Google's Pixel C tablet is sturdy like a laptop

The 10.2-inch Pixel C is the first Android tablet designed and made entirely by Google. Built for productivity, its key feature is a hard cover that doubles as a keyboard. At just over two pounds with the keyboard, it feels surprisingly heavy. That heft is either one of Pixel C's biggest drawbacks or a smart design choice, depending on what you plan to use it for and where.

First announced in September, the Pixel C goes up againstMicrosoft's (MSFT, Tech30) Surface Pro 4 and Apple's iPad Pro. All have focused on making tablets more work-ready with great keyboards party?

It's almost quaint that major computer makers are competing to make the best keyboard. An old school rectangle of keys that doubles as a cover is, apparently, the magical ingredient that will transform a fun-loving tablet into a work device.

What is Google (GOOG) bringing to the keyboardThe rigid $149 Pixel C keyboard is bare bones but feels well made. Outside is the same anodized aluminum as the tablet, and inside are real plastic keys that click and clack.

It cleverly attaches to the screen using a wide magnetic strip that instantly makes the two objects work and feel like one device. It holds the "laptop" shape even while moving -- something not possible with soft cover keyboards. The Pixel C's keyboard recharges directly from the tablet when attached as a cover.

Unfortunately, its performance doesn't live up to the design. While typing at normal speed in a Google Doc, there was a noticeable lag. Various letters got stuck while writing, which made the keyboard stop working and the tablet switch to an onscreen keyboard. Google did not say if it was an issue with my specific unit or something more widespread.

As on the Chromebook, the Pixel C's Caps Lock button has been frustratingly replaced with a dedicated Search button. Like Apple (AAPL, Tech30), Google seems have declared the trackpad and mouse unnecessary without fully considering the ergonomics. Without one, you end up constantly reaching up to touch the screen.

Turning a tablet into a work computer is a bit of a pickle, and the Pixel C faces many of the same issues as its competitors. Tablets have grown out of smartphones and often run somewhat modified versions of their simple operating systems. It can be difficult to multitask without full versions of your productivity software, or the traditional multitasking features of a desktop.

The Pixel C definitely has the power of a work laptop. It runs on a Nvidia Texgra X1 processor and its battery will last more than 10 hours. There is one USB Type-C port, which acts as an all-in-one port for charging, transferring data, connecting to an external display, and can even power up your phone.The bright 2,560 by 1,800 pixel screen is great for videos, but this is not primarily an entertainment device. If you only want to watch Dora and check sports scores, there is no shortage of sub $100 Android tablets. For $499 for the 32 GB model or $599 for 64 GB, the Pixel C is designed for doing more.Most Chromebooks and Android devices are made by third parties like HTC and Samsung. But Google likes to make select high-end versions of hardware to serve as examples of what the products can be at their very best, like the Chromebook Pixel laptop. The Pixel C is a showcase for Android 6.0 Marshmallow as a hybrid OS. The hardware has its inspired touches, but is something that other manufactures will hopefully improve upon.

Check out Ford's wacky idea for a rear wheel that doubles as a unicycle

Someone at Ford thinks it'd be cool if you could yank off a car's back wheel and ride away on it.

Functioning as a one-wheeled, self-balancing electric cycle, the machine could be used as a way of scooting around town once you've parked your main motor.

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Filed this month with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Ford's idea for a "self-propelled unicycle" includes a frame that sits over the wheel so you can sit and steer in comfort.

The machine's design is similar in many ways to that of the Ryno "microcycle," which DT took for a spin last year.

The unicycle's frame, or "hub" as Ford calls it, comprises a motor, seat, handlebars, footrests, and battery, with the entire kit stored in the trunk until needed. A tablet or smartphone attached to the top of the handlebars could act as a dashboard and also receive commands from the rider, the patent suggests.

The idea of effectively changing a wheel every time you want to use the unicycle will likely put many people off Ford's unicycle idea, but if the "jack system" mentioned in the patent is fast and simple, it may well have some mileage in it.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Truth be told, the chances of this particular contraption turning up anytime soon as an optional extra for Ford buyers are pretty slim, and as it's only a patent at the current time, might never even become a reality.

But Ford's R&D tech-heads evidently believe the idea presents possibilities. Imagine -- a person working in a busy urban area could use it to get to the workplace more quickly by parking up early to avoid traffic congestion.

Rather neatly, Ford also suggests the design could act as an anti-theft device as few thieves will be interested in a car with a missing wheel. Just hope no one nabs the unicycle.

Samsung to add new Smart TVs to its Internet of Things platform, SmartThings

Samsung's upcoming lineup of Smart TVs, as well as its 2016 series of high-end, 4K-resolution LCD TVs (known as SUHD TVs) will be compatible with the company's Internet of Things platform called smart things, the South Korean electronics giant said Tuesday.

By being able to connect with Samsung's smart home service, you will be able to control other Smart Things-compatible devices, like locks and thermostats, from your TV on a single interface.Motion sensors installed in the house can also send pop-up notifications to your TV, and you can adjust the brightness of your living room lights to set the mood for movie-watching.

Launched in 2014, Samsung's SmartThings service is the company's central platform in the fast-growing industry on Internet of Things, the idea of connecting more devices and objects to the Web. At CES 2016, a consumer electronic trade show that will take place in Las Vegas next week, Internet of Things is expected to be a big part of the show, with many cmpanies, big and small, demoing products catered to the smart home. As for Samsung, the IoT industry plays a key part of its product and software development

Microsoft failed to warn victims of Chinese email hack: former employees

Microsoft Corp experts concluded several years ago that Chinese authorities had hacked into more than a thousand Hotmail email accounts, targeting international leaders of China’s Tibetan and Uighur minorities in particular – but it decided not to tell the victims, allowing the hackers to continue their campaign, according to former employees of the company.
On Wednesday, after a series of requests for comment from Reuters, Microsoft said it would change its policy and in future tell its email customers when it suspects there has been a government hacking attempt.

The company also confirmed for the first time that it had not called, emailed or otherwise told the Hotmail users that their electronic correspondence had been collected. The company declined to say what role the exposure of the Hotmail campaign played in its decision to make the policy shift.
The first public signal of the attacks came in May 2011, though no direct link was immediately made with the Chinese authorities. That's when security firm Trend Micro Inc announced it had found an email sent to someone in Taiwan that contained a miniature computer program.

The program took advantage of a previously undetected flaw in Microsoft's own web pages to direct Hotmail and other free Microsoft email services to secretly forward copies of all of a recipient's incoming mail to an account controlled by the attacker.
Trend Micro found more than a thousand victims, and Microsoft patched the vulnerability before the security company announced its findings publicly.
Microsoft also launched its own investigation that year, finding that some interception had begun in July 2009 and had compromised the emails of top Uighur and Tibetan leaders in multiple countries, as well as Japanese and African diplomats, human rights lawyers and others in sensitive positions inside China, two former Microsoft employees said. They spoke separately and on the condition that they not be identified.

Some of the attacks had come from a Chinese network known as AS4808, which has been associated with major spying campaigns, including a 2011 attack on EMC Corp's security division RSA that U.S. intelligence officials publicly attributed to China.
Microsoft officials did not dispute that most of the attacks came from China, but said some came from elsewhere. They did not give further detail.
"We weighed several factors in responding to this incident, including the fact that neither Microsoft nor the U.S. government were able to identify the source of the attacks, which did not come from any single country," the company said.

"We also considered the potential impact on any subsequent investigation and ongoing measures we were taking to prevent potential future attacks."
In announcing the new policy, Microsoft said: "As the threat landscape has evolved our approach has too, and we'll now go beyond notification and guidance to specify if we reasonably believe the attacker is `state-sponsored.'"
The Chinese government "is a resolute defender of cyber security and strongly opposes any forms of cyberattacks", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, adding that it punishes any offenders in accordance with the law.

"I must say that if the relevant party has some real and conclusive evidence, then it can carry out mutually beneficial cooperation with China in a constructive way in accordance with the existing channels," Lu said at a daily news briefing.
"But if there's the frequent spreading of unfounded rumors, it will, in fact, be of no benefit to solving the problem, enhancing mutual trust and promoting cybersecurity."
The Cyberspace Administration of China did not respond to a request for comment.

INTERNAL DEBATE

After a vigorous internal debate in 2011 that reached Microsoft's top security official, Scott Charney, and its then-general counsel and now president, Brad Smith, the company decided not to alert the users clearly that anything was amiss, the former employees said. Instead, it simply forced users to pick new passwords without disclosing the reason.
The employees said it was likely the hackers by then had footholds in some of the victims' machines and therefore saw those new passwords being entered.

One of the reasons Microsoft executives gave internally in 2011 for not issuing explicit warnings was their fear of angering the Chinese government, two people familiar with the discussions said.
Microsoft's statement did not address the specific positions advocated by Smith and Charney. A person familiar with the executives' thinking said that fear of Chinese reprisals did play a role given the company's concerns about the potential impact on customers.
Microsoft said the company had believed the password resets would be the fastest way to restore security to the accounts.

"Our primary concern was ensuring that our customers quickly took practical steps to secure their accounts, including by forcing a password reset," the statement said.
It is unclear what happened to the email users and their correspondents as a result of Microsoft's failure to alert them to the suspected government hacking. But some of those affected said they were now deeply worried about the risks, especially for those inside China.
"The Internet service providers and the email providers have an ethical and a moral responsibility to let the users know that they are being hacked," said Seyit Tumturk, vice president of the World Uyghur Congress, whose account was among those compromised. "We are talking in people's lives here."

HUNDREDS OF LIVES

Unrest in Xinjiang, the Chinese region bordering Kazakhstan that is home to many Uighurs, has cost hundreds of lives in recent years. Beijing blames Islamist militants, while human rights groups say harsh controls on the religion and culture of the Uighurs have led to the violence.
Until Wednesday, Microsoft had rejected the idea of explicit warnings about state-sponsored hacking, such as those Google Inc began in 2012, the former employees said. In the 2011 case, the company also opted not to send a more generic warning about hacking. Yahoo Inc and Facebook Inc have been issuing such warnings for several years, former employees of those companies told Reuters, including when the principal suspect was a government.
oth companies, along with Twitter Inc, announced in recent months that they would follow Google's lead and explicitly notify users about suspected state-sponsored hacking.
Google said on average it now issues tens of thousands of warnings about targeting every few months, and that recipients often move to improve their security with two-factor authentication and other steps.

Reuters interviewed five of the Hotmail hacking victims that were identified as part of Microsoft's investigation: two Uighur leaders, a senior Tibetan figure and two people in the media dealing with matters of interest to Chinese officials.
Most recalled the password resets, but none took the procedure as an indication that anyone had read his or her email, let alone that it may have been accessed by the Chinese government.
"I thought it was normal, everybody gets it," said one of the men, a Uighur émigré now living in Europe who asked not to be named because he left family behind in China.

Another victim identified by Microsoft's internal team was Tseten Norbu of Nepal, a former president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, one of the more outspoken members of a community that has frequently clashed with Chinese officials. Another Microsoft-identified victim was Tumturk, the World Uyghur Congress vice president who lives in Turkey.
Microsoft investigators also saw that emails had been forwarded from the account of Peter Hickman, a former American diplomatic officer who arranged high-profile speeches by international figures at the National Press Club in Washington for many years.
Hickman said he used his Hotmail account on Press Club computers to correspond with people, including the staff for the Tibetan government in exile, whose leader Lobsang Sangay spoke at the club in 2011; Tumturk's World Uyghur Congress, whose then-president Rebiya Kadeer spoke in 2009; and the president of Taiwan, who spoke by video link-up in 2007.

Hickman said he didn't recall the password reset. He said he never suspected anything was wrong with the account, which he continues to use.

TECH This homemade laser lightsaber can burn through wire

Known for his insane laser creations, laser modder and YouTube personality Drake Anthony, aka Styropyro, is back with a new project in honor of the latest Star Wars movie. To keep up with the growing number of lightsaber DIYs on YouTube, Styropyro decided to join in on the fun by upgrading his 3W handheld lightsaber from a few years ago to an impressive, if dangerous, 7w version. The 7W lightsaber quickly lights things on fire and can blind you instantly and permanently if misused.

Styropyro provides a quick overview of the laser-emitting device in the video, but falls short of detailing how he built it, leaving that information for curious DIYers to find in his earlier videos, the laser-point forums, or other laser-enthusiast sites. The 7W laser lightsaber was created using a blue Nichia GaN laser diode that was overdriven to 7W using a few buck drivers connected in parallel. He added two lithium-ion batteries to power the device and an anti-reflective coated glass lens to focus the beam. With all the parts in hand, he packed the components into a lightsaber-shaped host and assembled a powerful handheld laser that'll scare and impress people at the same time.

As with most of his videos, Styropyro uses the laser to burn paper, pop balloons, ignite a piece of wood, and even cut through soldering wire. Though remarkable for a handheld device, the 7W device lightsaber is not nearly as impressive as his 40W laser cannon, which uses eight parallel 5-watt laser beams and focuses them into a single 40-watt beam using a lens. The incredibly bright laser is 20,000 times as powerful as most office supply laser pointers, which produce a 2mW beam.

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Apple hit with a $5 million lawsuit for allegedly crippling the iPhone 4S with iOS 9 on purpose

Apple looks to leave 2015 on somewhat of a sour note, as the company was recently hit with a class-action lawsuit, with the iPhone 4S and iOS 9 at the heart of it all, reports AppleInsider.The main issue, according to plaintiff Chaim Lerman and other iPhone 4S customers, is that Apple crippled the smartphone's performance after upgrading to iOS 9. More specifically, after upgrading to iOS 9, Lerman and the other plaintiffs noticed a sharp decrease in performance in third-part apps and Apple's own applications, such as the Phone app.In addition, because there isn't an official path to downgrade to a previous iOS version, Lerman feels like the only options iPhone 4S users like himself have are to either keep using the slow smartphone or upgrade to a newer iPhone. Finally, Lerman and the other plaintiffs accused Apple of not properly informing iPhone 4S owners that iOS 9 would "significantly interfere" with the phone's performance.

As evidence for the latter, the lawsuit points to Apple's website for iOS 9, which advertises "faster performance, improved security, convenient updates, and longer battery life." Furthering the point is the plaintiffs' accusation that Apple must have known about the iPhone 4S' slower performance on iOS 9, yet didn't warn owners about such a pitfall. According to the plaintiffs, Apple stands to financially benefit from not warning iPhone 4S owners due to customers readily upgrading to a newer iPhone when given a choice.

In short, the plaintiffs accuse Apple of planned obsolescence, a policy where companies knowingly design products that become non-functional over a set period of time.Lerman and the more than 100 other plaintiffs are asking over $5 million in damages, with an option to treble, which triples the amount being asked for. No hearings have been set, with New York District Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. presiding over the case.Unfortunately for the suing party, a previous 2011 lawsuit regarding planned obsolescence and the iOS 4 update for the iPhone 3G was thrown out by the judge. In that case, the judge ruled that iOS 4 was not a good or a service, while also dismissing claims of false advertising and deceptive business practices. In other words, while time has certainly passed and the current case does have a different judge presiding over it, history is not on the plaintiffs' side.

Beatles music joins streaming services

Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Tidal and Amazon Prime Music are among nine services that will offer the band's tracks worldwide.The group split up in April 1970. However, their songs - including Hey Jude and Yesterday - remain hugely popular and influential.One expert suggested that the move would help their legacy endure.

"In terms of digital the Beatles have always been quite late to the party - they came to iTunes in 2010, which was a good five years after the iTunes Music Store started gaining momentum," said Chris Cooke, co-founder of the music industry news site CMU.We had expected they would probably do an exclusive deal to stream their music with one service, but it looks like instead they are going to be pretty much everywhere from day one.

"So, I suppose that is them accepting that streaming is now a very serious, significant part of the record industry."Other services that have secured the band's catalogue include Deezer, Microsoft Groove, Napster and Slacker Radio.The deal involves rights to stream 224 songs from the original 13 studio albums released in the UK as well as "essential" collections including Past Masters.The tracks will be made available from 24 December.

'Lucrative catalogue'But long after the band broke up they continued to issue songs and compilations, the most recent of which was an expanded edition of Beatles 1 put on sale last month."There's a really simply reason why the Beatles catalogue took so long to join streaming services - their publishers didn't want to do anything to damage potential sales of reissues and retrospectives - it's a very lucrative catalogue," said Mark Mulligan from the media research firm Midia.

"But they've waited until the market has got some scale and they could get the best deal."It's a big PR catch as it helps communicate that the platforms are 'all the music in the world' - which is the value proposition of streaming services."John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr clocked up 17 number one singles in the British charts as the Beatles.It's a White (Album) Christmas. Some of the most enduring hits in pop are coming to a streaming service near you.

The Beatles as a corporate entity have been notoriously slow in adapting to new technology. They waited five years to issue their albums on CD, and didn't talk about the download Revolution until 2010 - seven years after the iTunes store launched.Their arrival on streaming services comes as consumption on those platforms starts to overtake digital downloads as a source of income for the music industry. The number of songs streamed in the UK looks set to top 25 billion this year, up from 13.7 billion in 2014, according to the Official Charts Company.

It will be interesting to see how the band's music competes against the likes of Justin Bieber - whose latest singles are being streamed almost six million times a week, exerting a firm grip on the top of the charts.When The Beatles became available to buy on iTunes, the band scored 10 entries into the Top 100 - but the top-selling song (Hey Jude) only reached number 40.The Beatles announcement comes as a number of high-profile artists - including Neil Young, Prince and Radiohead's Thom Yorke - have questioned the value of streaming services.The most prominent example is Adele.

Her new album, 25, has sold more than seven million copies without appearing on any streaming platform, although she has made her single Hello available.

Japan state-backed fund to support Toshiba's restructuring - Nikkei

A Japanese state-backed fund will help Toshiba rebuild its home electronics division and other operations by facilitating tie-ups with Sharp and others, the Nikkei reported.Toshiba is looking to merge its white goods segment with its counterpart at Sharp or another Japanese home electronics manufacturer, the newspaper said. (s.nikkei.com/1YP Support would come from the industry ministry and public-private investment fund, the Innovation Network Corp of Japan (INCJ), the report said.pdhr)

The fund could also help Toshiba restructure its nuclear power business as the manufacturer hopes to find a partner for boiling-water reactors, the paper reported.Toshiba was not immediately available for comment.Reuters reported earlier this month that INCJ was looking to inject funds into Sharp and was pursuing a broader restructuring of the troubled firm including a possible merger with Toshiba's consumer electronics arm.

Internet-connected homes open the door to hackers

It's nighttime in Saudi Arabia, so we can't see much when Aamir Lakhani hacks into a video stream. But the fact that we can see the video stream at all is startling.Even more surprising, we are viewing it from the conference room of cybersecurity company Fortinet, 8,100 miles away in Sunnyvale, California.

Lakhani, a security researcher at Fortinet, accomplished the hack without any coding skills, though he has those in spades. He merely went to Shodan.io, a website where anyone can find a huge trove of Internet-connected devices, from baby monitors to cars, cameras and even traffic lights.He calls the site the "search engine for the Internet of Things," and it allows him to hack into the video stream, picked at random, just by entering word "admin" for the camera's username and password. That is the flip side to the promise of the Internet of Things, which is shorthand for the notion that anything and everything will be connected over the Internet.

Billions of sensors will soon be built into appliances, security systems, health monitors, door locks, cars and city streets to help manage energy use, control traffic, monitor air quality and even warn physicians when a patient is about to have a stroke. The revolution has already started. Market forecaster Gartner expects 6.4 billion connected devices will find their way into our lives in 2016. This shiny new world will be on full display next month in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual showcase of all things tech.

Mayhem

So what could all these connected devices possibly lead to? Mayhem, according to Tanuj Mohan, executive and co-founder at connected lighting company Enlighted."Things are designed to be used by humans" and not computers, Mohan said.When computers hold the reins, criminals can grab control in unexpected ways. That connected coffee maker in the office -- it wouldn't be much of a stretch for a hacker to put it into a continuous loop and brew coffee throughout the weekend, flooding the office,

Mohan's company monitors lighting systems in large commercial buildings to help his customers improve energy efficiency. Enlighted also makes sure intruders don't take control of the lighting."If I turned them on and off 10 times per second on Sunday, none of the fixtures would work on Monday," Mohan said.

Mayhem could hit at home, too. Tech-savvy thieves could look at the settings of your connected thermostat, lighting and security system to figure out you're away on vacation. Can you say burgle?There's also the threat that hackers could "land and expand," using your connected device to hack your computer. Research into the Fitbit fitness tracker, which pairs with computers over Bluetooth, points at how it might be done.

Fortinet security researcher Axelle Apvrille in October released research suggesting she could infect a Fitbit with code that could later sneak onto a computer. Fitbit disagrees. Fitbit security researcher Marc Brown said this month that his company has tried to complete an attack on a computer from its product, but cannot.Still, the scenario shows that hackers could eventually use your connected refigerator to penetrate your home system, said Mohan, who warns that manufacturers aren't paying close enough attention to the problem."They're not yet aware of how everything they build can be exploited," he said.

Safety last

There's an old saying that we're only as safe as the weakest link in the chain. That saying has real meaning with the Internet of Things, where one weak link can bring down a chain of connected devices.Remember how easily Lakhani took control of that video camera? He said that gadget makers are partly to blame because they want to make their products as simple to set up as possible. That often means using default passwords like "admin" and encouraging users to log in to their devices through unsafe web accounts."They all have to make it easy. That's the problem," Lakhani said.

There are steps you can take to make your devices safer once you get them out of the box. If you can change the default password, do it. You may also be able to set up your connected "things" so they're accessible from only your private home network, advises Lakhani. You can still log in from afar via a virtual private network. It takes some extra steps for you, but that means it would also take extra steps for a hacker.

Four new military aircraft took to the skies in 2015

It was a big year for military aircraft advances. Here’s a look back at four of those – the F-16 Viper, Marine Corps’ King Stallion Helo, a new stealth bomber and fifth generation fighter F-35.

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The Viper

The F-16V Viper is the newest, most advanced fighter in the F-16 family and it made its maiden flight.The latest version of the F-16 introduced numerous cutting-edge enhancements.Made by Lockheed Martin, the fourth-generation aircraft is often referred to as the Fighting Falcon. The F-16 can travel at speeds faster than Mach 2 – that’s more than 1,500 mph. The aircraft is just under 50 feet long and has a wingspan of about 31 feet.

The F-16V flew with Northrop Grumman's advanced APG-83 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) and Northrop’s Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) for the first time in 2015.Northrop’s SABR AESA fire control radar provides next-gen air-to-ground and air-to-air radar capability. The technology supports countering advanced threats. These AESA radars are also used by the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II.SABR’s electronically scanned beams allow for faster area searches. This also means earlier detecting, tracking and identification of targets at longer ranges. All-weather targeting and situational awareness have all been enhanced.

Marine Corps’ King Stallion

King Stallion, the U.S. Marine Corps’ new helicopter, completed its first flight in 2015.

Related: F-35 fighter pilots are gearing up for the new planes virtually

The Marines’ new helo is incredibly advanced - it will be able to lift three times more weight than its predecessor or about 27,000 pounds. It will be able to carry these massive loads over 110 nautical miles under challenging "hot and high" conditions.Made by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, the CH-53K King Stallion prototype is also known by the less catchy name Engineering Development Model-1 (EDM-1).

King Stallion will be the Marine Corps’ next-gen heavy lift helicopter and the goal is to give them the best heavy lift helo in the world. Ultimately, the Corps plans to have eight active duty squadrons, one training squadron, and one reserve squadron.

King Stallion will have a cruise speed of 141 knots and a range of about 530 miles.

The CH-53K King Stallion will have similar physical dimensions as its predecessor, the CH-53E Super Stallion. It will also be powered by three engines, but with the upgraded engine power of the T408-GE-400s.There are also a lot of innovations designed to improve crew and passenger protection. In addition to cutting-edge self-defense weapons, advanced lightweight armor is incorporated as well as enhanced ballistic protection. The troop seats and retracting landing gear are also engineered to be crashworthy.

In 2015, the Air Force announced that it chose Northrop Grumman to build the next generation long-range strike bomber. The Air Force has not yet chosen a name for the aircraft, which experts are referring to as “B-3”.The new strike bomber will start deploying in about a decade. The aircraft is expected to replace the nearly four-decades old B-1 as well as the legendary B-52 Stratofortress that has served the country for about six decades.It will be fully loaded with lots of technologies and next-gen innovations that are cloaked in secrecy. It may even withstand nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulses and still operate.

The military has kept details of the wish list for its new bomber classified.During the Super Bowl, Northrop Grumman’s ad featured a new aircraft shrouded in mystery – literally cloaked at one point. Some industry experts believe this was a representation of Northrop’s vision for the new mysterious bomber.

The F-35 Lightning II is a truly fifth-generation fighter jet. This advanced powerful single-seat and single-engine fighter is designed to be capable of a range of missions with just one aircraft.Test pilot Maj. Charles "Flak" Trickey fired the F35A’s internal Gun Airborne Unit -22/A 25mm Gatling gun system in three airborne gunfire bursts in its first aerial gun test successfully conducted in 2015.

Detractors criticize delays and cost in the new fighter development, but this was concrete progress in certifying the gun for use in the F-35A. The aircraft is on track to enter initial operational capability with the U.S. Air Force next year.Stealth was built into this aircraft from the very start. The F-35 also possesses other fifth-generation features like integrated avionics, sensor fusion and incredibly powerful sensor packages.

The Pratt & Whitney F135 propulsion system gives the aircraft phenomenal power – it is able to reach speeds of over 1,199 mph.With this new gun, pilots will have the ability to engage air-to-ground and air-to-air targets. The 25mm gun is embedded into the F-35A's left wing in a way that keeps the aircraft stealthy.The advanced materials and airframe design also mean that F-35s can evade radars that other fighters cannot. The plane can get through highly defended air spaces without ever being detected and then clear the way for U.S. forces.

Robots can now learn household tasks by watching YouTube videos

Astute followers of artificial intelligence may recall a moment from three years ago, whenGoogle announced it had birthed unto the world a computer able to recognize cats using only videos uploaded by YouTube users. At the time, this represented something of a high water mark in AI. To get an idea for how far we have come since then, one has only to reflect on recent advances in the ROBOWatch project an endeavor that is teaching computers to learn complex tasks using instructional videos posted on YouTube.hat innocent “learn to play guitar” clip you posted on your YouTube video feed last week? It may someday contribute to putting Carlos Santana out of a job. That’s probably pushing it; it’s more likely that thousands of home nurses and domestic staff will be axed long before guitar gods have to compete with robots. A recent groundswell of interest in bringing robots into the marketplace as caregivers for the elderly and infirm, in part fueled by graying population bases throughout the developed world, has created the necessity for teaching robots simple household tasks. Enter the

 forms of AI currently in use rely upon a branch of supervised machine learning, which requires large datasets to be “trained” on. The basic idea is that when provided with a sufficiently large database of labeled examples, the computer can learn to recognize what differentiates the items within the training set, and later apply that classifying ability to new instances it encounters. The one drawback to this form of artificial intelligence is that it requires large databases of labeled examples, which are not always available or require much human curation to create.

RoboWatch is taking a different tack, using what’s called unsupervised learning to discover the important steps in YouTube instructional videos without any previous labeling of data. Take for instance a YouTube video on omelet making. Using the RoboWatch method, the computer successfully parsed the video on omelet creation and catalog the important steps without having first been trained with labeled examples.It was able to do this by looking at a large amount of instructional omelet-making videos on YouTube and creating a universal storyline from their audio and video signals. As it turns out, most of these videos will contain certain identical steps, such as cracking the eggs, whisking them in a bowl, and so on. When presented with enough video footage, the RoboWatch algorithm can tease out what the essential parts of the process are and what is arbitrary, creating a kind of archetypal omelet formula. It’s easy to see how unsupervised learning could quickly enable a robot to gain a vast assortment of practical household know-how while keeping human instruction to a minimum.

The RoboWatch project follows similar advances in video captioning pioneered at Carnegie Mellon University. Earlier this year, we reported on a project headed by Dr. Eric Xing, which seeks to use real-time video summarization to detect unusual activity in video feeds. This could lead to surveillance cameras with the built-in ability to detect suspicious activity. Putting these developments together, it’s clear unsupervised learning models using video footage are likely to pave the way for the next breakthrough in artificial intelligence, one that will see robots entering our lives in ways that are likely to both scare and fascinate us.

Is the iPhone getting a new screen?

Rumors are circulating that Apple, the Cupertino, California-based tech behemoth, is working out deals with LG and Samsung to use a different type of screen technology in the iPhone. The screens would change to organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, which promises better-quality images when compared with liquid crystal display, a standard that's been used in computers for years. The Electronic Times, a Korean tech publication, wrote about the change, citing unnamed sources.

The move would mark the first substantive change in screen technology for the iPhone since 2010, when Apple released "retina" displays that promised to show so much detail that users wouldn't be able to distinguish what's on the screen from a printed image. Despite that change, Apple has relied on LCD technology since the iPhone's debut in 2007.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. Neither LG nor Samsung immediately responded to a request for comment. Previous stories from Japan's Nikkei and others have also claimed Apple is planning to change its display technology within the next couple of years.Speculation about the next iPhone's features is a sport in the technology industry. Publications large and small chase down hints of what might come next, be it a slimmer profile or a different size, or a new feature like wireless charging. There have even been rumors about what Apple will remove, such as a headphone jack.

Sometimes the rumors are correct but Apple ultimately delays the feature to a later iteration of the phone. Other times, reporters pick up on preliminary discussions that Apple is having. And sometimes the rumors are just plain wrong.When it comes to OLED, though, there's reason to both believe and distrust these rumors.

Apple has signaled a distaste for OLED displays in the past, for example. Three years ago, Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, said he considered the technology "awful.""If you ever buy anything online and really want to know what the color is, as many people do, you should really think twice before you depend on the color from an OLED display," Cooksaid at the time..

The move would mark the first substantive change in screen technology for the iPhone since 2010, when Apple released "retina" displays that promised to show so much detail that users wouldn't be able to distinguish what's on the screen from a printed image. Despite that change, Apple has relied on LCD technology since the iPhone's debut in 2007.

• An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. Neither LG nor Samsung immediately responded to a request for comment. Previous stories from Japan's Nikkei and others have also claimed Apple is planning to change its display technology within the next couple of years.Speculation about the next iPhone's features is a sport in the technology industry. Publications large and small chase down hints of what might come next, be it a slimmer profile or a different size, or a new feature like wireless charging. There have even been rumors about what Apple will remove, such as a headphone jack.

Sometimes the rumors are correct but Apple ultimately delays the feature to a later iteration of the phone. Other times, reporters pick up on preliminary discussions that Apple is having. And sometimes the rumors are just plain wrong.When it comes to OLED, though, there's reason to both believe and distrust these rumors.Apple has signaled a distaste for OLED displays in the past, for example. Three years ago, Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, said he considered the technology "awful."

"If you ever buy anything online and really want to know what the color is, as many people do, you should really think twice before you depend on the color from an OLED display,"

Samsung, GlobalFoundries to fab next-gen AMD GPUs, APUs

A new report is claiming Samsung and GlobalFoundries will team up to build next-generation AMD APUs and GPUs at the 14nm node. In the past, AMD has sourced its big-core APUs from GlobalFoundries and its smaller, budget CPU cores, graphics cards, and game consoles from TSMC. Shifting more of this business to the Samsung / GlobalFoundries match-up would be a significant shift from AMD’s previous strategy.

Then again, it’s arguably more of what AMD originally intended to do with the GlobalFoundries spin-off in the first place. When AMD created GF, it signed wafer agreements that allowed it to continue producing GPU hardware at TSMC, but stipulated that all future 28nm products would be built at GF. This never happened, thanks to GlobalFoundries’ problems with Krishna and Wichita back several years ago. We had it on good authority that 20nm versions of the modern consoles were also planned for GlobalFoundries, before that node was canceled.

We can’t talk about AMD’s upcoming GPUs just yet, but the Korean Times is claiming that the upcoming high-end APU, Greenland, will offer up to 2x higher performance-per-wattthan Fiji. That’s entirely reasonable, given that all next-generation lithography nodes offer companies a range of performance and power consumption to target. The figures we’ve seen for 14nm in general have suggested either 50% reduced power at the same performance or 20-30% improved performance at equivalent power.

AMD is building Greenland and its other GPUs on Samsung’s 14nm LPP (Low Power Plus) process, but GF has hinted to us that it’s done some customization to make sure the process node is suited to higher power GPUs. We don’t know yet if AMD has split its foundry orders between TSMC and GF for next-gen graphics or not — it’s entirely possible that the company will do high-end desktop cards, with 150W+ TDPs at TSMC, and mobile hardware at GF.

AMD would likely prefer to avoid such scenarios, since they increase overhead costs associated with bringing up multiple designs and different foundries. But the company plays coy on its foundry partners and doesn’t like to disclose who builds which parts until we can read the labels for ourselves.

There’s no word on whether or not the Xbox One and PS4 will see die shrinks and fresh SKUs in 2016, but we expect that they will. We’re coming up on the three-year anniversary of each platform, and after skipping the 20nm refresh cycle, both Microsoft and Sony are likely wanting to launch new hardware. There’s also no word on whether we’ll actually see fresh console hardware as early as 2018, though that’s not something we’d expect MS or Sony to announce until much closer to debut.

Juniper Networks Shortens ScreenOS Threat List

                                                                           
Jupiters Neywork on Sunday informed customers that recent security threats to its ScreenOS were not aswidespread as initially believed.The company last week issued an alert following its discovery in ScreenOS of unauthorized code that could allow an attacker to gain administrative control of devices using Netscreen (Administrative Access) or to decrypt a virtual private network (VPN Decryption).

The two issues are unrelated to each other, according to the company.

Juniper originally advised all customers that the Administrative Access code affected ScreenOS 6.30r12 through 6.30r20, and that the VPN Decryption code affected ScreenOS 6.20r15 through 6.20r18, and it advised users to patch their systems.

"Once we identified these vulnerabilities, we launched an investigation into the matter and worked to develop and issue patched releases for the latest versions of ScreenOS," noted Bob Worrall, senior vice president and chief information officer.

That investigation led Juniper to narrow the list of affected versions.

"Administrative Access ... only affects ScreenOS 6.3.0r17 through 6.3.0r20," Worrall wrote in Sunday's update. "VPN Decryption ... only affects ScreenOS 6.2.0r15 through 6.2.0r18 and 6.3. 0r 12 through 6.3. 0r 20."

"We strongly recommend that all customers update their systems and apply these patched releases with the highest priority," he added.

Juniper had not received any notifications of exploitation of the vulnerabilities when it issued its original alert last week, and as of Monday, it had nothing further to share on the security issues, spokesperson Danielle Hamel told TechNewsWorld.

Because the vulnerabilities are reminiscent of the disclosures whistleblower Ed Snowden made about NSA techniques to gain unauthorized access to various networking systems, questions have surfaced about whether the unauthorized code could be connected to backdoor government surveillance.

"The NSA ANT catalogue has detailed capabilities on penetrating Juniper firewalls and they have spent considerable time and effort building customized capabilities for several enterprise firewall vendors,"LogicNow Security Lead Ian Trump told TechNewsWorld.

Juniper declined to respond to TechNewsWorld's specific questions about the timing of its discovery of the latest vulnerabilities, but the company vehemently denied working with government officials to install code that could exploit its own systems.

"As we've stated previously, Juniper Networks [takes] allegations of this nature seriously," said spokesperson Hamel. "To be clear, we do not work with governments or anyone else to purposefully introduce weaknesses or vulnerabilities into our products."

The company "consistently operates with the highest of ethical standards" and is committed to "maintaining the integrity, security and assurance" of its products, she said.

Juniper previously investigated reports published in Germany's Der Spiegel, which suggested that the NSA might be using "software implants" to exploit vulnerabilities in its BIOS.

Release notes from the company appear to show the affected ScreenOS flaws date back to at least 2012.

Piano

The piano (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjaːno]; an abbreviation of pianoforte [pjanoˈfɔrte]) is a musical instrument played using a keyboard.^[1] It is widely employed in classical, jazz, traditional and popular music for solo andensemble performances, accompaniment, and for composing and rehearsal. Although the piano is not portable and often expensive, its versatility and ubiquity have made it one of the world's most familiar musical instruments.

An acoustic piano usually has a protective wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings, and a row of 88 black and white keys (52 white, 36 black). The strings are sounded when the keys are pressed, and silenced when the keys are released. The note can be sustained, even when the keys are released, by the use of pedals.

Pressing a key on the piano's keyboard causes a padded (often with felt) hammer to strike strings. The hammer rebounds, and the strings continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency.^[2] These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air. When the key is released, a damper stops the strings' vibration, ending the sound. Although an acoustic piano has strings, it is usually classified as a percussion instrument because the strings are struck rather than plucked (as with a harpsichord or spinet); in the Hornbostel-Sachssystem of instrument classification, pianos are considered chordophones. With technological advances, electric, electronic, and digital pianos have also been developed.

The word piano is a shortened form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the instrument, which in turn derives from gravicembalo col piano e forte^[3] and fortepiano. The Italian musical terms piano and forte indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively,^[4] in this context referring to the variations in volume produced in response to a pianist's touch on the keys: the greater the velocity of a key press, the greater the force of the hammer hitting the strings, and the louder the sound of the note produced.

How mobile tech is improving global disaster relief

Yet people are desperate to let their loved ones know they're safe and to find out what's going on."The first questions people always ask when they arrive at a refugee camp are 'Where can I charge my phone?' and 'Is there wi-fi?'," says John Warnes, innovation specialist at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"These often seem to be more important to people than food and water."Administering food, shelter and medical aid is made even harder for aid agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) without proper communications.So some technology companies have been innovating to find ways of meeting these challenges.

Instant hotspot

For example, Croatian firm MeshPoint has designed a highly-portable rugged, all-weather wi-fi and 4G mobile device that can connect up to 150 people to the internet at the same time. It contains a built-in battery to enable quick set-up in the most inhospitable conditions.The unit can be used on its own to create a local internet hotspot, or linked to others to form a network for use over a wider area.

How to avoid 'death by PowerPoint'

Most people who've endured a terrible PowerPoint presentation will have experienced boredom, followed by frustration, then anger that it took up an hour - or possibly even more - of their lives that they will never get back.So why, in the age of the internet and millions of digital images, do slide presentations seem to belong to an older, duller decade?And what can the business people of the future do to jazz up their presentations and leave their audiences feeling a little less like zombies?

Swedish crowd-sourcing photo database, Pickit, recently teamed up with professional PowerPoint designers Eyeful Presentations to pick out the top 10 images to avoid in presentations.Their findings are summarised best with the use of bullet points - that stalwart of PowerPoint presentations. 

Things to avoid:

• cogs

• images of people holding hands around a globe

• stacked pebbles

• thumbs up

• archery targets (with optional arrow)

• jigsaw piece being fitted into puzzle

• handshakes

• rosettes

• groups of business people staring intently at a monitor
• businessperson poised to run a race

These days, there are plenty of alternatives to PowerPoint - Keynote, Slides, Prezi, Slide Rocket, Easel.ly, Emaze, Slidedog, to name but a few - many of which are freely available online.But Microsoft's software, launched in 1990, still dominates the market - with an estimated 1.2 billion users worldwide and millions of presentations made each day using the software.Unfortunately, the phrase "Death by PowerPoint" has also become part of our lexicon.

In an attempt to change that, Microsoft offered new tools last month that will allow people to make presentations look better.Morph allows users to create animations by moving objects around slides, while its Designer feature makes it easier to add photos to slides.