President’s order lets the US sanction foreign cyberattackers
US authorities can’t officially punish hackers in many countries, but they now have a way to hit those digital criminals where it hurts the most: their bank accounts. President Obama has signed an executive order that lets the Secretary of the Treasury impose sanctions on both foreign cyberattackers and those that knowingly support their activities, whether they’re individuals or groups. If the Attorney General and Secretary of State deem these intruders to be major economic or security threats, the Treasury can freeze their assets and make it tougher to carry out (or profit from) their operations.
The White House is adamant that sanctions will only be limited to the “most significant” targets (particularly those who hide in other countries), and that it won’t abuse this power to silence critics or researchers. However, it’s hard to know where the government draws the line. While the order is clearly aimed at stopping gangs, state-sponsored attackers and terrorists, the lack of a clear threshold raises the chance that penalties will kick in for ‘ordinary’ hackers who just happen to be particularly successful.
[Image credit: AFP/Getty Images]
Filed under: Internet
Source: White House Blog
How to enable OS X Accessibility options, instantly!
Want to toggle OS X’s Accessibility options quickly? Get there in one keystroke with this quick Mac tip!
Apple builds great accessibility features into OS X Yosemite, to help users with physical limitations get the most out of their Macs.
The Accessibility system preference gives you broad control over how information is displayed on your Mac, including zoom functions to see parts of the screen better, adding media descriptions and captions; using switch control; enabling dictation and more.
If you’re able to use a keyboard, it’s easy enough to pull up Accessibility simply by holding down the command key and pressing the space bar to bring up Spotlight, then type Accessibility. Spotlight’s search results will show you the system preference, which you can access using your mouse or cursor keys.
But there’s a quicker way to get to commonly used Accessibility functions, and that brings us to this week’s tip. Just hold down the command and option keys, then type F5.
That will pop up a window entitled Accessibility Options, where you can toggle zoom settings (enabling using keyboard shortcuts or scroll gestures); VoiceOver; sticky, slow and mouse key settings; or invert display color and adjust contrast.
What’s more, you can click on the Keyboard Shortcuts… button to pull up that system preference pane, or click on the Preferences button to pull up the full Accessibility system preference.
Hopefully this tip will keep you working more and fiddling with preferences less. Let me know if you have any questions!
T-Mobile helps the entire family stay connected with Pets Un-leashed
T-Mobile just announced Pets Un-leashed, which looks like a winner for those of you with pets in the household. For only $5 extra per month (added to the Simple Choice Family Plan), your pet(s) can stream their favorite pet content without using your high speed data. Now if that isn’t already a great deal, T-Mo has dropped three new pet-friendly apps…
- Fetch Freedom – This augmented reality version of fetch won’t throw out your arm and doesn’t even harm tennis balls.
- FitPet – So pets and owners can track and manage fitness goals (Wheel not included), and;
- Pet Tinder – Where pets can swipe to find their ideal match (Pets over 18 only in equivalent dog/cat/alpaca years).
Check out the video below and sign up right away for this unbelievable deal. Just don’t let your dog play with his phone at the dinner table.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Happy April Fools’ Day
source: T-Mobile
Come comment on this article: T-Mobile helps the entire family stay connected with Pets Un-leashed
Samsung hits the streets to find out what people think of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge because why not
Samsung hit the streets of Seoul to find out what random stranger’s first impressions of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge were. We’re pretty sure that everyone in this video will love the new phones.
Now I am not saying the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge aren’t incredible phones, but I would love to see the outtakes. Hit the break for the short (25 seconds) video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
source: Samsung Tomorrow
Come comment on this article: Samsung hits the streets to find out what people think of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge because why not
Happy April Fools’ Day 2015: Pets Unleashed, Kameleon Kloak and More
As happens every year on April 1, today is April Fools’ Day, and readers should be wary of hoaxes and claims at both news and rumor sites. Today also represents Apple’s 39th anniversary, with their partnership having officially been founded on this day in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
As has become tradition, a number of today’s pranks have focused on Apple and tech, and here are a few of the more interesting ones to surface so far today. Keep in mind that some hoaxes may be mildly NSFW, so turning down your volume or watching later may be best if you are at work or in a public space.
T-Mobile Pets Unleashed
T-Mobile introduced Pets Unleashed, a revolutionary new family plan that lets your pets get their paws on the hottest smartphones and stream the latest animal-related content without using up your data. The plan includes several apps such as Fetch Freedom, FitPet and Pet Tinder, ensuring that your dogs, cats and entire family stay connected.
Moshi Kameleon Kloak for iPhone 6
Moshi today announced Kameleon Kloak, the first chameleon-powered iPhone 6 case.
This post will be updated throughout April Fools’ Day with the latest pranks and hoaxes.
Is Samsung right to move away from Qualcomm?
By the time that Samsung actually unveiled the Galaxy S6 at MWC in Barcelona we already knew that it wasn’t going to have Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor inside. Instead Samsung decided to go with its own in-house Exynos 7420 SoC. This decision prompted a lot of speculation about Samsung’s motives, and inevitably had a negative impact on Qualcomm.
Was Samsung really switching because of overheating issues, as the rumor suggested? Was it looking to reduce dependence on suppliers? Was it paving the way to compete directly with its old partner? Maybe there’s another motive altogether that has to do with the wider smartphone market. Or maybe it’s all of the above.
Qualcomm is feeling the heat
Just over a year ago we did an article on Qualcomm’s dominance in mobile. The company successfully rode the smartphone wave to the top of the mobile chipset market. But staying at the top in any industry is not easy.
Intel hasn’t made a great deal of headway in the face of ARM’s dominant designs, but the competition between the leading SoC manufacturers working with ARM has been growing fiercer. The short term threat to Qualcomm is coming from MediaTek, Nvidia, and Samsung.
Then there was Apple’s announcement of a new 64-bit A7 chip, which Qualcomm’s chief marketing officer, Anand Chandrasekher wrote off as a “marketing gimmick”, comments he later retracted. That fed into the idea that Qualcomm was slightly behind the curve and maybe it was rushing to catch up.
Not that long ago, Qualcomm was questioning the merits of octa-core chips. Now it’s pushing its own.
At the end of 2014 a rumor popped up that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 was having overheating problems. It was unclear where the rumor had come from, but it was pretty persistent and it eventually morphed into the story that Samsung was ditching the 810 for the Galaxy S6 because of overheating.
Qualcomm tried to defend itself and all the Snapdragon 810 partners, including LG, Xiaomi, HTC, Motorola, Sony, OPPO, and Microsoft, gave glowing quotes in this press release. The counter to the overheating argument is that the initial problems with the 810 were fixed during development and the processors going out to the public in phones like the LG G Flex 2 have no problems. Though this counter does acknowledge that there was some kind of problem.
No smoke without fire
Even though Samsung will continue to be a major Qualcomm partner on other fronts, it was notable that the South Korean manufacturer made no move to quash the rumor. Samsung CEO, J.K. Shin, did nothing to dispel the idea that the 810 was dumped due to overheating when he told the Korea Times,
“Samsung previously used more Qualcomm mobile processors, but we are flexible. If Qualcomm chips are good enough, then we will use them. Samsung always uses the best-quality components and materials to differentiate our products from those by rivals.”
That sounds a lot like he’s saying the Snapdragon 810 wasn’t good enough. Why would Samsung do that? We can think of a few reasons.
1. It really does overheat
It’s possible the 810 really does have an overheating problem. But why would Qualcomm’s other partners go along with the denial if this was really the case? You’d think it’s going to be pretty obvious when the next wave of Snapdragon 810-toting smartphones hit the market. Reviews are in for the G Flex 2 and the One M9 and we aren’t seeing lots of overheating reports, though there was a report that the HTC One M9 was overheating and may now have been throttled to cope with the issue. LG did also acknowledge there was a problem with the first batch of 810 chips, but said the issue had been fixed and they felt confident releasing the G Flex 2. There is evidence of fairly aggressive thermal throttling, but that’s par for the course and you can find it in the G3 as well.
Post OTA, the M9 doesn’t heat that much compared to competitors, but questions linger
Phones are going to get hot when you play high-end games for a long time, but that’s true of every phone. Because of the rumor, there’s a real danger of confirmation bias here, some people are looking for overheating evidence, and ignoring the evidence that the 810 doesn’t have a significant problem compared to the rest of the field. If you think there’s no smoke without fire, what about smoke machines?
If the rumor that the LG G4 will use the Snapdragon 808 instead of the 810 proves true, that will be telling, but we need to see a lot more actual evidence of a serious overheating problem when the 810 phones hit the market before we accept that it’s definitely more than a series of rumors.
2. Samsung wants to limit dependence
This is probably true regardless of any other motives. What company doesn’t want to reduce dependence on outside partners? If Samsung can make more stuff itself it can potentially save money and have tighter control over production. Samsung wants to reverse the decline in profit margins and this will reduce its per unit cost. It has a surplus chip-making capacity, so why not take more advantage of it? You could also point to the fact that the Exynos big.LITTLE chips are more mature than Qualcomm’s, because Samsung has been using the technology for a while now, while Qualcomm had to catch up.
Perhaps most importantly, it offers a way to differentiate Samsung’s flagship from the competition more easily because Qualcomm sells to everyone. We’re sure this is one of the reasons.
3. Samsung wants to compete with Qualcomm
What better way to boost your own fortunes than to take a competitor down a notch? If the Exynos in the Galaxy S6 is paving the way for a future of Samsung supplying other manufacturers then this move makes sense. It simultaneously says Qualcomm’s processors aren’t good enough and ours are.
But is Samsung looking to supply the market? Consider that it’s still responsible for the bulk of Apple’s chipsets and you can see Samsung has no compulsion about working with competitors if it brings profit. Samsung could well be looking to muscle into the processor market and eat Qualcomm’s lunch. It may be willing to trade off the differentiation for the profit and reputation enhancement that would come from supplying the other manufacturers.
Samsung may be looking to get its Exynos chips in devices from other OEMs
What if Samsung can’t compete? Maybe Qualcomm will come back with a stronger next generation. Worst case scenario for Samsung — it just starts buying Snapdragon again.
4. Samsung wants to denigrate the competition
By saying the 810 isn’t good enough for the Galaxy S6, Samsung is hinting that all of its competitor’s flagship smartphones aren’t as good. The overheating rumor could easily fall into the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) category as a strategy to circulate negative impressions about competing phones. It manages to tar all of Samsung’s Android competitors with the same brush and leaves the Galaxy S6 unscathed.
The 14-nm Exynos processor inside the Galaxy S6 is one of its unique strengths
Whether this strategy works, if it is indeed Samsung’s strategy at all, remains to be seen and depends a great deal on how the two SoC’s compare. Early benchmark reports suggest that Samsung’s processor is more powerful, but Qualcomm’s modems may be faster and less power-hungry. There are lots of other points of comparison and we need to see real world performance before we can draw any conclusions on this stuff.
Into the unknown
We may never know for certain where the overheating rumor originated, but Samsung is clearly seizing the opportunity to benefit. Whether it’s a forced reaction to a chip with problems, the first step in a play for the high-end processor market in mobile, the latest broadside against the Android smartphone competition, or a mixture of all three, should become clear within the next year or so.
What do you think? Increased competition for Qualcomm could be a good thing. Are there really serious problems with the 810? Is Samsung playing dirty or is this all just business as usual?
Deal: JBL Synchros S500 headphones for $99 on Daily Steals (normally $200)
Daily Steals has a good promo on JBL’s well-reviewed Synchros S500 headphones, available today for $99.
The Synchros S500 feature an over ear design, with a steel band and comfy leather cups. This is a powered model that requires two AA batteries. According to the product’s description (and backed by the reviews), the PureBass 50mm drivers and JBL’s LiveStage processing technology deliver “professional audio sound” and a powerful bass. The headphones come with a universal mic/remote cable, that can be switched with a cable for iOS, that comes in the box.
Get the JBL Synchros S500 on Daily Steals
Reviews on Amazon average 4.4 out of 5 stars, with buyers praising the comfortable design and great sound quality.
The JBL Synchros S500 are currently available for around $200 on Amazon, while their list price on Daily Steals is $399. At $99, they look like a bargain.
The deal is valid today only, with about 14 hours to go. Happy shopping!
‘Ex Machina’ director embraces the rise of superintelligent AI
Alex Garland is no stranger to science fiction. As the writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine, he’s given us his own unique spin on the zombie apocalypse and a last-ditch effort to save the Earth (by nuking the sun!). Now, with his directorial debut, Ex Machina, Garland is taking on artificial intelligence — and in the process, he shows the limits of the Turing test, the most common method for determining if something is truly sentient. The film centers on a young programmer who’s sent to his genius CEO’s isolated compound to test his latest invention: an artificially intelligent robot. Things, as you can imagine, don’t go as planned.
I spoke to Garland ahead of the film’s US premiere at the SXSW festival. And, as you’ll quickly learn, he’s got a lot to say about AI and the nature of consciousness. Ex Machina hits theaters on April 10.
What was your creative spark for the story? Were there any ideas for the story? This one just seemed a little different for AI, more of an exploration of how you could love an AI.
Going way back, for me it would go back to childhood … and having very, very simple home computers.
The ZX Spectrum
What was your first home computer?
I think the first actual computer [for me] was the ZX81, but the one I actually got to grips in any way as the ZX Spectrum, which was a follow-up to that. … It had BASIC commands sort of burned into the keyboard that you could access through shortcut keys.
So I would write very, very simple … “hello world” kind of programs, where the computer would maybe have the ability to answer three or four questions. … It would give you this feeling as a kid of bolting up and thinking, this is suddenly feeling sentient. Of course it’s not sentient — you’re very aware it’s not, because you’ve programmed it. But nonetheless it gave you that sort of funny electric feeling. I think that always stayed with me.
Then years and years later I got involved in a really long argument … with a friend of mine whose principal area of interest was neuroscience. He’s affiliated with a school of thought that basically says, “Machines are never going to be sentient in the way we are.” There are very serious thinkers attached to that, like Roger Penrose [a renowned physicist and philosopher]. And I instinctively disagreed with this, but I didn’t have the sort of armory to disagree with it on his terms, so I started reading as much as I could.
Not to get too boring, but our sticking point was over qualia [a philosophical term for defining conscious experiences we all have]. … I had a kind of instinctive, and then subsequently I’d say rationalized, sense that qualia might not even exist.
Domhnall Gleeson [left] and Oscar Isaac in ‘Ex Machina’
You mean even in human language and thought?
Yah, yah. … In reading about this, I came across this book by [cognitive roboticist] Murray Shanahan, who wrote a book about consciousness and embodiment. Within it there’s a really beautiful idea, which is an argument against metaphysics [the philosophy branch that explores how we experience the world] in terms of the mind. And in a way, if you can get rid of metaphysics as a problem, it allows for an artificial intelligence — or a strong AI. … And I have to say, as I was reading that book — and as a layman, it’s fucking difficult for me to read this stuff; I struggled like crazy — but it was while reading it that the idea for this movie appeared in my head.
I was in preproduction on Dredd; I was spending a lot of time in South Africa, on planes, and I had a lot of time to read. … So whenever we shot Dredd, the three months before that, that’s basically where it came together. And after I wrote the script, I sent it to Murray Shanahan and said, you don’t know who I am, but I want you to really look at this script. I wanted the stuff within it to be reasonable.
“There’s a lot of legitimate reasons to be scared of superintelligence.”
So what did he think?
There was a bit of coding in there where he said, “I’m not sure it’s compiled correctly.” In fact, in the film some of the code that appears on screen, if you were to write it out, what you’d find is it leads you to the ISBN of his book.
What other sorts of AI books have you read?
I pretty much would read everything I could. I tried to read people like Penrose, who were arguing against what I instinctively believed.
That’s a good way to solidify your argument.
I don’t want to dignify it from my point of view, because I can’t stress enough I’m a real layman. So I can understand the principles of an argument, but when it comes to the actuality of what people like Demis Hassabis at DeepMind [a British AI company owned by Google] are actually doing, I really don’t understand it. That’s part of what interests me. It’s the gap between people who do understand what they’re doing, and the way information disseminates, and the confusion that exists between those spaces.
The thing I began to get fixated on — this is separate from the film, but related — was confronting my own intellectual limitations. And thinking, here I am; I’m not dumb, I’m doing what I can, but I’m also running into a brick wall of my own intellectual capacity. And it sort of made me a bit nervous in some respects, because I was thinking, that means a lot of this stuff, for a lot of people, and I would include myself in that part of the Venn diagram, becomes articles of faith.
That’s troubling where there are ethical consequences to the things that are happening, because to get through the ethics, you have to understand it.
Alex Garland
What do you think about the rise of AI and superintelligence? Do you think it’s something we need to worry about?
I think there’s a lot of confusion around this. I mean, a few months ago it was announced that a machine passed the Turing test in a way that was completely ridiculous; it didn’t stand up to any scrutiny at all, but the fact that it was reported as widely as it was tells you that what kind of problem there is in terms of what people are actually doing, and what they’re perceived to be doing.
There’s a lot of legitimate reasons to be scared of superintelligence; of course there are. And exactly as there are reasons to be scared of the implications of nuclear power, hence the [Robert] Oppenheimer analogy that exists throughout the film. Both of them are potentially dangerous. From my point of view, I would see myself as being sort of green in terms of my outlook, but I’m also in favor of nuclear power. So I would see the superintelligences as being analogous to that. They could be problematic if they’re controlling drones and making kill decisions over humans; I can completely see that.
I think that probably people get a bit confused about them, and maybe a film like Ex Machina in some respect doesn’t help, in as much as we think that they might be human like. But they probably won’t be, in terms of how they see the world, and the way they interact with it and each other.
It’s completely alien to us.
Yah we don’t really know because they’re not here yet. And as a father, it’s a bit like trying to conceptualize your child before they’re born. You can’t actually do it. It’s an abstract thing until it arrives. And then, of course, you can get your head around it. … If you get an AI that was human-like, and it has similar things to our consciousness embedded within it. There’s nothing within that, that I find necessarily frightening.
“Being clear about these things is important. Otherwise, you’ll be talking about the sentience of Siri. And Siri doesn’t have any fucking sentience.”
A human intelligence is capable of being fantastically dangerous if it’s given the life path and powers of [Joseph] Stalin or Pol Pot. And I could say if you provided an AI with too much power, you might get serious problems. But what that would be is an argument in favor of checks and balances, rather than an argument against AIs.
I think it’s helpful and actually sensible when talking about this stuff to be clear what it is one’s talking about. AI’s a super-broad term. I play video games with AIs. And in the same way that the reporting of the passing of the Turing test would misunderstand A) whether it had been past and B) what the Turing test was, and also, C) whether the Turing test is actually an indicator of consciousness in a machine, or whether it’s just an indicator that the machine passed the Turing test. And I would say it’s the latter. … It doesn’t tell you whether you’re sentient.
Being clear about these things is important. Otherwise, we’re very quick to conflate stuff, and suddenly you’ll be talking about the sentience of Siri. And Siri doesn’t have any fucking sentience. AI is probably too broad of a term to be useful at the moment.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
[Photo credits: DNA Films/Film 4 (Ex Machina set); Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP/Getty Images (Alex Garland)]
Plex for Windows 8.1 is now free but in-app purchase needed to unlock most features
Plex has made its popular media streaming app for Windows 8.1 free to download and use, but owners should be aware that it needs an in-app purchase to unlock most of its features.
Slacker Radio finally gets Chromecast support
Well it’s about time!!! Google just announced a few new apps that now have Chromecast support, but for whatever reason, they didn’t mention Slacker Radio. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the update this morning with Chromecast support. This is long overdue for one of the top music streaming apps, but I guess it’s better late than never right? Does this mean Android TV support is coming soon?
On top of Chromecast support, Slacker has added an all new “Today on Slacker” section filled with recommendations and news that’s tailor-made for your tastes and interests. They also added presets for instant access to your favorite stations. Lastly, Verizon customers can easily find Tones with the new Tones Search.
Come comment on this article: Slacker Radio finally gets Chromecast support
AIVAnet 