Microsoft’s authenticator app is now all you need to log in with your smartphone

Why it matters to you

Although two-factor is almost always better than a single point of failure, smartphone logins are significantly more secure than simple passwords.

Microsoft has made it possible to use only your smartphone to log in to your Microsoft account, ditching the need for what is traditionally the first line of defense against unwanted account access: the humble password. Although less secure than complete two-factor authentication, Microsoft contends that this is still more secure than just using a password and much less cumbersome for the user.

One of the oldest and still hardest-to-solve questions within any technology space is how do you digitally prove someone is who they say they are? Passwords are one of the most common practices, but as has been shown time and again, they rarely offer much of a hurdle for nefarious actors. Two-factor authentication with a smartphone is becoming more common, but Microsoft has decided that it’s better just by itself.

The problem with a password, Microsoft claims in its explanatory blog post (via Ars), is that passwords can be easily phished, stolen, or forgotten. Consider too that most people already have a pin code or similar security on their phone and the firm believes smartphone logins are secure enough while feeling “natural and familiar.”

While Microsoft’s login system does let you use the authenticator app to double down on security for a number of sites and services, the Microsoft account can be logged into with smartphone authentication only. It is also limited to iOS and Android platforms for now, despite the app being compatible with Windows phones. It may add support for that much smaller user group in the future, we’re told, but only if this feature sees some success.

To be one of the first to trial this smartphone-only authentication system, download or open up the app on your handset, select the drop-down button on your account and choose “Enable phone sign-in.” That’s it.

There will be options for password usage if your phone isn’t with you, which could open up a vector for more traditional hacking. However, these sorts of security features have the potential to benefit the least secure out there, so removing a potential password reuse login system for those users could lead to improved overall digital security for some.

Microsoft is looking for feedback on its new system, so if you have something to say about it, don’t be afraid to let the company know.

AMD quietly launches entry-level Radeon RX 540 mobile graphics chip

Why it matters to you

AMD’s newest mobile graphics option is looking like a decidedly entry-level offering. The Radeon RX 540 will apparently offer better-than-integrated graphics performance and not much more.

AMD recently announced another line of desktop graphics cards based on its Polaris GPU architecture, specifically the Radeon 500 series that ranges from the Radeon RX 550 up to the RX 580. Not all of the details have been released yet, but speculation was that AMD would also release a 500 series GPU for the mobile market.

AMD has now published a product page for its newest mobile graphics option, and it’s looking like a decidedly entry-level offering. The Radeon RX 540 appears likely to be the mobile version of the RX 550, and will offer better-than-integrated graphics performance and not much more, according to The Tech Report.

The chip that AMD is using in both the RX 550 desktop card and the RX 540 mobile version is a small one at 101 mm², and as The Tech Report describes, it’s “exactly half of a full Polaris 11 in some ways.” That means the RX 540 will likely serve as AMD’s budget notebook option going forward and will mostly compete with Intel’s integrated graphics and Nvidia’s low-end mobile options.

In terms of specifications, the Radeon RX 540 will support up to 4GB of GDDR5 memory running on a 128-bit interface and provide up to 96GB/s bandwidth. The chip will offer eight compute units and 512 stream processors, up to 1219MHz frequency, and 16 ROPs. It will also likely be a very low-power chip, drawing something less than the 50 watts required by the RX 550. Overall performance is rated at 1.2 TFLOPS, 39 Gtexels/s, and 19.5 Gpixels/s.

Of course, the Radeon RX 540 will support all of AMD’s most important technologies, including Radeon Chill and ReLive, FreeSync, and Eyefinity. It will also provide HDMI 4K support, 4K H264 Decode and Encode, and H265/HEVC Decode and Encode. Operating system support will include Windows 7 and 10 32-bit and 64-bit, Linux x86_64, and Ubuntu X86 64-bit.

According to AMD’s product page, the Radeon RX 540 has already launched. The company hasn’t indicated which notebook original equipment manufacturers will be utilizing the chip, but given its overall performance, its most likely competitor will be the Nvidia GTX 940MX that’s made its way into a number of machines as an alternative to integrated graphics.

Shock wave? Tsunami? Debris? Here’s how an asteroid will probably kill you

Why it matters to you

Although deadly impacts are rare, this study may help us better prepare for future asteroids.

A new study has answered a question you never knew you had: If a deadly asteroid struck Earth, which one of its effects would most likely kill you?

Conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Southampton in England, the experiment compared seven effects, including heat, flying debris, tsunamis, wind blast, seismic shaking, and cratering. Using a computer model, the researchers simulated an asteroid assault on Earth and ranked the outcomes based on which effects would kill the most people.

“We realized that no study had previously been performed which directly compared the various asteroid impact effects in terms of how harmful they are for human populations,” Clemens Rumpf, lead author of the study, told Digital Trends. “Previous studies have looked at individual impact effects and have made statements about their potential for destruction, but not within the framework of a coherent comparison.”

Asteroid impact effects vary in intensity and kind. Tsunamis, for example, would impact people inland differently and to a lesser extent than those on the coast.

To calculate the power of each impact effect, Rumpf and his team used an online simulator called Impact Earth, bombarding the planet with 50,000 asteroids in various regions.

“Using such a large sample size increased our confidence that we capture many of the impact scenario nuances that the global population distribution, the geography … and asteroid impact conditions … can offer,” Rumpf said.

They then estimated how many fatalities would result from each of these effects. The results showed that wind blasts and shock waves would likely do the most damage, accounting for over 60 percent of the lives lost. Thermal radiation, cratering, seismic shaking, flying debris, and tsunamis followed in the ranking.

“A big take away is that land impactors are much more dangerous than water impactors because the former are naturally closer to population centers,” Rumpf said. He also pointed to the dominance of aerodynamic effects — strong winds and shock waves — that can be seen in infamous impacts like the Tunguska event in 1908, which flattened 770 square miles of Russian forest.

“Such results can be useful when giving advice on how to prepare for an asteroid impact should we find ourselves in that situation,” he added. “Protective places similar to tornado shelters could offer good protection against these types of hazards.”

The researchers published a paper detailing their study today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Tribeca Film Festival to stream events with Godfather cast, others on Facebook

Why it matters to you

Can’t get tickets to the Tribeca Film Festival. Facebook Live has you covered. The festival will stream 12 star-studded discussions on its Facebook page.

Whoever said you can not learn anything by spending hours on Facebook lied to you. Starting on Thursday, the Tribeca Film Festival will live-stream 12 star-studded discussions via Facebook Live on its Facebook page.

Among the events you will be able to watch on Facebook is a discussion with the cast of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the first of the two films. The discussion will include the films’ Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola, as well as acst members Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and Robert De Niro. The talk starts at 8:10 p.m. ET on April 29 as part of the festival’s Closing Night gala and is already sold out, so it’s Facebook or bust if you want in.

Girls creator Lena Dunham and the show’s executive producer Jenni Konner will talk with Superstore star America Ferrera about the HBO show that just cam to an end, as well as their experiences in the entertainment industry. Retired NBA superstar Kobe Bryant and animator Glen Keane will talk with Michael Strahan, an NFL Hall of Famer and co-host of Good Morning America, about the new Dear Basketball animated short film Bryant and Keane worked on together. Both of those discussions are part of the Tribeca Talks: Storytellers series, which will also feature conversations between Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen, among others.

These talks will provide some of the earliest insight about the next TV shows and films you could be binging on. Most of the discussions will take place following an accompanying film or episode screening, which will not be featured in the Facebook Live stream. Hulu will world premiere its new drama series The Handmaid’s Tale at the festival on Friday prior to a discussion with the creators and cast. National Geographic will world premiere its new show Genius about Albert Einstein; executive producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are among those included in the subsequent discussion.

The Tribeca Film Festival kicks off Wednesday. You can find the full schedule of events that will streamed on Facebook Live here.

Facebook talks connectivity through drones, helicopters at F8 2017

Why it matters to you

Facebook’s latest connectivity tech could deliver internet in rural regions, disaster areas, and dense cities.

Facebook wants to connect the billions of people in the world who lack an internet connection, and it’s launching a volley of solutions at the problem. At the F8 developer summit on Tuesday, Facebook provided updates on its Aquila drone project, its Tenna-tether portable antenna, and its Terragraph node system.

With its Acquila drones, Facebook said it set a record with millimeter-wave radio, the technology it’s using to beam internet from the stratosphere to terrestrial microwave dishes. Engineers achieved a speed of 36Gbps from a distance of more than 10km, about double last year’s maximum speed of 20Gbps (and fast enough to stream 4,000 Ultra HD (4K) movies simultaneously).

Aquila still has a ways to go — Facebook hasn’t tested the improved millimeter-wave technology on one of its drones yet, instead opting to use a Cessna aircraft circling about four miles away. But it believes that airborne millimeter-wave radio has potential. “The ground-to-air record modeled, for the first time, a real-life test of how this technology will be used,” Yael Maguire, a director for Facebook’s connectivity program, wrote in a blog entry posted during the keynote presentation.

Facebook is also developing a short-term connectivity solution for emergencies: “Tether-tenna.” The nascent project consists of a Volkswagen Beetle-sized helicopter and flexible antenna that can be “deployed immediately and operate for months at a time.” It’s in the early stages, but Maguire said the Tether-tenna will eventually be able to tap into a fiber line, plug into an electrical source, and then rise hundreds of feet in the air to broadcast a signal.

The challenges are myriad, Maguire said. Tether-tenna prototypes have only been able to operate up to 24 hours continuously, and they need to be able to survive high winds and lightning.

A more permanent solution is Terragraph, Facebook’s effort to replace fiber connections in “dense urban areas.” Speaking onstage at the F8 conference, Facebook vice president Jay Parikh described it as a “multi-node wireless system focused on bringing high-speed connectivity” to cities.

Terragraph, like Aquila, relies on open wireless standards to beam millimeter radio waves between wireless nodes. But unlike Acquila, the transmitters are mounted on telephone poles and Ethernet or Wi-Fi hubs mounted on the exteriors of buildings. Facebook said a single distribution node currently maxes out at 2.1Gbps, but that it expects speeds to improve as testing continues.

It’s not perfect. Millimeter wave signals are prone to interference from water, and can’t travel through walls or windows. But ARIES, a new antenna design from Facebook’s Connectivity Lab, will help mitigate the issues. It’s single-base station is capable of eliminating noise and supporting as many as 24 different devices on the same spectrum, Facebook said.

“Slow internet speed is especially prevalent in developing economies where mobile networks are often unable to achieve data rates better than 2G” Facebook explained in a blog post. “Developed economies are hampered by Wi-Fi and LTE infrastructure that is unable to keep up with the exponential consumption of photos and video at higher and higher resolutions.”

Facebook talks connectivity through drones, helicopters at F8 2017

Why it matters to you

Facebook’s latest connectivity tech could deliver internet in rural regions, disaster areas, and dense cities.

Facebook wants to connect the billions of people in the world who lack an internet connection, and it’s launching a volley of solutions at the problem. At the F8 developer summit on Tuesday, Facebook provided updates on its Aquila drone project, its Tenna-tether portable antenna, and its Terragraph node system.

With its Acquila drones, Facebook said it set a record with millimeter-wave radio, the technology it’s using to beam internet from the stratosphere to terrestrial microwave dishes. Engineers achieved a speed of 36Gbps from a distance of more than 10km, about double last year’s maximum speed of 20Gbps (and fast enough to stream 4,000 Ultra HD (4K) movies simultaneously).

Aquila still has a ways to go — Facebook hasn’t tested the improved millimeter-wave technology on one of its drones yet, instead opting to use a Cessna aircraft circling about four miles away. But it believes that airborne millimeter-wave radio has potential. “The ground-to-air record modeled, for the first time, a real-life test of how this technology will be used,” Yael Maguire, a director for Facebook’s connectivity program, wrote in a blog entry posted during the keynote presentation.

Facebook is also developing a short-term connectivity solution for emergencies: “Tether-tenna.” The nascent project consists of a Volkswagen Beetle-sized helicopter and flexible antenna that can be “deployed immediately and operate for months at a time.” It’s in the early stages, but Maguire said the Tether-tenna will eventually be able to tap into a fiber line, plug into an electrical source, and then rise hundreds of feet in the air to broadcast a signal.

The challenges are myriad, Maguire said. Tether-tenna prototypes have only been able to operate up to 24 hours continuously, and they need to be able to survive high winds and lightning.

A more permanent solution is Terragraph, Facebook’s effort to replace fiber connections in “dense urban areas.” Speaking onstage at the F8 conference, Facebook vice president Jay Parikh described it as a “multi-node wireless system focused on bringing high-speed connectivity” to cities.

Terragraph, like Aquila, relies on open wireless standards to beam millimeter radio waves between wireless nodes. But unlike Acquila, the transmitters are mounted on telephone poles and Ethernet or Wi-Fi hubs mounted on the exteriors of buildings. Facebook said a single distribution node currently maxes out at 2.1Gbps, but that it expects speeds to improve as testing continues.

It’s not perfect. Millimeter wave signals are prone to interference from water, and can’t travel through walls or windows. But ARIES, a new antenna design from Facebook’s Connectivity Lab, will help mitigate the issues. It’s single-base station is capable of eliminating noise and supporting as many as 24 different devices on the same spectrum, Facebook said.

“Slow internet speed is especially prevalent in developing economies where mobile networks are often unable to achieve data rates better than 2G” Facebook explained in a blog post. “Developed economies are hampered by Wi-Fi and LTE infrastructure that is unable to keep up with the exponential consumption of photos and video at higher and higher resolutions.”

Windows Insider update offers power savings and cleans up desktop icons

Why it matters to you

Even if you’re not a member of the Windows Insider program, keep an eye on the latest Insider builds for a sneak peek into the future of Windows 10.

Microsoft is hard at work on the Creators Update, releasing yet another Windows Insider build this week, bundling some helpful new features together, and patching a host of new bugs. Build 16179 rolls out a new power management scheme aptly titled “Power Throttling,” among some smaller improvements throughout Windows.

What is Power Throttling? Well, it is a working title for a new framework Microsoft hopes will improve the battery life users get out of laptops and mobile devices running the Windows 10 Creators Update.

The power throttling framework automatically categorizes every app you are running and effectively squeezes the life out of non-essential background applications. Doing so limits the amount of CPU resources these apps can access and should improve your battery life.

According to Microsoft’s internal tests, power throttling can potentially reduce CPU power consumption by about 11 percent during strenuous use cases. It remains to be seen, though, whether or not everyday users will experience those kinds of gains on a regular basis — or if those numbers are just the best-case scenario from Microsoft’s internal tests.

Like most Insider builds, Build 16179 comes with a robust catalog of bugfixes, adjustments, and minor features. First among which is a new feature for virtual machine users, which Microsoft is calling Revert VM. Ultimately, it creates a checkpoint every time a virtual machine is started, allowing users to restore to the last boot to undo any mistakes.

Additionally, desktop icons will no longer wander around all on their own. Microsoft patched a bug which was causing some users’ desktop icons to move around unexpectedly when “Auto-arrange icons” was enabled. Microsoft also fixed a bug which was causing Hindi language users to experience crashes every time they attempted to launch Microsoft Edge.

As always, you can browse the full details of every new feature, tweak, and minor bugfix in Build 16179 on the Windows Insider blog.

Facebook’s newest tech will let you type with your brain and hear with your skin

Why it matters to you

These breakthroughs may seem lightyears away, but Facebook says they are in fact closer than we think — possessing massive implications for the future of communication in our lifetime.

Facebook has some pretty surprising ideas about the future of communication, and they extend far beyond news feeds and even augmented reality. The social media giant announced during day two of its F8 developer conference that its Building 8 hardware lab is working on technology that will one day allow you to type with your thoughts and hear through your skin.

Our brains, along with the cochleas in our ears, possess the power to reconstruct language from components , and Facebook is looking at hardware and software to transmit those components to the body via pressure changes and vibrations. During the day 2 keynote, the company demonstrated a video of one of its engineers repeating words communicated to her through sensors embedded in a sleeve on her arm. Simple words, like “blue” or “cube,” were sent through a smartphone, and the engineer was able to understand without a single word being uttered.

The concept may seem crazy at first glance, until you consider the work that has already been done in the field, dating as far back as the development of Braille in the 19th century. Facebook is building upon that foundation, with the ultimate goal for one person to be able to “think in Mandarin,” and someone else to instantly “feel in Spanish.”

Regina Dugan, who heads the division and is formerly the head of Google ATAP, said we’re much closer to these goals than many realize. The company is also working on a project that would allow humans to type 100 words per minute using only their brain. Through the use of improved, non-invasive sensors, breakthroughs in optical imaging technology, and machine learning, it’s already a reality as Facebook showed a patient with ALS typing just a handful words with her mind. More than 60 scientists from universities all over the world are working on this project with Facebook to make the goal of typing 100 words per minute with the brain possible.

Still, the social media company is well aware of the privacy questions that will inevitably surface with this initiative. Dugan stated the objective was to achieve the speed of voice with the privacy of text, likening the approach to sharing photos online. We have only several thoughts out of many we’d actually like to share, Dugan said, and Facebook is not interested in broadcasting the random noise in your head.

“Imagine the power such a capability would give to the 780 million people around the world who cannot read or write — but who can surely think and feel,” she said.

Don’t expect to see any of this technology in the real-world this year, but Dugan said maybe in a couple of years.

Facebook’s newest tech will let you type with your brain and hear with your skin

Why it matters to you

These breakthroughs may seem lightyears away, but Facebook says they are in fact closer than we think — possessing massive implications for the future of communication in our lifetime.

Facebook has some pretty surprising ideas about the future of communication, and they extend far beyond news feeds and even augmented reality. The social media giant announced during day two of its F8 developer conference that its Building 8 hardware lab is working on technology that will one day allow you to type with your thoughts and hear through your skin.

Our brains, along with the cochleas in our ears, possess the power to reconstruct language from components , and Facebook is looking at hardware and software to transmit those components to the body via pressure changes and vibrations. During the day 2 keynote, the company demonstrated a video of one of its engineers repeating words communicated to her through sensors embedded in a sleeve on her arm. Simple words, like “blue” or “cube,” were sent through a smartphone, and the engineer was able to understand without a single word being uttered.

The concept may seem crazy at first glance, until you consider the work that has already been done in the field, dating as far back as the development of Braille in the 19th century. Facebook is building upon that foundation, with the ultimate goal for one person to be able to “think in Mandarin,” and someone else to instantly “feel in Spanish.”

Regina Dugan, who heads the division and is formerly the head of Google ATAP, said we’re much closer to these goals than many realize. The company is also working on a project that would allow humans to type 100 words per minute using only their brain. Through the use of improved, non-invasive sensors, breakthroughs in optical imaging technology, and machine learning, it’s already a reality as Facebook showed a patient with ALS typing just a handful words with her mind. More than 60 scientists from universities all over the world are working on this project with Facebook to make the goal of typing 100 words per minute with the brain possible.

Still, the social media company is well aware of the privacy questions that will inevitably surface with this initiative. Dugan stated the objective was to achieve the speed of voice with the privacy of text, likening the approach to sharing photos online. We have only several thoughts out of many we’d actually like to share, Dugan said, and Facebook is not interested in broadcasting the random noise in your head.

“Imagine the power such a capability would give to the 780 million people around the world who cannot read or write — but who can surely think and feel,” she said.

Don’t expect to see any of this technology in the real-world this year, but Dugan said maybe in a couple of years.

Smart bandage uses nanosensors to track how a wound is healing

Why it matters to you

Bandages are currently used to keep dressings clean to avoid infection, but with smart nanosensors they could do so much more.

Bandages are intended to keep a dressing secure and clean in order to reduce healing time and infection rate. However, they may be about to get a new use-case, courtesy of a project from the United Kingdom’s Swansea University Institute of Life Science.

What researchers there have been working on is a new smart bandage capable of tracking how a wound is healing and sending that data back to doctors, via 5G technology. To do this it would employ tiny “nanosensors” able to fit comfortably within the fabric of regular bandages.

The resulting smart bandage would allow doctors and caregivers to know exactly at which stage in the recovery process a wound is, thereby allowing them to tailor their treatment more accurately for the patient.

“Chronic wound management is an initial focus for development, and early application as it is a major challenge for health systems,” Marc Clement, chairman of the Institute of Life Science, told Digital Trends. “Supporting this management outside of the hospital setting. Increasing rates of diabetes and other contributory factors compound this need.”

Unfortunately, Clement wouldn’t spill more details about how exactly the tech works, since the smart bandage concept integrates a number of commercially sensitive technologies its investors are hoping to protect for commercial purposes.

However, the hope is that this technology will be able to be trialed as soon as the next 12 months. “The next stage of research involves integration of the concept into clinical applications [and] pathways, and testing of core technologies,” Clement continued. This work will reportedly involve experts from the Welsh Wound Innovation Centre.

There’s no word on exactly when smart bandages might be available to the general public, but Swansea University is clear about its focus on being at the forefront of the intersection between technology and healthcare. In June this year, it will host a one-day symposium on “Digital Futures in health and well-being,” questioning whether public services can survive without embracing smart technology.