including the first Spanish actress to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the first Spanish actress to receive an Academy Award, which she won in the Best Supporting Actress category in 2009 for her role as painter Maria Elena in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Versace , which will be based on Vulgar Favors , a book by Maureen Orth, is set to debut some time in 2018. It will follow the second installment of the series, called Katrina , which will chronicle the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, also set to debut next year. Murphy has also already confirmed the focus of the fourth installment: the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. The first American Crime Story series, The People v. O. J. Simpson , was released in February 2016, and was met with rave reviews, receiving tons of accolades, including 10 Emmy wins. It ignited the careers of some of its actors, including Sterling K. Brown, and reinforced the positions of accomplished actors like Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr. Tom Rob Smith will serve as writer for many of the Versace episodes, as well as executive producer alongside Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, and Brad Falchuk. 2017-03-20 12:07 Christine Persaud www.digitaltrends.com 141 / 141 1.0 Apple vs. Microsoft 3.0: The quest for electronic medical record supremacy? The current state of healthcare delivery, and specifically electronic medical records (EMR), is reminiscent of the state of office productivity software in the business world during the '90s. During the late '80s and into the '90s, WordPerfect, Microsoft Word and a host of lesser word processors battled for supremacy in the business world. Each had their pros and cons, but the global economy would really explode in the late '90s once one of these titans became the industry standard. Apple had conceded the desktop operating system wars to Microsoft well in advance of the battle for word processing champion. By the time the best OS Microsoft has ever produced (prior to Windows 10) - Windows XP -- was released, Apple was well into its process of reinventing itself as a consumer oriented, and not an enterprise-focused, company. We know what’s transpired since Microsoft out marketed both Apple (for desktop computer OS supremacy) and the makers of WordPerfect as the word processing gold standard. Apple went on to claim smartphone dominance -and Microsoft similarly handled rival Novell and Corel versions of WordPerfect to become office productivity suite king. Apple beat out the late-to-the-table Windows Phones and holds on to the top spot today over Android-based versions . So, to date: Number 1 is actually encompasses two things, but they happened around the same time and were interrelated by virtue of the fact that Word, Excel and PowerPoint run on both Windows and Macs -the unquestioned business world, office suite standard for both computing platforms. Number 2 is just a statement of clear cut dominance by Apple in the smartphone vertical segment. What the world is waiting for now is a good oldfashioned heavyweight rubber match between Apple and Microsoft; well, it might not be waiting for it, but in the name of healthcare, it should be hoping for it. Some would say this is not likely as neither is a company that competes so much as complements one another at this time. Microsoft recently closed on its acquisition of LinkedIn . (I’m still waiting to see how that one turns out. LinkedIn has received somewhat of a facelift and makeover. It also doesn’t let me post the same material twice anymore on the social network for professionals going places, but I digress.) Healthcare delivery is set to simultaneously explode and implode. Baby boomers will stress an already overtaxed system ill-equipped to keep up accurately with present, modern-day demands. What nobody is talking about is how difficult it will be to make advances in healthcare delivery with the overwhelming number of EMR choices available to private practices, medical groups and hospitals. This is because variation, whether in EMRs or office productivity suite choices, is surely the enemy of quality. There are literally dozens of EMR choices and they are all being utilized to some degree. There are no clear cut favorites, either, regarding which, if any EMR, will win out as a standard in the end. And the end of multiple EMR choices cannot come soon enough. In fact, an Obamacare replacement will be hindered by the lack of an EMR standard. We’ll only get so far with the status quo. Enter Microsoft and Apple wearing Everlast boxing gloves, just like the good old days, or not. Healthcare is a multi-billion dollar industry and all too plentiful EMR choices are thwarting efforts at cost containment, redundancy elimination and advancements for real progress in medical procedure, pharmaceutical and surgical development, not to mention actual delivery of highquality patient healthcare. One argument against Apple ever competing in this space is they no longer serve the enterprise except in ancillary or augmentative capacities. An argument against Microsoft throwing their hat in this ring is that creating an EMR standard -- and all it entails -- is just too complex and costly a venture to enter into at this late stage of the game. The final piece of this heavyweight tilt may just be the unexpected. That is, the fight for EMR supremacy between Apple and Microsoft might never come to pass because they end up actually partnering to achieve a mutually benefit solution in the EMR space. Apple already promotes Apple Watch heavily as a fitness device. Accordingly, it feeds data into systems which mine, filter and regurgitate this info to consumers and healthcare practitioners in a variety of ways -- all in the name of promoting healthy and active lifestyles. Could Apple continue to play the consumer card it is known for and Microsoft be relied upon to do the heavy lifting on developing an EMR standard of its own? I think there is room for the possibility of both. For Microsoft to succeed in its part, however, it’d have to incorporate advanced OCR, handwriting analysis and dictation capabilities into its product. Finally, EMRs would have to network easily and effectively with hospital-based equivalents and the very data-feeding consumers that Apple would serve in this scenario. It could happen. It should happen. I dare it to happen. 2017-03-20 12:01 Bob Skelley www.computerworld.com Total 141 articles. Generated at 2017-03-21 00:03