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If you really want it though, you can still get it through the Slow or Fast rings, but it won't be made available through Release Preview for the device. As has always been the case, there's a workaround where users will be able to upgrade through the Slow or Fast ring, and then switch to Production to continue receiving cumulative updates. The list of supported devices is as follows, according to Microsoft: It's worth noting, of course, that the HP Elite x3 was never made available for Verizon. As for when non-Insiders will get the update, it should be any day now. Microsoft told us that it will be happening in the same timeframe as the Fall Creators Update for PCs, and that was made available two days ago. 2017-10-19 18:32 1.6 (3.09/5). CapitalG, Alphabet's growth investment fund, is leading a $1 billion financing round in Lyft, the rid hailing company announced Thursday, bringing its valuation to $11 billion. Additionally, the company announced that CapitalG Partner David Lawee is joining Lyft's board. The big investment adds another strand to the complicated web of alliances and rivalries developing in the emerging self-driving car market. Firstly, it reinforces Alphabet's existing relationship with Lyft. Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car division, already has a partnership with Lyft to test self-driving cars. At the same time, Lyft is working with GM, which invested $500 million in the company last year. GM plans to test its own self-driving car fleet after purchasing Waymo competitor Cruise Automation. Meanwhile, the new investment also puts further distance between Alphabet and Lyft competitor Uber. Google was an early investor in Uber. Now, however, Waymo is battling Uber in court over alleged stolen trade secrets. On top of all that, Lyft has said it will be developing its own driverless car technology. In its blog post announcing Alphabet's investment, Lyft highlighted the gains it's made this year, tallying its 500 millionth ride just this month. Lyft is now available to 95 percent of the US population, up from 54 percent at the beginning of the year. 2017-10-19 18:35 0.8 (2.08/5). Alongside the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Microsoft delivered its first feature update for Windows Server 2016 this week. Nvidia has patented a method of optimizing the GPU pixel processing pipeline. According to company spokesperson Hector Marinez, patent no. 7609272 'helps' the shader process textures in a way that makes 'full' use of any extra circuits. [Read more.]. While some administrators are just starting to kick the tires, they've already noticed a few surprise omissions from that 'Semi-Annual Channel' update, also known as build 1709 (for September, the ninth month, of 2017.) First, here's a brief recap of what did make it into 1709. As Microsoft said would happen, the Server Core container image is about 60 percent smaller, while the Nano Server container image is nearly 80 percent smaller, than they were in the original version of Windows Server 2016. Microsoft also added the promised Linux container with Hyper-V isolation support to this release. As Microsoft officials said previously, the original Nano Server has been 'deprecated' and replaced by Nano running in a container image. It seems few users were onboard with Microsoft's push to make Nano Server the smallest footprint version of Windows Server, and so a repositioning was in order. The introduction of a new Windows Server graphical management tool, known as 'Project Honolulu' (in technical preview) also became part of the new grand plan. SMB1 and guest authentication removal also made it into this release, as did a number of other compute, storage, networking and remote-desktop services updates, listed in this Microsoft Docs article. But a couple of things were cut from 1709. For one, the Essentials version of Windows Server 2016 is gone. Windows Server 2016 Essentials edition was a 'cloud-connected' first server for small businesses with up to 25 users. Microsoft introduced the Essentials edition in October 2016. But in the list of Windows Server installation options in Microsoft's 'Getting Started' with 1709 post, there's no mention of Essentials. (Thanks to Directions on Microsoft for the heads-up.) Windows Server 1709 is available only in Standard and Datacenter editions. (As of October 19, Windows Server 1709 also available on Azure.) It's also worth noting that those installing 1709 only get Server Core as an installation option, even though Windows Server 2016 allows both Server Core and Server with Desktop Experience installation options. I asked Microsoft whether the company would continue to offer an Essentials version of Windows Server in the future and have not heard back. Here's Microsoft's list of which of the new 1709 features are in Standard and which are in Datacenter: In addition, Storage Spaces Direct is not in Windows Server 1709, as Microsoft acknowledges in its updated Release Notes for 1709. Storage Spaces Direct spans Windows Server clusters and creates a bus via which the servers can see all of each other's local drives. It was introduced as a feature of Windows Serve r2016 and described by Microsoft as 'the foundation for our hyper-converged platform.' I heard last month from one of my contacts that Microsoft wasn't happy with the quality of Storage Spaces Direct and thus opted to block it from being usable for all software-defined Datacenter aplications in 1709. Administrators cannot add servers running 1709 to deployments of Windows Server 2016 where Storage Spaces Direct is being used. The next possible update to Storage Spaces Direct may be part of 'Redstone 4,' the update of Windows 10 client and server due to begin rolling out around April next year. 2017-10-19 19:33 0.0 (2.06/5). New York-based MongoDB went public on the Nasdaq on Thursday, finishing the day at $32.07, up 34% above its IPO price of $24. This is also above the proposed range of $20 to $22, which had been increased from $18 to $20. The IPO netted $192 million for the company and valued it at about $1.18 billion. By the end of the day’s trading, the market cap was about $1.6 billion, the same as the reported $1.6 billion valuation from its financing round over two years ago. MongoDB previously raised more than $300 million in equity financing dating back to 2008. Sequoia Capital, Flybridge Capital and Union Square Ventures hold the largest stakes. The company works with enterprises, including Adobe, eBay and Citigroup, to manage their databases. Some of MongoDB’s offerings include its name-bearing MongoDB open-source database and the Atlas database-as-a-service offering. MongoDB is building a “better database for the next generation of applications,” co-founder and CTO Eliot Horowitz told TechCrunch. We aimed to “build something that makes developers way more productive.” Revenue was $101.4 million for the year ending in January 2017. This compares to $65.3 million in the same period the year before. Losses were $86.7 million in the most recent year. The company lost $73.5 million in the year ending in January 2016. 2017-10-19 20:03 2.0 (2.04/5). Canonical has announced the general availability of Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark. The first thing you’ll notice is the updated user interface. It’s largely the same as a traditional GNOME desktop, but features a dock which can be moved to the left, bottom, or right of the screen. It can be set up to seem more familiar to Windows users than the Unity desktop ever did. Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical CEO and founder, said: The new desktop features the latest version of GNOME with some extensions bolted on top - for example, the new dock is one such extension. These extensions were built in collaboration with the GNOME Shell team in order to provide a familiar experience for existing users. Another big change with this release is that it’s the first to ship with Wayland. The move could be the watershed moment for the Wayland display server. The X display stack will be relegated to an alternative option but won’t be the default. If you want to give it a go, just head over to Ubuntu.com and downloading the distribution will be clear enough from there. Source: Ubuntu 2017-10-19 18:16 0.5 (2.04/5). Software giant Microsoft has been quick to publicise a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability it has found in the Google Chrome web browser, after Google twice this year embarrassed Microsoft over disclosures of unpatched security flaws. Last year, Microsoft penned a blog post criticising Google for not disclosing security vulnerabilities responsibly after it disclosed a major Windows bug before Microsoft was ready to patch it. Microsoft this week took the opportunity to demonstrate what it thinks is a responsible disclosure, and in a blog post has detailed a remote Chrome vulnerability that it discovered last month and disclosed to Google on 14 September. 'Our discovery of CVE-2017-5121 indicates that it is possible to find remotely exploitable vulnerabilities in modern browsers,' Microsoft's Offensive Security Research (OSR) team said in its post. 'Chrome's relative lack of RCE mitigations means the path from memory corruption bug to exploit can be a short one.' Google patched the problem within a week in its beta versions of Chrome, but Microsoft notes that, although now fixed, the stable and public channel 'remained vulnerable for nearly a month'. This is a big deal, according to Microsoft, as it notes that Google made the source code for the fix available on Github ahead of the stable channel fix, which means - in theory, at least - that attackers had a month to exploit the bug. 'This can be expected of an open-source project, but it is problematic when the vulnerabilities are made known to attackers ahead of the patches being made available,' claimed Microsoft. The company added that while parts of its own Edge browser are also open source, 'we believe that it's important to ship fixes to customers before making them public knowledge'. Google paid Microsoft a $7,500 bug bounty for disclosing the Chrome vulnerability, along with another $8,337 for other uncovered bugs, which the company donated to charity. 2017-10-19 17:06 1.6 (2.02/5). Back when Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S8 in March, it showed off a new feature alongside the handset: DeX. Essentially, this is the Korean company’s version of Microsoft’s now-defunct Continuum. It allows users to turn their phones into a desktop computer, complete with monitor, keyboard, and mouse, using a special dock. As was the case with Continuum, there’s still little incentive for using the dock over a real PC. But Samsung is offering Note 8, Galaxy S8, and S8+ owners a compelling reason to buy a device: Linux on Galaxy, an app that lets users run Linux distributions on a Galaxy handset. As Linux software and apps are designed to be used with a keyboard, mouse, and large display, users will get the most out of Linux on Galaxy by using a DeX dock. The app appears to be aimed primarily at developers who want to carry their work around with them. Samsung says it will let them “code using their mobile on-the-go and seamlessly continue the task on a larger display with Samsung DeX.” 'Linux on Galaxy gives smartphones the capability to run multiple operating systems, enabling developers to work with their preferred Linux-based distributions on their mobile devices,' explained the phone maker. 'Whenever they need to use a function that is not available on the smartphone OS, users can simply switch to the app and run any program they need to in a Linux OS environment, utilizing the same Linux kernel that powers the Android OS.' No word yet on a release date—Samsung is still working on the app—but anyone interested in Linux for Galaxy can sign up for alerts about availability here. Additionally, Samsung said it has teamed up with major game developers to add DeX support for mobile games, including Vainglory, Survival Arena, Eric Froemling's BombSquad, Lineage 2 Revolution, and Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition. 2017-10-19 16:14 1.6 (1.09/5). A new report has revealed successful DevOps implementations are reliant on whether or not companies have a well thought out plan and a clear understanding of available financial and human resources, as well as potential constraints. The study, conducted by KMS Technology, found that IT professionals are extremely satisfied by their decision to switch to a DevOps model. According to the respondents, DevOps has provided them with more efficient time-to-production for new software, better collaboration between IT and other lines of business, and more consistent and higher quality software deployments. The most significant challenges faced by IT professionals as they adopted a DevOps models were a limited skill set and knowledge of DevOps (28%), lack of support among executives (23%), inability to agree on or articulate goals (18%), and lack of budget to initiate and complete the process (17%). “DevOps offers an opportunity for IT organizations to improve communication and collaboration with lines of business, and the ability to automate various software development processes,” says Josh Lieberman, president of KMS Technology. “But a smooth transition depends on the support of senior management, the experience of in-house staff, working with the right external partner as needed, thoughtful tool selection and sufficient training.” The survey was based off of answers from more than 200 IT professionals that had participated in DevOps implementations in the past year. 2017-10-19 14:37 1.2 (1.05/5). Want Windows 10 to run faster? We've got help. Take a few minutes to try out these tips, and your machine will be zippier and less prone to performance and system issues. If you’re using Windows 10’s Power saver plan, you’re slowing down your PC. That plan reduces your PC’s performance in order to save energy. (Even desktop PCs typically have a Power saver plan.) Changing your power plan from Power saver to High performance or Balanced will give you an instant performance boost. To do it, launch Control Panel, then select Hardware and Sound > Power Options. You’ll typically see two options: Balanced (recommended) and Power saver. (Depending on your make and model, you might see other plans here as well, including some branded by the manufacturer.) To see the High performance setting, click the down arrow by Show additional plans. To change your power setting, simply choose the one you want, then exit Control Panel. High performance gives you the most oomph, but uses the most power; Balanced finds a median between power use and better performance; and Power saver does everything it can to give you as much battery life as possible. Desktop users have no reason to choose Power saver, and even laptop users should consider the Balanced option when unplugged -- and High performance when connected to a power source. Change your power settings in Control Panel to give your PC a performance boost. One reason your Windows 10 PC may feel sluggish is you've got too many programs running in the background -- programs that you may never use, or only rarely use. Stop them from running, and your PC will run more smoothly. Start by launching the Task Manager: Press Ctrl-Shift-Esc or right-click the lower-right corner of your screen and select Task Manager. If the Task Manager launches as a compact app with no tabs, click 'More details' at the bottom of your screen. The Task Manager will then appear in all of its full-tabbed glory. There's plenty you can do with it, but we're going to focus only on killing unnecessary programs that run at startup. Click the Startup tab. You'll see a list of the programs and services that launch when you start Windows. Included on the list is each program's name as well as its publisher, whether it's enabled to run on startup, and its 'Startup impact,' which is how much it slows down Windows 10 when the system starts up. To stop a program or service from launching at startup, right-click it and select 'Disable.' This doesn't disable the program entirely; it only prevents it from launching at startup -- you can always run the application after launch. Also, if you later decide you want it to launch at startup, you can just return to this area of the Task Manager, right-click the application and select 'Enable.' You can use the Task Manager to help get information about programs that launch at startup and disable any you don't need. Many of the programs and services that run on startup may be familiar to you, like OneDrive or Evernote Clipper. But you may not recognize many of them. (Anyone who immediately knows what 'bzbui.exe' is, please raise your hand. No fair Googling it first.) The Task Manager helps you get information about unfamiliar programs. Right-click an item and select Properties for more information about it, including its location on your hard disk, whether it has a digital signature, and other information such as the version number, the file size and the last time it was modified. You can also right-click the item and select 'Open file location.' That opens File Explorer and takes it to the folder where the file is located, which may give you another clue about the program's purpose. Finally, and most helpfully, you can select 'Search online' after you right-click. Bing will then launch with links to sites with information about the program or service. If you're really nervous about one of the listed applications, you can go to a site run by Reason Software called Should I Block It? And search for the file name. You'll usually find very solid information about the program or service. Now that you've selected all the programs that you want to disable at startup, the next time you restart your computer, the system will be a lot less concerned with unnecessary program. Under the Windows hood, the Registry tracks and controls just about everything about the way Windows works and looks. That includes information about where your programs are stored, which DLLs they use and share, what file types should be opened by which program or just about everything else. But the Registry is a very messy thing. When you uninstall a program, for example, that program’s settings don’t always get cleaned up in the Registry. So over time, it can get filled with countless outdated settings of all types. And that can lead to system slowdowns. Don’t even think of trying to clean any of this out yourself. It’s impossible. To do it, you need a Registry Cleaner. There are plenty available, some free and some paid. But there’s really no need to outright buy one, because the free Auslogics Registry Cleaner does a solid job. The Registry tracks and controls just about everything about the way Windows works and looks. Before using Auslogics or any other Registry Cleaner, you should back up your Registry so you can restore it if anything goes wrong. (Auslogics Registry Cleaner does this for you as well, but it can’t hurt to have it backed up twice.) To do your own Registry backup, type regedit.ext in the search box, then press Enter. That runs the Registry editor. From the File menu, select Export. From the screen that appears, make sure to choose the “All” option in the Export range section at the bottom of the screen. Then choose a file location and file name and click Save. To restore the Registry, open the Registry editor, select Import from the File menu, then open the file you saved. Now download, install and run Auslogics Registry Cleaner. On the left-hand side of the screen you can select the kinds of Registry issues you want to clean up – for example, File Associations, Internet or Fonts. I generally select them all. Next tell it to scan the Registry for problems. To do that, click “Scan Now” and from a drop-down menu that appears select Scan. That lets you first examine the Registry problems it finds. If you instead choose “Scan and Repair,” it makes the fixes without you checking them. It now scans your Registry for errors, then shows you what it found. It ranks the errors according to their severity, to help you decide which to fix. Click Repair when you’ve made your decision, and make sure that “Back up Changes” is checked, so you can restore the Registry easily if something goes wrong. Windows 10 has some nice eye candy -- shadows, animations and visual effects. On fast, newer PCs, these don't usually affect system performance. But on slower and older PCs, they can exact a performance hit. The Performance Options dialog box lets you turn off effects that might be slowing down Windows 10. If you have time on your hands and love to tweak, you can turn individual ones on and off. These are the animations and special effects you'll probably want to turn off, because they have the greatest effect on system performance: However, it's probably a lot easier to just select 'Adjust for best performance' at the top of the screen and then click OK. Windows 10 will then turn off the effects that slow down your system. Windows 10 has a very useful, little-known tool that can sniff out performance problems and solve them. To launch it, run Control Panel and select System and Security > Security and Maintenance > Troubleshooting > Run maintenance tasks. A screen titled 'Troubleshoot and help prevent computer problems' will appear. The troubleshooter will find files and shortcuts you don't use, identify any performance and other issues on your PC, report them to you and then fix them. Note that you may get a message that says, 'Try troubleshooting as an administrator.' If you have administrative rights to the PC, click it and the troubleshooter will launch and do its work. Windows 10's troubleshooter can perform maintenance and housecleaning tasks to help speed up your system. There's a great tool in Windows 10 called the Performance Monitor that can, among other things, create a detailed performance report about your PC, detail any system and performance issues, and suggest fixes. The Performance Monitor reports details on system and performance issues. You'll find a lot of extremely detailed information in the report, and it can take a lot of time to go through. Your best bet is to first look at the Warnings section, which details the biggest issues (if any) it found on your PC, such as problems with Windows, with drivers and so on. It also tells you how to fix each problem -- for example, how to turn on a device that has been disabled. It is also worthwhile to scroll down to the Resource Overview section, where you'll find an analysis of how well your CPU, network, disk and memory are performing. Each result is color-coded, with green meaning no problems, yellow meaning potential issues, and red showing a problem. Beyond that, the Resource Overview also reports performance metrics and explanatory details. For example, for the CPU, it might show green and a utilization of 21%, with the details, 'Normal CPU load.' Or for Memory, it might show yellow, with 62% utilization and the details, '1520 MB is available.' Based on what you get, you might want to do something about your hardware -- for example, add more memory. Sometimes the biggest factor slowing down your PC isn't Windows 10 itself, but bloatware or adware that takes up CPU and system resources. Adware and bloatware are particularly insidious because they may have been installed by your computer's manufacturer. You'd be amazed at how much more quickly your Windows 10 PC can run if you get rid of it. It's a good idea to get a second opinion, though, so consider a free tool like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. The free version scans for malware and removes what it finds; the paid version offers always-on protection to stop infections in the first place. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a useful application that will scan for and fix Windows 10 PC problems. Now you can check for bloatware and get rid of it. Several free programs will do this for you; your best bet is to run several of them, because no single one will find all the bloatware on your PC. Good choices are the PC Decrapifier, Should I Remove It? And SlimComputer. For more details about removing bloatware, check out Computerworld's article 'Bloatware: What it is and how to get rid of it.' Try just some of these tricks, and you'll find that you've got a faster Windows 10 PC -- and one that is less likely to have any reliability problems. 2017-10-19 17:39 1.4 (1.02/5). On Tuesday, reviews of Google's latest smartphones were published. Overall, the devices are well received and the consensus is that Google's doing a lot right with its push into the smartphone market on its own. Then, later in the day, another narrative started to overtake all of the positive Pixel 2 coverage. Some reviewers found the display on the Pixel 2 XL to be muted, washed out, and have a weird blue tint to it. The Verge on Wednesday posted an article complaining about the screen, and it was brutal. Also: Google Pixel 2 XL review: It doesn't get any more Google than this| Google's Pixel 2 has a secret chip which will make your photos better| Google has Pixel-perfect timing to advance in smartphones So what's going on? In short, Google opted not to follow the industry norm of tuning the display to use a slightly oversaturated look. Instead, Google made a design decision to have a more natural look and feel to the display. Here's the comment Google provided to ZDNet when asked about the display: Two things here worth pointing out: First, the vivid color option doesn't go far enough. I cannot tell a difference with vivid colors enabled or disabled. The screen looks the same. Maybe if it was 25-percent? I don't know what that threshold is, but right now 10-percent doesn't have an impact. Second, Google is aware there are users out there that really don't like the way the screen looks. If those complaints are consistent and loud enough, the company could possibly give users control over color options in a future software update. As Droid Life pointed out, when developer mode is enabled on the Pixel 2 XL and you search the settings app for sRGB. A 'Picture color mode' option shows up. However, when you tap on the result, nothing happens. In other words, the tuning options are already present but hidden. I briefly discussed the display in my review of the Pixel 2 XL, and that's because, frankly, I see no issues with it. Yes, colors are bit more muted than what I'm used to seeing on a Samsung device, but it's not horrible. I'm willing to bet a week from now (which is how long I've had my review device) most will adjust to the display and it will be a non-issue. As for a blue tint on the display when viewed from an angle, it's definitely there. If you have a Pixel 2 XL and haven't seen the tint yet, open the settings app (or view anything with a predominately white background) and set the phone on your desk or tilt it in either direction. At the right angle, a blue tint can be seen. I've followed up with Google specifically about this complaint and will update when I hear back. Again, I don't see this as an issue that's severe enough to suggest you skip the Pixel 2 XL. Is it annoying? But, again, in a week users will forget it's even there. I understand why some are upset about all of this. Spending at least $850 on a smartphone only to have the screen look muted and, to some, washed out is surely frustrating. The good news is there are steps Google can take to make things right with everyone, and it's only a software update away. My advice is to make sure Google hears your complaints about the display, if you have any, and ask for more control over your experience. After all, isn't that what makes Android so attractive? 2017-10-19 19:18 2.2 (1.01/5). PayPal, the digital payments company, shared its growing financials after the bell on Thursday. Shares ticked up about 4% in initial after-hours trading. The company beat Wall Street’s expectations for the third quarter, posting an adjusted 46 cents per share. Analysts had been predicting 43 cents. Revenue was also above the bar, with $3.24 billion, versus the $3.16 billion forecast. It’s also up 22% since last year. It brought in a record total payments volume of $114 billion, a measurement of total transactions on the platform. This is up 30% from last year. It’s been a little over two years since PayPal separated from eBay. “PayPal delivered one of its strongest quarters since becoming an independent company,” said Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal, in a statement. “Putting our customers first in everything we do, enhancing our suite of products and services, and partnering with some of the world’s most popular brands are delivering tangible results.” PayPal raised full-year guidance for both revenue and earnings. Revenue for the calendar year is expected to be between $12.920 – $12.980 billion. PayPal now has 218 million active accounts, compared to 192 million in the same period last year. The company saw 54% growth in mobile payments, totaling $40 billion. Venmo, the peer-to-peer payments platform, accounted for part of that growth. PayPal closed Thursday with a market cap of $80.9 billion. 2017-10-19 20:19 1.3 (1.01/5). Mozilla is teaming up with Microsoft, Google, W3C, Samsung and other industry leaders as part of a joint effort to “make web development a little easier” by bringing documentation for multiple browsers to their MDN Web Docs educational platform. The project will be led by a newly formed Product Advisory Board for MDN that will be in charge of handling relations between the companies involved, keeping documentation up-to-date, keeping MDN browser-agnostic, and keeping developers aware of updates to the platform and documents. In addition to representatives from the participating corporations, the group has put out a call for active community members who would like to serve on the board. As part of their support for the project, Microsoft has already redirected over 7,700 pages of their MSDN documentation library to corresponding pages on Mozilla’s MDN Web Docs. Developers at Microsoft had taken preliminary steps earlier this year by providing over 5,000 community edits to MDN Web Docs’ information about their Edge browser. “Just like with end users, we think it’s well overdue for developers to have a simpler view of web standards documentation,” Erika Doyle Navara, dev writer with the Microsoft Edge Team, wrote in a post on the Microsoft development blog. “Developers shouldn’t have to chase down API documentation across standards bodies, browser vendors, and third parties—there should be a single, canonical source which is community-maintained and supported by all major vendors.” According to Mozilla, MDN currently sees over six million unique visitors each month, has seen major growth at 40% each year and has seen 76,203 edits from 8,021 users from the start of 2017 until the announcement. “MDN directly supports Mozilla’s overarching mission,” Ali Spivak, head of developer ecosystem at Mozilla, wrote in the announcement. “We strive to ensure the Internet is a global public resource that is open and accessible to all.” 2017-10-19 19:02 1.6 (1.01/5). Microsoft is delivering the world’s first fully neural on device translations in the Microsoft Translator app for Android, customized for the Huawei Mate 10 series. Microsoft achieved this breakthrough by partnering with Huawei to customize Microsoft’s new neural technology for Huawei’s new NPU (Neural Processing Unit) hardware. This results in dramatically better and faster offline translations as compared to existing offline packs. The Microsoft Translator app with these capabilities comes pre-installed on Huawei Mate 10 devices allowing every Mate 10 user to have native access to online quality level translations even when they are not connected to the Internet. Until now, due to the computational requirements of neural machine translation, it was not possible to do full Neural Machine Translation (NMT) on-device. Huawei’s Mate 10 is the first phone featuring a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for accelerating AI computing tasks. By combining Microsoft latest advancement in NMT on-device technology, and Huawei Mate 10 NPU, both speed and quality of offline translations are dramatically boosted. This offers users a unique offline language experience not found on other devices: the power of neural network translation without an internet connection. Imagine you are traveling and need to use the Translator app to ask for directions or understand a restaurant menu. With spotty network coverage and high roaming costs, you may not have an internet connection. Now, before you travel, you can download neural offline packs and have state-of-the-art neural translation at your fingertips, wherever you go. Whether it is for its mobile app or its Translator API, part of Microsoft Cognitive Services, Microsoft uses the industry standard BLEU score to measure its translation quality. BLEU rates translation quality by comparing how close machine translations are to human ones. Using this methodology, internal tests have shown, depending on the language, up to a 23 percent better offline translation quality over competing best-in-class offline packs, and often a difference of less than 1 BLEU point between Microsoft state-of-the art online neural and offline neural translations. This means that even when you’re not connected to the Internet, offline translation quality using the Translator app on Huawei’s Mate 10 is closer to human translation than offline translations have ever been. Quality of translations is not the only benefit of this new technology. Our tests also showed that translation of a full-page text picture was not only more accurate, but also up to three times faster than with the previous versions of Microsoft Translator on other high-end devices. This new technology also saves space: The language packs for Huawei Mate 10 are 50 percent smaller than current Translator packs, leaving more space for your travel memories. The app has all the features Microsoft Translator is known for, including 60+ text translation languages and the Translator live feature that allows up to 100 people to have real-time conversations from their own device, including joining a translated presentation using the Presentation Translator PowerPoint add-in, and more. The full feature list can be found here. The new Mate 10 exclusive neural translation packs are available for the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Thai. In addition to these purely neural network powered languages, additional language packs are available for the remaining languages. Read more about the Huawei Mate 10 release here: 2017-10-19 19:01 0.1 (1.01/5). 'First and foremost this is an issue of national security—Russia attacked us and will continue to use different tactics to undermine our democracy and divide our country, including by purchasing disruptive online political ads,' said Senator Amy Klobuchar, who introduced the bill with fellow Democrat Mark Warner and Republican John McCain. The legislation follows news that Russian-backed entities used online platforms to spread disinformation during the 2016 campaign, aiming to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. 'In the wake of Russia's attack on the 2016 election, it is more important than ever to strengthen our defenses against foreign interference in our elections,' McCain said in a statement. 'Unfortunately, US laws requiring transparency in political campaigns have not kept pace with rapid advances in technology, allowing our adversaries to take advantage of these loopholes to influence millions of American voters with impunity.' The Honest Ads Act would require online platforms with at least 50 million users to maintain and disclose information on spending of at least $500 for ads for candidates or legislative issues, applying rules that are similar to those for television and radio. A similar measure is being introduced in the House of Representatives with bipartisan backing. The lawmakers acknowledged some resistance from major tech firms, but said talks were ongoing. 'It's our hope the social media companies, the platform companies will work with us,' Warner said. 'The companies that we're talking about are really iconic American companies. But these companies in many ways rely upon the trust of all of us who use these platforms.' The New York Times reported that some major tech companies opposed the bill because it would add a new level of regulation and may not apply to divisive messages that do not mention specific candidates or issues. Facebook vice president and Erin Egan said in a statement, 'We stand with lawmakers in their effort to achieve transparency in political advertising. We have already announced the steps Facebook will take on our own and we look forward to continuing the conversation with lawmakers as we work toward a legislative solution.' Explore further: Twitter execs talk to House, Senate in Russia probe 2017-10-19 18:45 1.9 (1.01/5). Samsung wants to make things smarter and the world more connected with new strategies, software and services announced at its Samsung Developer Conference this week. The company announced SmartThings Cloud, Bixby 2.0, new ARTIK secure IoT modules, and a new vision for an open and connected IoT experience. “At Samsung, we’re constantly innovating to deliver smarter, connected experiences for our consumers. Now we’re taking a big step forward with our open IoT platform, intelligent ecosystem and AR capabilities,” said DJ Koh, president of mobile communications business at Samsung Electronics. “Through an extensive open collaboration with our business partners and developers, we are unlocking a gateway to an expanded ecosystem of interconnected and intelligent services that will simplify and enrich everyday life for our consumers.” The announced SmartThings Cloud is a new solution that will unite SmartThings, Samsung Connect and ARTIK into one Internet of Things platform. With the SmartThings Cloud, developers can build connected solutions across all SmartThings compatible products, and provide interoperability between IoT solutions, Samsung explained. “The newly united SmartThings will be an open ecosystem, ready to work with not only Samsung devices, but a wide range of connected devices. From early next year, consumers will have the freedom to choose from the world’s broadest range of IoT devices and control them using just a single app,” the company wrote. “With the new and – most importantly – open SmartThings Cloud, Samsung is connecting the fabric of the IoT experience and leading the democratization of the Internet of Things.” In addition, the company announced new ARTIK secure IoT modules to add performance and security features to the company’s IoT appliances. Bixby 2.0 is Samsung’s latest intelligent assistant platform designed to make connected experiences more personal and open. Bixby features deep linking capabilities and improved natural language abilities for recognizing users and anticipating needs. Samsung is also announcing the first private beta program for the Bixby SDK. “Today’s assistants are useful, but ultimately still play a limited role in people’s lives. People use them to set timers and reminders, answer trivial questions, etc. We see a world where digital assistant play a bigger role, an intelligent role, where one day everything from our phones, to our fridge, to our sprinkler system will have some sort of intelligence to help us seamlessly interact with all the technology we use each day,” Eui-Suk Chung, executive vice president and head of service intelligence of mobile communications business at Samsung Electronics, wrote in a post. The company also announced a new partnership with Google to extend the AR core platform to Galaxy devices as well as new virtual reality services such as Samsung VR, Samsung Internet VR, and Samsung PhoneCast VR. 2017-10-19 16:45 1.0 (1.01/5). Facebook has begun offeingr broad access to RacerD, a tool intended to tackle the longstanding problem of race conditions in software. RacerD had been available as a prototype, accessible in Facebook’s open source code base only through a series of backdoor options, said codeveloper Sam Blackshear, a Facebook research scientist. Now, the tool will run by default in Facebook’s open source Infer static analysis tool for bug detection. Initially, RacerD is available only for Java code. But plans call for expanding coverage to other languages, including C++. With race conditions, overlapping processes trying to access the same data concurrently can cause conflicts in programs. These concurrency errors can be difficult to debug or even reproduce. “This has really been a hard problem” in computing for about 50 years, said Peter O’Hearn, a research scientist on the Infer team and co-author of RacerD. RacerD was tested in production on Facebook’s News Feed application, where it stopped more than 1,000 bugs from making it into the production application, Facebook said. And RacerD let rogrammers could thousands of lines of code to accommodate concurrency. Inspired by the theoretical foundation of concurrent separation logic, a mathematical theory developed by O’Hearn, RacerD offers new algorithmic techniques to code problems and potential consequences in systems before they run. Developers typically address detected race conditions by adding locks. Accessible from Github via the Infer repository, Infer is offered under the BSD + Patents license, the same license that caused organizations such as the Apache Software Foundation to abandon Facebook’s React JavaScript library because of potential encumbrances of that license. In response to those objections, Facebook last month relicensed React under the more-palatable MIT license. Facebook is evaluating whether to change RacerD’s license as well. 2017-10-19 16:39 2.0 (1.01/5). Such is the digital age that we live in that most devices need regular software updates. Here we explain what’s in the latest Nintendo Switch update and how you can download and install it. Latest Nintendo Switch software version: 4.0.0 The new software update for the Nintendo Switch brings along a much sought after feature - video capture. There’s also a new data transfer option we’ll explain below. Up until now, the Capture Button on the left Joy-Con controller has only been able to take screenshots but you can now use it to show off videos of your gameplay. To use the new video capture feature simply press and hold the Capture Button until you hear a beep. The previous 30 seconds of play will be saved to your Album. From there you can edit it then share to social networks. You can also select screenshots from the footage. The caveat as it stands is that the feature is only available for four games: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, ARMS, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Splatoon 2. Note that you’ll need to be on the following versions of the games to capture video: Another key update is data transfers, although not exactly as fans would like. You can now transfer user profiles and save data to another system. It will also move any eShop purchases. You can start the process by going to ‘Transfer your user and dave data’ from within the User section of the settings. However, the caveat is that all the data will be deleted on the source console so it works like moving data on DS systems. This means it’s not a backup to SD card feature, as many fans would like. “Once the process is complete, the user information, the associated save data, and the software purchased with the user account that is transferred will no longer be available on the source console,” says Nintendo. Here are the other features in version 4.0.0: And features from previous version: It’s pretty easy to update your Nintendo Switch to the latest software and if the console is connected to the internet, any available update will be downloaded automatically. Once an updated has been downloaded, you’ll be asked if you want to install it via a notification. Click ‘update’ to install it and the console will restart. If you want to check what version your console is running, head to the System section of settings and you’ll see Current Version under System Update. This is also where you can do a manual update. 2017-10-19 16:13 1.6 (1.01/5). Apple and GE are making Predix available for iPad and iPhone via a new SDK for iOS, meaning developers have the tools to create Industrial Internet of Things apps on the Apple platform. Predix is the cloud-based software development tool that is central to GE’s move to become a “digital industrial” company. As we've reported before, Predix is used to monitor and analyze the data from industrial machines such as wind turbines and jet engines, taking the massive amounts of data from the machines' sensors and makign it available for analysis, so helping predict failures and making the machines run more cost effectively. The new Predix SDK for iOS can be used to create native apps that combine the industrial analytics of Predix with advantages of running on iOS. The apps created using the new SDK will give industrial operators the ability to monitor and analyse the performance of their equipment and operations from their iPhone or iPad. A typical use might be a Predix app that could notify a worker on their iPhone of a potential issue with equipment such as a wind turbine, then be used to collaborate with remote teams when performing inspections and repairs, collecting relevant data instantly. The new SDK will be available to download on Thursday, October 26. GE is also collabrating with Apple on the development of apps for both internal use and its customers, giving workers tools to enhance their jobs and help operations run more efficiently. GE’s Asset Performance Management (APM) Cases app, which is available in the App Store, helps industrial businesses increase machine reliability and availability while reducing maintenance costs and managing operations risks. GE will standardize on iPhone and iPad for mobile devices and also promote Mac as a choice for its global workforce of more than 330,000 employees. Apple will promote GE’s Predix as the industrial IoT analytics platform of choice to its customers and developers. GE expects the partnership to result in its digital arm making $12 billion in revenue by 2020. Predix - A Platform for the Industrial Internet Of Things To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Linkedin. 2017-10-19 15:37 0.0 (1.01/5). Episode one of Three’s new YouTube series, Binge Club, is due to air on the evening of October 31st. The topic will be Stranger Things 2 and is expected to be spoiler-packed, so you’ll have to make sure you’ve seen the entire season before tuning into Binge Club - that gives you about four days to watch all nine episodes if you want to tune into Binge Club live. In its statement, Three says: The main inspiration for launching the new Binge Club were statistics which revealed that two-thirds of Brits admit to having watched an entire TV series in one sitting, and another one-in-five saying that bingeing is the only way to watch shows now. The new Binge Club will undoubtedly be used to promote Three’s several-month-old Go Binge service which allows customers to stream from selected services, including Netflix, without it impacting their data allowance. Source: Three 2017-10-19 14:30 1.6 (1.01/5). You've heard of Siri, Google Assistant and Cortana, Apple, Google and Microsoft's offerings to the new world of voice assistants that help you to perform a number of tasks with a spoken command. Samsung has also got in on the act with its own Bixby assistant. Bixby was originally introduced with the Galaxy S8 earlier this year, but without Bixby Voice (an English version of which came later with the Note 8) it was difficult to see why you might want to use it over the Google Assistant that is also built into Samsung phones. Now that we've seen it as it was intended, Bixby does have some genuine use cases over the Google Assistant. Not only is it tightly integrated to the Samsung-specific features within the company's handsets, but it also supports useful features such as Bixby Vision. This is smart camera functionality much like Google Lens, but for now Lens is only supported on the brand-new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. Samsung's Developer Conference took place on 18 October 2017, during which it announced Bixby 2.0 (see how to update Bixby). ' Bixby 2.0 is a bold reinvention of the platform. A reinvention aimed at transforming basic digital assistants from a novelty to an intelligence tool that is a key part of everyone’s daily life, ' said Samsung's Eui-Suk Chung. 'Bixby 2.0 will be ubiquitous, available on any and all devices. This means having the intelligence of Bixby, powered by the cloud, act as the control hub of your device ecosystem, including mobile phones, TVs, refrigerators, home speakers, or any other connected technology you can imagine. Soon, developers will be able to put their services on any and all devices and will not have to reinvent their services each time they support a new device. 'It will be more personal, with enhanced natural language capabilities for more natural commands and complex processing, so it can really get to know and understand not only who you are, but who members of your family are, and tailor its response and actions appropriately,' Chung added. Importantly, Bixby 2.0 is an open system, as Samsung believes it cannot make the changes it wants to make alone. The first private beta programme for the Bixby SDK is now available to select developers. More devs will be invited over time. Bixby is a voice assistant that debuted on the Samsung Galaxy S8. The system has been developed by the Korean tech giant to have deep integration with its phones, essentially offering a replacement for the touch interface in many instances. Now, of course, that’s exactly what Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant, and even the Amazon Echo seem to offer on their respective platforms. So what makes Bixby special? In its approach to designing the new assistant, Samsung has taken the line that rather than making a cute, witty companion – which seems to be the flavour offered by Cortana and Siri – that proffers casual information such as the weather or the last five films Bill Murray starred in, it will instead be a replacement for, and compliment to, the touch interface on the device itself. This is achieved by making the software burrow down to deeper levels of functionality within the operating system and apps. ‘When an application becomes Bixby-enabled,’ states Injong Rhee, Samsung’s Head of R&D, Software & Services. ‘Bixby will be able to support almost every task that the application is capable of performing using the conventional interface (ie. Touch commands). Most existing agents currently support only a few selected tasks for an application and therefore confuse users about what works or what doesn’t work by voice command.’ Paired with this comprehensive control ability comes another important factor, one which Samsung is calling Contextual Awareness. From the information provided so far this seems to suggest that the touch and voice interface will be completely interchangeable. So, for example, if you’re looking at a photograph in your Gallery of a great night out with your partner, you should be able to select the image with a touch then tell Bixby to email it to them. The assistant should be smart enough to realise what you’re looking at and what application to use to complete the task. Bixby is also built to be flexible with the commands you use, so there would be no definitive ‘do this precise thing’ that you’d need to remember in order to accomplish certain tasks. The system should be able to recognise your intentions from keywords in your commands and get things done without annoying you. The Samsung Galaxy S8 will have a dedicated Bixby button so you can quickly launch the feature, and the assistant will gradually be added to many other products across its range, including TVs, air-conditioning units, and basically anything that contains a microphone and internet connectivity. At launch in the UK we didn't get quite the Bixby we were expecting. For example, Bixby Voice did not become available in the UK until 22 August. Now that we've seen Bixby as it was intended, it certainly appears to behave with the intelligence and competence that Samsung suggested and is an impressive addition to its smartphones. Unfortunately, Bixby is available only on Samsung smartphones. With Samsung targeting inconsistencies in the way other voice assistants work, the fact that Bixby is available only on certain apps and devices means that there will be immediate confusion over when and where the assistant will function. This could be solved in time as developers code-in support for Bixby, but so far Samsung has only stated that it will release an SDK (Software Development Kit), meaning Bixby enabled apps are likely to be in the minority for a while yet. So it's very much a wait an see kind of deal. But we have to say that the idea of Bixby, backed with a determined and focused Samsung, could be a very interesting product. (See how to turn off Bixby Home.) 2017-10-19 12:36 2.3 (1.01/5). PayPal reported solid third quarter earnings and revenue Thursday after the bell. The San Jose, Calif.-based payments company delivered a net income of $380 million, or 31 cents per share. Non-GAAP earnings were 46 cents per share on revenue of $3.2 billion, up 21 percent year-over-year. Wall Street was looking for earnings of 43 cents per share on revenue of $3.18 billion. Elsewhere on the balance sheet, the company says it grew its active account base by 8.2 million during Q3, ending with 218 million active customer accounts. On the merchant side, PayPal ended the quarter with 17 million active merchant accounts. PayPal says it processed $114 billion in total payment volume during the quarter. Breaking the numbers down further, PayPal says it processed 1.9 billion payment transactions, which is equal to roughly 33 payment transactions for each active account. PayPal's social payments platform Venmo processed $9 billion of TPV, up 93 percent over the same period last year. The company said P2P payments volume increased 47 percent to $24 billion, and represented approximately 21 percent of TPV. Venmo is the darling of PayPal's product portfolio, and rightly so considering its growth rate. The company announced earlier this week Venmo users will be able to use their app balance or linked cards and bank accounts anywhere PayPal is accepted in the US via the mobile web. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said the quarter was one of the company's strongest since spinning off of ebay into an independent company. 'In addition to our solid financial performance, we also reported record customer growth with the addition of 8.2 million net new actives,' he said in prepared remarks. 'As the world rapidly accelerates to digital payments, we have a tremendous opportunity in front of us.' 2017-10-19 20:26 0.7 (0.18/5). It's official, Battlefront 2 is coming in November. The game was revealed at the Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, Florida on 15 April. It's one of the most anticipated games of 2017, and the sequel to the immensely popular (but divisive) Battlefront. Below we've listed everything we know about Battlefront 2 so far. The trailer from Gamescom 2017 is above, showing the new Starfighter Assault mode, and check out our Battlefront 2 preview to find out what we thought after hands-on time with the game. And watch the new single player trailer. First announced almost a year ago at E3 2016, Battlefront 2 will come out on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on 17 November 2017. November still seems ages away, so if you're after a Star Wars fix you can buy the first Battlefront for just £16. If you have PlayStation VR, be sure to get the X-wing VR Mission which is a free download for Battlefront on the PS4. Rogue One, of course, is the most recent Star Wars film, and the VR DLC is a tie-in. A shot of the Battlefront listing on the Xbox Store shows that it will support 4K on the Xbox One X, with a variable refresh rate. As is typical for a major AAA game release these days, there are both multiple versions of Star Wars: Battlefront II available, and bonus content for anyone who pre-orders the game. The pre-order bonus is tied to the upcoming film The Last Jedi, and includes alternate outfits and additional abilities for Kylo Ren and Rey, presumably based on what they get up to in Episode VIII. Anyone who pre-orders can get The Last Jedi Heroes, but it's not clear yet if it will also be able to buy after the game is out later this year. As for different versions, you can pre-order the base game for £54.99 on console or £49.99 on PC from Game in the UK, or $59.99 for any platform from Best Buy in the US. If you don't mind spending a bit more, the Trooper Deluxe Edition includes the Elite Officer, Heavy Metal, Armored Assault, and Master Specialist upgrade packs, which include new weapon modifications and epic abilities. It will also let you play the game as much as three days early. That version of the game is available in the UK for £79.99 from Game, or in the US for $79.99 from Best Buy, though right now it looks to be console-only. Announced in early July, the Star Wars Battlefront 2 multiplayer beta is headed to PS4, Xbox One and Origin (for PC users) on 4 October 2017 for those that pre-order the game. What if you didn't pre-order the game? Don't worry as the beta will open up to the public two days later on 6 October 2017, and will end on 9 October 2017. Gamers will take part in large-scale 20v20 Galactic Assault matches on the Theed map, from the prequel trilogy's Naboo, along with Starfighter Assault battles where gamers can jump in the cockpit of some of the best ships from the Star Wars franchise on the Fondor: Imperial Shipyard map. EA has now revealed the maps that will be available in Galactic Assault. All those that take part will get bonus content in the final game including Yoda's Epic Lightsaber Mastery Star Card. Although the beta is still a while off, details of it have leaked thanks to Reddit user Some_Info. Here's what to expect including game modes, platforms and size. EA revealed the game and its first trailer (see above) during the ' The Galaxywide Premiere of Star Wars Battlefront II' panel at this year's Star Wars Celebration event in the US on 15 April. The biggest reveal was that Battlefront 2 will feature characters, units, and missions from all three Star Wars film eras: the original trilogy, the prequels, and the new trilogy that launched with The Force Awakens. That means Luke and Darth Vader will be joined by the likes of Rey, Yoda, Darth Maul, Kylo Ren and more when the game launches later this year. Those heroes will also be customisable, with new abilities to unlock, as will be the base troopers. Those standard troopers have also had a bit of an overhaul: not only are there more varieties (including battle droids!) but they can also unlock new heroic abilities. Vehicle combat has reportedly been improved too, with better handling and more varieties, including animals like tauntauns. There will also be massive space battles, so you won't always be stuck near the ground. Those space battles were the focus of the Battlefront II presentation at Gamescom, where EA showed off a new trailer along with a live gameplay demo (at the top of this page) of the new Starfighter Assault mode, which it promises will include 'vastly improved starfighter combat, with superior controls, deeper customization, and role-based team play featuring an all new class-based system.' We played Starfighter Assault ourselves at Gamescom, so you can check out our preview to find out what we thought, or watch the full footage of one of our rounds further down this page. Player progression will be handled partly through loot crate drops - similar to Overwatch - which will also be where microtransactions fit in. Loot crates can be bought either with in-game Credits or real-world money, and you'll also get one free daily crate each day. They contain Star Cards that you use to customise your abilities, gear, and vehicles. Crates may also contain crafting elements which you can use to upgrade your Star Cards, and any duplicates will automatically be converted to crafting components. Thanks to a closed alpha that EA has been running for the game, we now have a list of heroes that will playable - via Reddit. Unlike the first Battlefront, this game features a full single-player campaign mode. You'll play as Iden Versio, an Empire trooper and leader of the elite Inferno Squad, and the game's campaign will follow her from the destruction of the second Death Star up to the era of The Force Awakens. She vows to destroy the Rebellion and avenge the Emperor after the Death Star explodes, so it looks like for one of the first times, players will get to step into the shoes of an Imperial soldier trying to kill the good guys - though we'd hazard a guess that she switches sides before the end of the story. Those interested in finding out the backstory of Iden Versio can head over to the EA website as the company recently posted a blog post detailing the life of Versio, weaving her into the events of previous Star Wars films and giving her story more credibility in the Star Wars universe. ' She was in pursuit of a fleeing Rebel starfighter when Luke Skywalker’s X-wing fired the shots that blew the Emperor’s superweapon apart. Iden managed to escape to a nearby moon of Yavin and eventually back to Imperial forces.' In addition to controlling Versio, the story will also allow you to step into the shoes of major existing Star Wars characters like Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren, and more. Perhaps most excitingly of all, the devs confirmed that the Battlefront II story is canon in the Star Wars universe, so it could offer some insight into the upcoming films. Here's the latest Battlefront 2 single player trailer: Here is us playing a full Starfighter Assault round from Battlefront 2 at Gamescom, running on a PS4 Pro: DLC will arrive as themed seasons, with the first arriving in December and focusing on The Last Jedi film that comes to cinemas on 15 December. It will be free to download and will include Planet Crait as well as Force Awakens characters Finn and Captain Phasma. DLC beyond that will continue to be free, with more maps, characters, and potentially game modes on the way. As well as the first trailer which you can watch at the top of the page, a second trailer talks about Massive Worlds and Dilemmas. Check it out below. 2017-10-19 16:46 1.8 (0.08/5). You are about to activate our Facebook Messenger news bot. 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By Jim Martin| 26 mins ago See full specs Price comparison from, and manufacturers Gone are the days of internet security cameras costing £130 or more. Those models still exist of course (Nest charges a heck of a lot for its Cam IQ) but there’s a new wave of much cheaper cameras. Ezviz may not be a familiar brand but don’t discount it for that reason. The Mini 360 Plus is the second camera we’ve seen from the company (which is a sub-brand of Hikvision which is well known in CCTV circles). Amazingly, it’s cheaper than the Mini Plus but has more features. Chief among these is pan and tilt – the reason for the 360 in the name. It means the camera can rotate almost 360 degrees and tilt up and down for a complete view of a room. In fact, while you can control this yourself through the app, the camera will automatically track movement when motion is detected. This avoids the problem with fixed cameras where the action might happen just out of shot. And despite the relatively low price, it’s equipped with Wi-Fi, a 1080p sensor, two-way audio and night vision. You can buy a Mini 360 Plus from Amazon for £89.99. That makes it cheaper than most of the other fixed cameras we’ve reviewed. If there’s a catch, it’s that you don’t get any free cloud storage: video is recorded to a microSD card (up to 128GB) that you must supply. It costs £4.99 per month for rolling seven-day storage and £9.99 for 30 days. Note that this isn’t continuous recording: only ‘motion events’ will be saved. The camera is quite small – a little bigger than a tennis ball. The top half is black and the bottom half white, and the entire top can rotate almost silently through 340 degrees. The camera inside can tilt up and down and if you enable the privacy mode, it will rotate out of sight and show the Ezviz logo so you can easily see that it’s in that mode. The base is flat so you can place it on a table or shelf, but screws and a drill template are provided for ceiling mounting. That’s the ideal position, but also the trickiest as the power cable is unlikely to reach a mains socket near the floor. Of course, when any motion is detected you’ll get a notification on your phone so you can see the live feed, but the action will be recorded to the SD card, or the cloud if you pay the monthly subscription. The app is the same as for the Mini Plus, and you’ll find more detail on it in our Mini Plus review. Suffice to say that it’s pretty well designed and easy to use. You can easily navigate to the day and time of an event you want to see. Our previous experience of a pan and tilt camera was the SpotCam Eva. This had an annoying control mechanism with an even more annoying delay. The Mini 360 Plus has a small delay – inevitable because of the indirect connection between the app and the camera – but allows you to swipe as if you were viewing a panoramic image, so it’s intuitive. It’s also reliable, and moves according to your swipe rather than erratically to the end of its travel as the SpotCam tended to do. There’s another control method too. This involves the camera taking a panoramic photo of the room and you can then tap on the photo to centre the camera on that point. The lens has a 92° field of view which is narrower than most security cameras. It doesn’t matter too much as the pan and tilt means you can view the whole room with more detail than a fixed camera, but in order to track motion, the camera has to spot it first. If someone moves in an area that’s not being covered, the Mini 360 Plus won’t detect and follow them. In our testing, this wasn’t an issue. We simply left the camera pointing at the door and it reliably tracked everyone who entered. However, detection would be improved if the camera were able to detect unusually high noise levels and scan the room for motion. Also, as with the Mini Plus, the 360’s internal speaker is too quiet for two-way audio, so your voice may not be heard – or heard clearly – by whoever is in the room. The app highlights motion events in orange on the timeline so it’s fairly easy to jump to the point where you think something significant might have happened, and you can watch the compressed daily recap if you just want to see what happened during that day. Video quality is very good, with detailed images during the day with (not that it matters hugely) accurate colours. Bear in mind that if you do choose 1080p, video will record at 15 frames per second rather than 30fps at 720p. For security purposes 15fps is good enough, though. Night vision works well enough, but like all cameras which use infrared, it isn’t as easy to identify a person under IR light. What we do like is how the time and date stamp dynamically flips individual characters to black or white to make it readable as the scene changes. It isn’t flawless, but for this price the Mini 360 Plus is a very good security camera which records great-quality video. It undercuts all the big names despite offering pan and tilt with motion tracking. There’s no free cloud storage, but recording to microSD means you get the full quality and not a compressed, lower-resolution stream. The Evil Within 2 review-in-progress InVision Studio takes on Adobe XD and Sketch Camera tips to take better iPhone photos Comment transformer un iPhone en borne Wi-Fi? 2017-10-19 16:22 2.1 (0.02/5). Atlassian published its first quarter financial results for fiscal 2018 on Thursday, beating market estimates. The enterprise software company reported a net income of $29.9 million, or 12 cents per diluted share, compared with $22.7 million, or 10 cents per share, a year prior. Revenue for Q1 2018 came to $193.8 million, up 42 percent year-over-year. Analysts were expecting earnings of 9 cents on revenue of $185 million. Subscription revenue was particularly strong, up 69 percent year-over-year at $84.4 million. The company grew its customer count on net by 4,246 for the quarter. It ended Q1 with a total customer count on an active subscription or maintenance agreement basis of 107,746. The company reported a free cash flow of $62.7 million, an increase of 140 percent year-over-year. For Q2, Atlassian is expecting revenue in the range of $203 million to $205 million. For the full fiscal year 2018, it's expecting revenue in the range of $841 million to $847 million. 2017-10-19 21:23 1.9 (0.02/5). As folks who power real-time APIs, we're always interested in broader trends in what is referred to as the 'API Economy.' In the last couple of years, we (and everyone else) have seen the proliferation of APIs skyrocket. ProgrammableWeb indexes over 18,412 APIs. Even Walgreens has an API. This has generally been a good thing for developers who want to build new technology. Instead of having to build your app from scratch, you can assemble distributed processes for everything from payments to messaging that are built and scaled by specialists, leaving you with more time to focus on your unique functionality. There are APIs and 'as-a-services,' for almost everything you can imagine - and this means developers are implementing more APIs in a single project than ever before. The vast majority of current APIs use subscription-based pricing models, based on a maximum number of API calls per month. You might be making a variety of API calls for different use cases, but most subscription plans don't charge you based on the business value of a call - they roll all calls up into a single number. If you need more calls, you need to go up to the next subscription plan. If you don't use all your calls, you're still paying for them. Developers who implement functionality via APIs to save time and deliver the best user experience now run into an issue where they are paying an ever-increasing number of monthly subscriptions for access. A minimum subscription plan is required to maintain the functionality, and switching plans to react to changes in usage is cumbersome and time-consuming. This is not sustainable. Kin Lane posits the majority of API startups use subscription pricing because it produces the smooth, regular recurring revenue so beloved by investors. This certainly plays into pricing decisions - but the subscription model doesn't provide the smoothest experience for developers building products and businesses on top of APIs. As the number of APIs continues to rise, we think there will be more pressure on API creators to change their business models - and in this case, competition will be a good thing for developers. API creators will search for alternate ways to measure and monetize the value they provide beyond the direct subscription route. This could mean only charging for the calls the developer uses in a given month or even pricing based on the business value of specific calls. 2017-10-19 17:01 1.7 (0.02/5). During the recent Microsoft Ignite conference, Microsoft introduced a public preview of a new option for moving large volumes of data to the cloud. Microsoft Azure Data Box provides a way to move data in a device that you can ship directly to a data center. The rugged, tamper-resistant boxes support data volumes up to approximately 100TB and are shipped to the customer ready to be filled. Customers can plug the devices, which support standard NAS protocols such as SMB and CIFS, into their networks. The device uses 256-bit AES encryption to protect the data and once copied at a data center, Microsoft will securely wipe it. To make shipping easier, the device has a built-in E Ink display that acts as a return label. Previous options for moving data to a Microsoft Azure data center are working with an ISP for a short-term more-robust connection, or using something like Microsoft ExpressRoute to create a more permanent connection to Microsoft Azure. An alternative is to copy the information to a standard hard disk and ship the disk to Microsoft who then load the data to a Microsoft Azure storage account at the chosen data center. These options have been available for some time and used by customers to shift both data, backups and virtual machine images, and have provided a mechanism to move to the cloud without having to use a current internet connection, which may be slow or unpredictable. Several customers have been testing Azure Data Box prior to the public preview and some partners already provide solutions that work with it, such as Veeam, Commvault and Veritas who provide backup and data management services. Microsoft is not alone in offering a device to move data to the cloud. Amazon has had their Snowball device for some time and it supports data volumes of either 50TB or 80TB, and like Azure Data Box supports 256-bit encryption, secure erasure and includes a shipping label in the form of an E Ink display. Amazon also has an offering that is capable of supporting 100TB and provides a degree of local compute on the device ( Snowball Edge) and another for very large volumes of data that is a shipping container capable of handling volumes up to 100PB ( Snowmobile). Discussing moving large volumes of data using devices rather than a fast internet connection, Barb Darrow recently noted in Fortune: When Snowmobile debuted, for example, Amazon said, excluding travel time, it could move 100 PB of data into Amazon servers in a few weeks. That may not sound very fast, but moving that same amount of information over a single 1 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) line would take 20 years. Google recently introduced a public beta their own device, the Google Transfer Appliance. There are two versions of the device, one for volumes up to 100TB and the other for volumes up to 480TB. The devices are rackable and support compression with the larger one able to handle a total volume closer to 1PB. Microsoft are looking for additional customers to help test and provide feedback on Azure Data Box. It is currently only available in the United States and can be ordered via the Microsoft Azure Portal. The portal also provides information to help track the device and monitor the data load progress once the device is returned. 2017-10-19 16:52 1.6 (0.02/5). Microsoft is releasing firmware and driver updates for a wide range of its Surface devices today. Along with the first major update for the Surface Laptop, there are also new drivers rolling out to the new Surface Pro, Surface Book, and Surface Pro 3. The Surface Pro M1796 got the widest range of fixes and features, and it's for all versions of Windows 10. In other words, you should see these whether you're on the Creators Update or the Fall Creators Update. Here's the full changelog: According to the Value Indicator chart, these improve compatibility, performance, and battery life, with no effect on security, reliability, and connectivity. You can download the full bundle of drivers here. The Surface Book only got one update, which isn't surprising given that it got a whole range of fixes a week ago. It's only for users on the Fall Creators Update. Here's what's new: This update should improve performance and battery life, with no effect on security, reliability, connectivity, and compatibility. You can download the update here. Finally, although it hasn't seen anything new since August, the Surface Pro 3 got a pair of updates. Here's what got fixed: The updates should improve battery life, with no effect on security, reliability, connectivity, compatibility, or performance. You can download the bundle here, and it's for all versions of Windows 10. If your Pro 3 is still on Windows 8.1, then you haven't seen an update in almost a year, and that isn't changing. Of course, you don't have to install any of these manually. Head over to Settings -> Updates & security -> Windows Update -> Check for updates, and Windows 10 will take care of the rest. 2017-10-19 14:44 0.0 (0.02/5). Dynamite@ * CEO sees Q4 cloud bookings up over 30 pct * Raises midpoint of 2017 revenue, profit guidance * Q3 revenue 5.59 bln euros, misses consensus for 5.71 bln * Q3 core profit 1.64 bln euros, just below forecasts (Updates with management comments, analyst, shares) FRANKFURT/LONDON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - SAP, Europe's most valuable technology stock, predicted a 'dynamite' fourth quarter for its cloud computing business, helping its shares erase losses after third-quarter results fell short of market expectations. The German software maker is in the midst of a transition to offering cloud-based services to business customers, and management had flagged that 2017 would see a trough in profit margins as it invested in datacenters and redeployed staff. CEO Bill McDermott said SAP was seeing more customers using its new cloud-based S/4HANA business planning products to overhaul their organisations and supply chains. Such large-scale deals tend to close in the fourth quarter. 'You can expect a dynamite Q4,' McDermott told investors on a conference call. 'Don't worry about bookings, relax, it's going to be terrific,' he said, added that SAP would report 'at least 30 percent year-over-year cloud bookings growth'. SAP shares erased earlier losses of more than 2 percent to trade flat at 1310 GMT following McDermott's bullish comments. The company, the biggest component of Germany's blue-chip DAX index, has a market value of 116.5 billion euros ($138 billion). Third-quarter revenue for the business planning software provider grew 8 percent to 5.59 billion euros ($6.6 billion) from a year earlier, falling short of the mean forecast of 5.71 billion from 16 analysts surveyed by Reuters. Core profit excluding special items rose by 4 percent to 1.64 billion euros at constant currency rates, below the 1.69 billion expected. The euro's strength sliced 4 percentage points off core profit, which was flat after taking currency moves into account. Analysts at Baader Helvea said they expected currency headwinds to continue for the next three quarters. The company nudged up guidance for full-year core operating profit to between 6.85 and 7.0 billion euros and said 2017 total revenue would range from 23.4 to 23.8 billion, marking year-to-year growth around 6 to 8 percent, excluding currency effects. IN THE CLOUD Cloud subscriptions and support revenue rose 27 percent in the quarter to 938 million euros, excluding currency effects, compared with the 29 percent analysts had expected, on average. This was offset by its classic software license and support business revenue, which rose 4 percent to 3.72 billion euros, slightly above the 2.2 percent growth rate expected. Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic said the slowdown in new orders growth in the last quarter had coincided with accelerated investments in the cloud business. As this spending rolls off, an improvement in margins will start to shine through in the current quarter, setting the scene for 'exponential' growth in gross margins thereafter, he said. The number of S/4HANA customers rose 70 percent, year-on-year, of which 40 percent were net new customers, SAP said. The platform drives SAP's core product offering - delivered via the internet or on-site - but its human resources, travel management and business-to-business marketplace products are still being integrated into it. Competitors such as Salesforce.com, Workday and Amazon.com 's web services unit offer cloud-only services, challenging the legacy businesses of SAP and its long-time rival Oracle. The key question for investors is whether a tipping point is at hand for SAP to return to delivering consistent growth in profit margins late this year or during 2018. That would reverse five years of declining growth in core profit margins as the company spent heavily to shift its business into the cloud, instead of relying on traditional software license sales for its suite of business planning tools. SAP management has signalled that its rapid employee expansion since 2015 should slow in coming quarters as its cloud -focused hiring spree runs its course. (1 euro = $1.1846) ($1 = 0.8442 euros) (Reporting by Douglas Busvine and Eric Auchard; Editing by Keith Weir and David Holmes) 2017-10-19 14:33 1.6 (0.02/5). This tutorial explains how to create a continuous deployment pipeline to Google Container Engine using Codeship. You will learn how to deploy a containerized application when new code is merged into the master branch and all integration tests have passed. Continuous deployment is the practice of automating the delivery of software to production after passing a series of tests. Although not for everyone, it should be the goal of any software development and DevOps team not restricted by regulatory constraints. Take the following steps to enable the Google Container Engine API: Make sure you have the following: The interactions with the Google Cloud Platform API from Codeship require a service account with permissions to the Cloud Storage and Container Engine services. Follow these steps to create a service account: After the service account is created, a JSON file with your credentials automatically downloads to your computer. This file will be used in the next step. The hello-express source code includes the file example.env. Rename this file to.env. Inside the file, you will replace the. With your Google Cloud Platform project details as follows: Save the.env file once these items are finished. You need to create your clusters and push an image in Container Engine initially before you can set up a fully automated pipeline in Codeship. Create your container clusters using the Google Cloud SDK by running the following command: This step takes a few minutes to complete. Once completed, you can verify the clusters are available by running the following command: which should output something like the following: The hello-express source code includes a bin folder with Bash scripts that perform these tasks using the Codeship Jet CLI. Make sure the scripts in the bin folder are executable. In a terminal window, navigate to the project folder and run the following command: Update the image line in the codeship-service.yml file with your Google Cloud Platform project ID. Update the image_name line in the codeship_steps.yml file with your Google Cloud Platform project ID. The third and fourth step will run only if the branch is tagged as master. The tag-as-master step will add the master tag to the image pushed to Google Container Registry. This indicates the image in Google Container Registry that is currently deployed. The following step, gke-initial-deployment, builds the Container Engine cluster and deploys the gcr.io/YOUR_PROJECT_ID/hello-express Docker image. You will run this pipeline locally using the Codeship Jet CLI. Since there is no git commit or branch to reference, use the ci-commit-id and tag flags with the Codeship Jet CLI to pass in test strings at runtime, (for example, 1234ABCD and master). The build on the Codeship CI server populates ci-commit-id with the git commit SHA, and tag with the branch or tag name. Finally, the --push flag instructs the Codeship Jet CLI to run the push steps in the codeship-steps.yml file. This command creates your initial deployment and exposes the application. Once completed, navigate to the Discovery page in the Google Cloud Platform Console to verify the status is ok. Click the endpoint to open the application in the browser. You should see Hello Express! Now that you have set up the container cluster and deployed the application, you can create the Codeship project. This project will connect to your source control management service. Codeship integrates with the following services: Use the following steps to create a Codeship project: You will now encrypt the.env file using the Codeship AES key provided in the project. Follow these steps to create an encrypted environment file: After you have codeship.aes in the hello-express source code root folder, you can run the encrypt command: After you encrypt the.env file, you need to update the codeship-services.yml file to use the encrypted file: Codeship will trigger a new build when you push a commit to the remote repository. Before you commit the changes, ensure the following files are listed in.gitignore: These three files should not be included in your remote repository, as they contain sensitive data. Be sure to exclude them from any commits. You also need to update your codship-steps.yml file to use the gke-update-services step. After you save these changes, stage all of these files for a commit. Commit the changes to the master branch, and push to your remote repository. After the push is complete, return to the Codeship project dashboard and watch for a green build. You can now modify the code in the server.js file to return something different. Change 'Hello Express!' To something like 'Hellow World!' Once you have changed the application, commit the change and push to your remote repository. After the Codeship process is completed, navigate to the application endpoint to verify your changes have taken effect. After completing the tutorial, follow these steps to remove the resources from your Google Cloud Platform account to prevent any charges: Delete the service — this will deallocate the Cloud Load Balancer created for your Service: Wait for the load balancer provisioned for the hello-web service to be deleted. The load balancer is deleted asynchronously in the background when you run kubectl delete. Wait until the load balancer is deleted by watching the output of the following command: Delete the container cluster. This will delete the resources that make up the container cluster, such as the compute instances, disks and network resources. 2017-10-19 14:32 0.8 (0.02/5). Organizations should realize that organizational culture is an important factor in increasing agility, and then act on this realization, argues Dick Nijman. The desired organizational culture must be promoted by example top down; what is happening at the top of the organization concerning values, communication and customer involvement will predict what will happen in the 'underlying' layers of the organization. Dick Nijman, organizational change agent, trainer and coach at 'Werkplaats voor Organisatiecultuur', will give a keynote about organizational change when culture is involved at the annual conference of the Agile Consortium Netherlands. The conference theme is 'The Power of Paradox as a driver for organizational change'. InfoQ asked Nijman about the paradox in culture change, what kind of culture organizations should aim for if they want to increase their agility, how to manage organizational change and the role of leadership in culture change, what organizations can do to learn from the past, and what managers should do to support employees when an organization is going through a change. InfoQ: Can you give an example of a paradox in culture change? Dick Nijman: To connect with customers and markets that change very quickly, your organization needs to be flexible, intrinsically motivated to provide the best and constantly on the look out for improvement. Changes will have to be implemented quickly and with full support. Many organizations struggle with questions like: How do I adapt to my environment faster? How do I anticipate changes? How can I better serve my customers? How do I motivate employees and make them more self-managing? And leaders seek answers to paradoxes like: How to best roll out organizational change; top down or bottom up? Is the organizational structure or the culture the engine for change? Is a coaching and developing leadership style recommended or should we just give instruction? Are we a learning or a planning organization? Paradoxes are apparent contradictions, with emphasis on apparent because on further investigation they do not contradict each other. Think of a plane flying from London to Amsterdam. For 94% of the time the plane is not flying to its destination in a straight line. But how often does that plane arrive on time? This paradox is therefore valid in organizational change: 'Organizational change is not plannable but we always arrive and mostly on time.' Earlier InfoQ interviewed Michael Sahota about Organizational Culture and Agile and asked him if it’s worthwhile to try and change your culture: Michael Sahota: There’s no alternative to changing culture. I think that Agile practices induce a culture shift and that’s what creates a lot of backlash against Agile transformations. People keep saying, well, these rules are stupid. We don’t want to follow them anymore and the organization says, oh yes you will. And then there’s smoke, noise, and explosions. This is what has caused challenges with Agile adoptions. It’s that people have been inducing culture change without being aware that that’s what they’re actually doing. InfoQ: What kind of culture should organizations aim for if they want to increase their agility? Nijman: A lot can be gained when organizations realize that organizational culture is an important factor, and then act on this realization. Consider how much time we now spend on organizational culture. We often give much more time to our processes, organizational structure, tooling and technical training. Successful organizations: Pay attention to undercurrent and upstream, culture and structure, soft and hard goals on a daily basis. Are agile because they focus on hard and soft goals in their change programs. Involve the entire organization in drafting and executing change processes. They focus with the entire organization on the entire organization There is no clear answer as to what organizational culture we aim for to increase our agility. That depends on many factors such as: Who are the customers? What is the service or product? In what stage is the organization? How responsible is everyone in the organization? However, in all cases, a culture of learning and responsibility is always conditional. Therefore elements such as responsibility, focus, openness, (self) reflection, respect, courage, customer and organizational interest above the individual are definitely a vital part of a successful organizational culture. Dan Mezick explained in the InfoQ interview on his book The Culture Game how tribal learning supports a culture that increases agility: Dan Mezick: Business organizations that learn fast are clearly superior to those who do not. They routinely respond faster to change to identify and take advantage of opportunities. Levels of Tribal Learning in an organization are mostly a function of cultural support for such learning. Tribal Learning is group-level, social learning. It is organizational learning. It is the kind of learning that is required to rapidly respond to the big opportunities that change creates. Genuine Agile teams generate lots of Tribal Learning. To do this, they actively hack the culture of their teams. They intentionally use practices like information radiation, pair programming, coaching and meeting facilitation to create a culture of learning. InfoQ: Is it possible to manage organizational change? And if so, how? Nijman: This is simple; organizations are systems that change by nature and these elements always play a crucial role: The necessity for change. If this doesn’t come from within, then it always comes from the customer or the market. This necessity legitimizes the need to educate or train your employees. It answers the question: why do I want you to change? Do you have a clear vision for your organizational change? Do you set a good example top down? Are you ready to build a close knit group of team leaders? Have you learned from the past? You cannot achieve a new organizational culture with the behavior of old one. Do you have a clear path supported by the entire organization? Are your leaders dedicated? Do they have the skills to coach your employees? InfoQ: Which role does leadership have in culture change? Nijman: In organizational and team development we talk about parallel processes. In short, what is happening at the top of the organization concerning values, communication and customer involvement will predict what will happen in the 'underlying' layers of the organization. Or more simply, compare it with a family quarrel: if the parents have a quarrel, the children often refuse to eat at the table. This concludes that the desired organizational culture must be promoted by example top down. InfoQ: What can organizations do to learn from the past? Nijman: When you travel with a city map of Groningen in Amsterdam and you can’t find your destination, it is clear to most people that you’re using the wrong map. Normally you would do away with it. But when in work and life things don’t work out, few people and businesses abandon their floor plan (their idea of the world). We usually put the blame on difficult customers, recession, or employees who don’t listen or don’t understand. Why do we not question our own floor plan more often? Making annual plans is common sense with companies. The reasons their goals are usually not achieved is because organizations do not learn from the past. There is only one reason to talk about disappointments: to learn from them! In our change programs, the starting point is learning from the past. We ask questions like 'what can you do to repeat successes?' , 'what are the lessons you learned?' , 'why don’t we take those lessons more seriously?' , 'What does that say about our mindset?' We do not create a business plan without a change in the core beliefs of the key employees. InfoQ: What should managers do to support employees when an organization is going through a culture change? Nijman: I prefer to talk about leaders, not managers. The difference is: leaders do the right things, managers do things right. The answer to this question depends on the phase of the organizational change. First of all, leaders must be able to make customer and market demand a top priority with their employees. If they can’t, their employees won’t claim ownership of their own problems and take responsibility. A successful leader gives his employees the problems they have. In this phase some confrontation is required and often there is some tension. Leaders must keep in mind what employees think they will lose. Perseverance, guidance, setting limits and providing structure are necessary skills. Only when employees claim ownership of their problems and take on greater responsibility, coaching and development is possible. Only then there is a possibility of support on a more substantial level: new courses, other tasks, etc. A successful leader is a jack of many trades. The good news is that you can make mistakes in the process as long as you learn from them and stay committed. Just like the plane, you can deviate from the set course; just keep your destination in mind! 2017-10-19 13:24 1.8 (0.02/5). Verizon said it added 603,000 net retail postpaid customers as its third quarter results topped expectations. The company reported third quarter earnings of $37 billion, or 89 cents a share, with non-GAAP earnings of 98 cents a share. Those results were a penny better than Wall Street estimates. Verizon's earnings had a bevy of charges for early debt redemption and integration costs for the Yahoo purchase. Verizon's revenue for the third quarter was $31.7 billion compared to $30.94 billion a year ago and estimates of $31.43 billion. While the wireless business is the primary focus, Verizon did note that its media business, now called Oath, had revenue of $2 billion. The integration of AOL and Yahoo 'is ahead of internal expectations.' Telematics revenue topped $220 million in the third quarter and organic Internet of things sales were up 13 percent. However, the biggest takeaway is that Verizon is battling back with its unlimited data plans. Verizon added net phone additions of 274,000. Of the 603,000 postpaid net additions, 91,000 were tablets and wearables accounted for 238,000. Those unlimited plans are boosting the use of Verizon's LTE network. Verizon said more than 50 percent of Verizon's available low and mid-band spectrum is being used for 4G LTE. 5G trials are continuing with some early results due later in the fourth quarter. Verizon ended the third quarter with 109.7 million retail postpaid connections and 5.6 million prepaid. Churn was 0.97 percent in the third quarter. Other odds and ends: 2017-10-19 12:06 0.6. Today in our API Testing Series we'll take a look at Postman. Along the way you'll create an API test suite running against the Trello API Track this API, which is a real API with formal authentication tokens. You could also use this as a lite version, reading along to get a feel for whether or not Postman is something that you'd like to try. A real follow-through approach will require some setup. You'll need to create an account on Trello.com and generate an application key and a token to use the Trello API. Postman is a standalone tool, and you can download the latest version here. Start by performing a simple POST command to create a new Trello card. You can see in the Trello API documentation that it has one required argument for the /cards endpoint idList. You can get instructions for finding that information on this page. Search for the header 'Finding a List ID'. Once you have that idList, save it in a text document with your application key and token. You'll need it throughout this exercise. The Postman API makes it easy to add a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) body to your POST, but you don't have to write one if you don't want to. After you download and install Postman, launch the tool so you can start working. The initial screen will look something like: Select POST from the call type drop list next to the URL field in Postman. Enter the URL for the card's endpoint that includes your developer key and token in the query string that you saved earlier. That URL will look something like: Your setup should look something like this by now. Postman setup to POST to /cards in Trello API Click the Send button. You'll have a response from the Trello server when the POST has completed. The JSON body will contain everything a card might contain, as well as some unique identifiers. That is your first call in Postman. You'll now build a more substantial CRUD test now and explore collections in Postman. (CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, and Delete.) Most testers will want to make more than one call to an API at a time. Postman uses a tool called Collections to organize API calls, and also to use data from responses in future calls. For example, within a collection you can make a call to an API endpoint, capture data from the response, and use that in future calls so that your test harness consists of a bunch of calls that are chained together. Select the Collections tab in Postman and click the folder icon with a plus on it to create a new collection. You can name it whatever you like, I used 'Trello /card' to indicate that this is for the Trello API and the /card endpoint. Now you'll want to add calls to your collection. Return to the History tab where you have already performed a POST to /card. Select that call, and click the Save button. This will open a dialog you can use to save that call to your new collection. In this screenshot you can see a collection called 'Trello /card ' that contains three requests (note that there's also another collection above that one called 'Postman Echo' that consists of 21 requests). Of the three requests, one is a POST to create a new Trello card, one is a PUT that adds description text to that card, and then a DELETE (referred to as 'DEL') that removes the card from your Trello board. There are a couple of other important things to note there. In the Tests tab, you'll see this bit of code: If it isn't obvious, the first line declares a variable called jsonData and initializes it with a parsed version of the response to the first of the API requests (the highlighted one on the left that's a POST). Then, you set an environment variable to the value associated with the key 'id' (within that JSON response). To use this environment variable, you need to create an environment, and select that for your collection. Then, you'll be using this variable in future calls as a URL parameter. So, your first POST creates a new card and saves the id into the environment variable 'trelloCardId.' Your next PUT adds description text with a URL that adheres to the following syntax: The text id inserts your saved Trello card id into the URL you're PUTing to in the second of the three requests: You can see how easy it is to identify your new Trello card in future calls to the API. You'll also see this: This bit of code verifies that you get an HTTP 200 response status after the API call is made. If you get some other response, such as a HTTP 404, the test will fail. In the collection runner screen, you'll see an indicator by the failing test, along with the number of tests that failed. You can add this, and other types of tests either by selecting them from what is available in the right sidebar or writing a very small amount of code yourself. Once you have a collection created and some tests added to each call, you're ready to run it. You can open the collection runner by selecting the collection folder, clicking the arrow, and then clicking the Run button. Click Start Test to see your three API requests, and all of the tests within each of the steps, and the Run button. The final state should look something like this: Here you can see each of the calls made, the HTTP response, and each test that passed or failed in the API calls. Postman also has a command line test runner available as an add-on if you'd like to run your API tests in a Continuous Integration system like Jenkins. Like other UI-driven (as opposed to coded) API testing tools, Postman has many other embedded features aside from creating API calls and assertions on responses. You can learn about other aspects of the free and paid versions of Postman here. 2017-10-19 22:57 0.2. Many businesses across the world are struggling to deal with digital transformation in spite of the benefits it can bring, new research has claimed. A worldwide survey by BlackBerry has found that only 37 percent of companies actually have formal digital transformation plans in place today - a little over a third, meaning many companies could be missing out on the benefits of using the latest workplace technology - what it calls the 'Enterprise of Things' (EoT). BlackBerry found that security was rated as the top concern when it came to digital transformation strategies, with nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of companies ranking it so. This was followed by the finding that a similar proportion (61 percent) were unprepared for external cyber-attacks, with hackers and cyberwarfare named as the main concerns. A lack of collaboration between departments within large companies was also named as a major prohibiting factor to embracing the latest technology, with 39 percent of workers at major organizations naming this as a key barrier. This feeling was not confined to big business, however, with over half (51 percent) of mid-sized companies saying the same thing. 'The proliferation of IoT is being led by enterprises, and they continue to require a unified endpoint management strategy that is capable of scaling to handle billions of connected devices,' said Marty Beard, chief operating officer at BlackBerry. BlackBerry found that a majority of the respondents would welcome a unified solution to easily manage endpoint security, with 78 percent saying this would help the transition to the EoT. 'We are focused on securing the EoT because for all its promise, the expanding adoption of connected things means that companies are only as secure as their most vulnerable endpoint,' Beard added. Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Future plc Publication. All rights reserved. Photo Credit: Robert Kneschke / Shutterstock 2017-10-19 22:39 1.4. It was just over three years ago that Plex first made its appearance on Xbox One, enabling users to gain easy access to media stored on a Plex server right from their console. While this was a boon for more convenient content consumption, users were required to have an active PlexPass subscription in order to use the app. However, that requirement was removed in a major update released the following year. While things have been relatively quiet since then, a new update is now rolling out for the Xbox One app. Acknowledging the recent work undertaken by Microsoft in updating the Xbox One dashboard, the Plex team took the opportunity to do the same for their app. According to their announcement, Plex has delivered 'a brand new, media-centric user interface that reflects our love for gorgeous metadata (posters! Artwork!) as well as our passion for media browsing efficiency'. Specifically, regarding the latter, grid layouts are leveraged by default while media discovery options become visible where most appropriate. However, the update isn't just about looks, with a number of improvements bundled up in the latest release, including: The latest update is free for all users and will automatically update on Xbox One consoles over the next few days. 2017-10-19 22:38 1.5. Last year's Galaxy Note 7 debacle felt like 'rising up to the heavens and abruptly falling into hell without warning,' one Samsung senior executive has said. Multiple units around the world had caught fire, and the company was forced to recall and kill the phone. The mood was severe at Samsung's mobile division. No one spoke of it directly outside of meetings, which were intense, because there were many, many things up for review. After deciding to keep the Note brand -- a decision which was hotly debated -- there was no choice but to move forward. Last October, DJ Koh, president of Samsung Mobile, stood in front of a large group of Samsung Mobile employees. It was the first time that the mobile chief had explained the Note 7 situation in person. The auditorium was completely silent and the atmosphere heavy. After Koh finished his talk, one by one, employees started to ask questions. Then, one employee asked the president on his health. He replied that it was more important than ever to keep healthy, and asked everybody to do the same. Some employees recollect that they were in tears and almost cried at that moment. 'We were determined. We reset everything. I mean everything. There wasn't a thing that we didn't review again; it was back to the basics,' BJ Kang -- part of both the product strategy team for the Note 8 and of the Note team from the series' inception -- told ZDNet. Though the Galaxy S8 series -- which broke pre-order records in South Korea -- redeemed the division somewhat, the mood was intense up to the launch of its Note sibling. The Galaxy Note 8 was very well received. It became the highest pre-ordered Note in South Korea and the US. Samsung expects its highest ever quarterly profit of 14.5 trillion won for the third quarter; about a third will likely be from its mobile division, thanks to strong initial sales of the Note 8 and profits from the S8 series. 'After the past year, it was just an emotional moment,' said Cue Kim, also of the product strategy team. The history of the Galaxy Note series reflects Samsung's trajectory in smartphones more than any other product. In terms of sales, it lags behind the Galaxy S series, which is designed more for mass appeal, but the Note series began with a very heavy chip on its shoulders. Launched in 2011, reception for the first Note was largely negative. Its 5.3-inch screen was considered too big and the accompanying stylus was considered a relic from the pre-smartphone era. The late Apple founder Steve Jobs was famously against both. The lawsuits with its archrival were also in full swing; Samsung was still an underdog to Cupertino's iPhone. The Note didn't just spring out from a vacuum. Prior to launch, Samsung conducted a worldwide survey with teams going around with papercut and woodcut models of the yet-to-be-named phone to people of all ages, gender, backgrounds, and geographies. The South Korean tech giant found that consumers carried multiple devices but wanted simply to have an on-the-go device. The product needed to beat and have the benefits of the 'incumbents': It needed the portability and apps of phones; the large and immersive display and minimum scrolling of tablets; quick capturing of ideas and memos of the good old notepad. The chief concern, said Kang and Kim, was how large a screen would be accepted. Consumers' willingness to accept size and form varied by trade-offs, but as long as it was portable with additional benefits, they were willing to have a large screen, the company found. An 'extensive analysis' of all possible screen sizes between 5 to 6 inches was conducted. 'It's funny now looking back, because almost all phones have screens between those sizes today,' Kang said with a laugh. 'No one would consider them enormous. But we had no benchmark back then. We measured pocket depths of men's pants. We weighed women's bags.' They settled on 5.3 inches, relatively normal now, but huge then. The stylus was also no easy feat; engineers balked at the challenge. Stylus technology then was clunky; conventional resistive screens for styluses didn't handle the touch of a finger well. The break came with Wacom's digitizer technology. Its touch-sensitive graphics tablet was popular among graphic designers; Samsung's UX team had known of it for some time but didn't have a use case. 'All-in-all, it was an experimental phone, it was an experimental launch,' said Kang. 'But we were responding to a consumer demand to do in one device what a tablet, smartphone, e-book, and gaming console could do. There were mixed-reviews, yes, but for us it was a confirmation that it worked, and we set to improve the series.' The Note's identity was still fragile then; it had the best up-to-date hardware and software Samsung offered, but that was about it. Stylus use was limited to note-taking, and other vendors were also beginning to experiment with 'super-sized' screens. Tablets were launched smaller, such as the Nexus 7, which was popular in 2012. 'Admittedly, different vendors were trying different sizes for smartphones and tablets,' said Kim. 'But I don't think they were as ambitious as ours. In terms of concept, we were the only ones willing to really do the all-in-one.' The big break was the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2. With an upgraded design and more app tools for the stylus for creators, the phone basically started the trend of calling big phones 'phablets'. 'The point was to combine all-in-one with creativity with the pen,' said Kang. As for the 'big' screen, that was locked-in; there was no going back to a smaller one. The 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 3 was arguably when the Note series sealed its identity as a big-screened multi-tasker with a productivity-increasing stylus, aimed at professionals and creators. Those who were buying the series for the high specs wanted more features from the S Pen in various areas as it increased in productivity. The stylus could used to command apps to load though 'action memo' and markings on internet and YouTube content could be collected in a scrapbook. The company added multi-window for the first time: two screens on the display. 'We really upped the stylus game with the third one,' said Kang. No one was complaining about the big screen or calling the stylus a relic anymore. 'I think that is when the Note really settled as a separate category.' In 2014, Samsung made a big splash with the 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 4. It adopted metal frames for the first time -- Samsung went 'full-metal' the following year with the S6 -- on a plastic body. The S Pen had its own pattern design, and writing on it felt more realistic thanks to an improved pen pressure and speed reader. Calligraphy was added, as was wireless charging for the first time. The firm also launched the Galaxy Note Edge, the conglomerate's first edged-display phone, though only on one side. 'The Galaxy Note series, I think to us as well as consumers, represented the best that Samsung could offer in that year,' said Kang. 'In terms of flexible technology, we weren't quite there yet. And the edge design worked best with a big screen. It just made the best sense.' It was trickier in 2015. The 5.-7 inch Galaxy Note 5 was launched with the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus. Samsung launched the two together because it expected the demand for large screen to be limited compared to demand for the smaller S6 and S6 Edge, its first dual edged phones, earlier that year. It led to the controversial decision to only launch the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus in Europe, and there were many complaints from European consumers on why the Note series wasn't coming. 'Of course we knew Note had its own fan base by then,' said Kang. 'But it helped us confirm that it wasn't just about the large screen anymore. It was about the particular experience with the stylus and multitasking features.' The S Plus models were paired with the S model in prior launches. The Galaxy Note 5 didn't have edged screens, but it did have a curved back that improved the grip from previous models. PDF annotating and scroll capture features were added. Clicking the S Pen to pull it out -- which got stuck for some first-time users -- was established and was carried on to today. The entire Note series has sold a total of 50 million units so far. Except for the first Note, which sold around 8 million units, all have surpassed the 10 million mark, according to analysts. It is highly likely that the Galaxy Note 8 will be the best-selling of the series. Despite its name, the Note 8 is the seventh generation of the phone -- eighth if you count phone by phone including the Note Edge, but not including Galaxy Note 3 Neo, a mid-tier phone, and Galaxy Note FE, a reassembled Note 7. The Note 8 boasts a 6.3-inch screen, the biggest yet in the series. And simply put, it's the best that Samsung could offer, according to Kim. 'The Note 8 retains many of the features introduced in the Note 7 that were received well,' he said. 'One of the saddest things for us was that, when the recall was going on, we received so many requests to just keep their Note 7s, and these features were not fully used. We are glad that they are back.' The tip of the S Pen used a new material to enhance the sense of writing, Kim said, with its shape being tailored to resemble the analogue pen more than any previous model. 'Consumers were using the S Pen not just for the writing and drawing, but as a navigation tool,' Kim said. 'So we really wanted to increase its touch accuracy. Basically more and more features were being used through the stylus, or they wanted it that way.' Live Message, another feature for the Note 8, allows consumers to draw or write messages using the pen and send them via messengers. The Note 8 is, simply put, for professionals and creators, Kang said, and many of the features of the phone are for 'work and play'. Multitasking features play a key role for Note users. 'It's an established identity at this point, and our consumers want more,' he added. 'One of our goals was to allow users to seamlessly switch back and forth between work and play, and to incorporate more media, more creativity [this time] round. That is how we came up with the App Pair.' Users can 'pair' two apps and place them a side bar that can be dragged out. When the user clicks on one of them, the screen automatically divides into two. 'The main inspiration came from drivers,' Kang said. 'One member of the product strategy team said they wanted navigation and music loaded at the same time. Pressing them separately was such a hassle.' Another influence was the rise of media viewing, and the fact that consumers wanted to use social media while watching content. The Note 8 also sports a dual-camera for the first time in a Samsung flagship. It has OIS, or optical image stabilization, for each one. 'It's not just about zoom and picture quality,' he added. 'We made sure there was a purpose to the dual camera. The editing is ramped up -- users can blur the background as much as they want compared to the subject of a photo. Our video is best so far.' Users are then able to edit after they take the photo before sharing in social media. 'We hope consumers are satisfied with the Note 8 experience and look forward to improving it further,' Kang added. 2017-10-19 22:30 0.0. Twitter has committed to a specific timeline for rolling out changes to its Safety features, and announced new policies, including a ban on hateful display names, and improvements for second-hand “witness reporting” of abuse. By January, Twitter plans to have implemented all the abuse changes outlined in the internal email published by Wired earlier this week, as well as the new ones shared today. The company even apologized for frequently promising improvements but then failing to take action, writing, “Far too often in the past we’ve said we’d do better and promised transparency but have fallen short in our efforts.” Here’s a breakdown of what’s new, beyond the enhancements to existing safety features: Here’s the calendar: The most glaring gap in this road map is any functional change to the way that Twitter users interact. As we wrote about last week, and as had been suggested by Hunter Walk, Twitter’s biggest opportunity to shut down abuse lies in changing how replies work. Right now, Twitter leaves it up to users to choose to mute replies from certain accounts, like ones that don’t follow them, have a newly set up account or that haven’t added a profile image, confirmed email or confirmed phone number. But the devil is the defaults that leave these off. Meanwhile, hard-set rules chosen by users could accidentally silence innocent replies. Twitter should consider turning on some of these rules by default while warning repliers that their messages might not get through unless they complete their profiles. That’s important, because registering a phone number in particular makes it tough for trolls to abandon a suspended account and simply harass people from a different handle. By using a combination of signals, Twitter could start more aggressively filtering out replies from suspected abusers, yet give people a path to regaining the ability to @ people by taking actions that introduce friction for trolls. Though it might take a little while to get right, and some benign content may be unnecessarily censored, right now the balance is far too skewed toward a laissez-faire approach that permits harassment. For more on how tech could fight abuse, check out our feature article Silenced by ‘free speech.’ 2017-10-19 22:23 1.4. Jeff Bezos’ image has morphed over the years in much the same way his company has. In the early days as an online bookseller, the Amazon founder looked like someone that would sell books on the budding Internet. Today, he looks like he sells – and does – whatever he wants. On Thursday, for example, he was busy christening Amazon’s new wind farm. The spectacle, which involved perching Bezos atop a giant wind turbine more than 300 feet above the ground, took place in Snyder, Texas. The e-commerce giant built the turbine – and more than 100 others just like it – through a partnership with Lincoln Clean Energy. Amazon Wind Farm Texas will contribute more than 1,000,000 MWh of clean energy to the grid each year and is one of 18 wind and solar projects Amazon has launched across the US (35 others are in the works). Found is a TechSpot feature where we share clever, funny or otherwise interesting stuff from around the web. 2017-10-19 22:22 1.0. The market has undergone major changes in the past few years, and there's likely to be more confusion in the notebook aisle now than at any other time. Today's models encompass everything from featherweight, business-savvy ultraportables that barely tip the scales at less than 2 pounds, to lap-crushing gaming behemoths of 10 pounds or more. Your standard laptop doesn't look the way it once did, either, with dozens of convertible designs that rethink the standard clamshell to take advantage of touch interfaces. Some laptops double as tablets, with hinges that bend and fold, while other touch-enabled PCs are actually slate tablets that come with hardware keyboards for notebook-style use. There's simply too much variety in the laptop space for one size or style to fit every person's needs. That's where this buying guide comes in. We'll brief you on all the latest designs and specs, and parse the current trends, helping you figure out which features you need and how to find the laptop you really want. At the small end of the spectrum, 12- and 13-inch laptops, or ultraportables (more on these below), are worth considering if you plan on toting your laptop. These models are small enough to weigh 3 pounds or less, but large enough they include a full-size keyboard and a decent size-screen. The downside is that port selection tends to be minimal due to the limited amount of room available on side panels. These laptops usually serve simple needs like surfing the web or modest word processing, and they're a good choice for business travelers who need to tote a laptop frequently. Smaller 10- and 11-inch laptops have even less room for ports, and will have smaller keyboards and space between the keys, so you'll have to adjust your typing style to accommodate. Laptops with 14- to 15.6-inch screens are the most popular, because they hit the sweet spot between portability and features that most users find desirable. Yes, they may weigh a few more pounds than their smaller-screen siblings, but in return you get easy reading on a larger screen, more room for various I/O ports, better internal components, and extra battery cells. You're up to 3 or 4 pounds in weight at this screen size, but that's still easy to carry around an office building or your home. The largest screens available typically show up in workstation-class and gaming laptops, though there are a few budget desktop-replacement options here as well. A 17-inch screen is large enough to share for presentations, or if you need the extra pixels to immerse yourself in your graphics projects or 3D games. The extra space in the chassis can be used for one or more graphics processors, desktop-class CPUs, or multiple banks of hard drives and SSDs. Weight can be over 6 pounds, and up to 20 pounds for gaming rigs. These systems aren't meant to be portable, and typically don't have long battery life. Walk down any laptop aisle and you'll notice that the selection of laptops has become dramatically thinner and sleeker. Each of these wafer-thin systems represents a new vision for ultraportable computing: a no-compromises laptop light enough that you'll forget it's in your briefcase, with a long-lasting battery that will keep you working even when no power outlet is available. Fast storage, whether by way of a full 128GB or 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) or, more affordably, 32GB to 64GB of eMMC flash, give these ultraportables the ability to resume work in seconds after being idle or asleep for days. Intel's marketing focus has migrated to the convertible-hybrid laptops and detachable-hybrid tablets that it refers to as 2-in-1 devices (see the next section for more information), but ultraportables are still a distinct category. Most important, the entire category has thinned down in general. Whether you're looking at sliver-thin ultraportables, mainstream PCs, or even gaming machines, laptops of every flavor today are thinner, lighter, and better suited to life on the go. The best of these models will still cost you a pretty penny, particularly if you're looking for a business system that won't weigh you down when you travel for work, but they offer remarkable performance and often come with several high-end features as well. Touch screens (with 1080p resolution), full-size HDMI ports, and 8 or more hours of battery life are commonplace, and premium laptops (with premium prices) now come with high-resolution screens, up to 3,840-by-2,160 resolution (4K) at the top end. For more, check out The Best Ultraportables and The Best Business Laptops. The parallel evolution of powerful tablets and laptops' emphasis on touch capability haven't just encouraged the growth of those individual categories—they've created a new one that combines them. Hybrid systems, aka 2-in-1s, are capable of functioning either as a laptop or a tablet, depending on what you need (or want) at any given moment. This gives you a lot more freedom when interacting with the device, and makes it more functional in more places. There are two types of 2-in-1. The first is the convertible-hybrid, which transforms from a laptop to tablet and back again by rotating all the way around on the display's hinge. You can also stop at various positions along the way, if you want to stand the screen up on the keyboard like a kiosk display, or if you want to balance it on its edges so you can use just the touch screen in very little space. This design is best if you're interested in a tablet, but expect to need a good keyboard with some frequency. If the keyboard is less important, a detachable hybrid might be the better way to go. These are primarily tablets that you can dock with an accessory keyboard for laptop-like functionality. Some of these designs offer docking keyboards with secondary batteries that provide all-day charge, while others opt for Bluetooth keyboards, forgoing the bulk of a.
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