Open Source turns 20: Here’s how it all started

In the dead of winter 20 years ago, Netscape — inspired in part by a treatise on Linux and free software development — released the source code for its Netscape Communicator web browser. The move was unprecedented. This was a publicly traded company that had just reported some disappointing financials announcing to the world that it would make the core of its product available to thinkers, tinkerers and the insatiably curious. Over the days that followed, a cadre of software developers and advocates agonized over a crucial question: What should this kind of stuff be called? After some prolonged discussions and a few phone calls with Netscape, they had their answer.

And thus, 20 years ago, the term “Open Source” was born. The Open Source Initiative formed shortly after that, and one of the working group’s founders — Bruce Perens — adapted the Free Software Guidelines he wrote for the Debian Linux distro to serve as the official Open Source Definition.

In the decades that followed, Open Source software and code have become inextricably woven into our shared digital lives, even in ways you might not be aware of. Sure, apps like LibreOffice and The GIMP get attention as full-featured replacements for costly, proprietary products, and Linux has made truly remarkable progress as a platform of choice in businesses around the world. In those cases, the value of Open Source is clear: It allowed contributors of different backgrounds and skill levels to collaboratively build valuable software.

Most people who buy Android devices, however, probably never think about the Open Source foundation of the software they use. Ditto for people who use WebKit-powered mobile browsers like Safari. The reach of Open Source code is almost unthinkably broad now, but as the Open Source Initiative celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Open Source label, we should take some time to remember that this wasn’t always the case.

After all, free software isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. Its roots stretch back into the computing cultures of the ’70s, but were more formally codified in the ’80s by legendary hacker Richard Stallman in a manifesto for his then-incomplete GNU operating system. GNU was meant to be a fully Unix-compatible OS available to whoever needed it, or whoever wanted to modify it to better suit their needs. The subsequent rise of the free-software movement wasn’t one necessarily based on the needs of the market; it was an ideological endeavor forged out of a belief that users can and should be able to use, modify and share programs in a way that provides and protects those same freedoms for others. Note that this interpretation of free software doesn’t necessarily take price into account. As the saying goes, it’s “free” as in “freedom.”

By the time the Open Source label was created, free projects like Linux (and all its variations) had already been embraced by major parties. The thing is, while the Open Source ethos was built on top of similar principles, the label itself was at least partially meant to close the gap between the free-software movement and the more mainstream business community. Eric S. Raymond, writer of the treatise that helped spark the Netscape situation, wrote in a note called Goodbye, “free software”; hello, “open source” that the vague meaning of “free” software made “corporate types” nervous.

“We now have a pragmatic interest in converting these people rather than thumbing our noses at them,” Raymond said in his post. “There’s now a chance we can make serious gains in the mainstream business world without compromising our ideals and commitment to technical excellence.”‘

When the Open Source Initiative was officially formed, its motive wasn’t explicitly to make freely available, freely modifiable software more palatable to businesses. It was to make such software more palatable to everyone, to prove that such accessible code was a viable alternative for — or in some cases, a valuable additive to — proprietary software. Needless to say, the industry got the picture.

As a result, however, tension began to develop between adherents to Stallman’s classical, ideologically pure approach to free software and the more market-friendly ethos embodied by the OSI. Even now, the debate hasn’t fully settled — just look at some of the myriad takes on the matter. Still, there’s little question that the groundswell of enthusiasm and advocacy for Open Source software that followed allowed valuable tools to flourish and adapt for use in ways we couldn’t have expected 20 years ago. As a result, Open Source software forms many of the technological foundations we take for granted, and will continue to fuel new ideas and new approaches to problems we as enter the movement’s third decade.

Probiotics for plants? Here’s how AI-optimized bacteria could accelerate agriculture

The global population is rapidly rising. The rate is slowing, sure, but experts predict that two billion more people will inhabit the Earth by 2050. That’s equivalent to adding another India and a half, which will put the total global population at around 9.7 billion people. That’s a lot of mouths to feed and one huge task — especially considering our failure to do so at present.

Experts predict that two billion more people will inhabit the Earth by 2050.

If we’re going to feed all these extra people we won’t just need big ideas. We’ll need a bunch of microscopic microbes as well.

That’s the bet being made by a biotech startup called Indigo Agriculture whose plan is to pump plants with a bunch of beneficial microbes to make the crops grow faster, stronger, and more productively. It’s a long shot, but it could give farmers access to crops that not only grow better in current climates but are better prepared for the impacts of climate change around the world.

Microbes, Microbes Everywhere

At any given moment, you’re sitting in a sea of trillions of microbes that live on, in, and all around you. Though they’re invisible to the naked eye, they’re far from inert. A growing body of research is showing that microbes affect a wide range of factors, including our mood, our health, and even our ability to handle stress and fend off disease.

But our microbiome is in danger of being destabilized. Ever since we began swallowing antibiotics, the bacterial environment in our bodies has changed. Antibiotics work great for eliminating harmful bacteria but their indiscriminate nature means that they wipe out a lot of beneficial bacteria as well.

Indigo Agriculture

“Our microbes have evolved with us, enhancing our ability to maintain optimal health and fend off disease,” Lauren Moores, Vice President of Data Strategy and Data Sciences at Indigo, tells Digital Trends. “The mass adoption of antibiotics affected these beneficial microbes. So we’ve taken to consuming live and active cultures – probiotics – to repopulate our intestines with good bacteria.”

Much the same goes for plants. The widespread use of agricultural chemicals and fungicides have disrupted a nuanced plant microbiome that developed over millions of years. These chemicals kill disease causing bacteria, but they also eliminate specialized microbes that may help the plant better withstand stresses like drought, or grow more productively by trapping vital nutrients like nitrogen.

Indigo’s founders figured that if the human microbiome has such a massive effect on human health, shouldn’t a plant’s microbiome also be key to its survival? And, if so, how do we identify which microbes are beneficial and for what purpose? And how do we restore these thriving communities of bacteria in our crops?

Microscopes on the Microbiome

Most studies conducted on microbial life have centered on the ones most closely associated with humans — like those found on our skin and in our gut. And though there has been a fair amount of research into microbes found on other animals, plant microbes (and the roles they play) have been relatively neglected until recently.

“Our microbes have evolved with us, enhancing our ability to maintain optimal health and fend off disease.”

“A lot of papers have come out in the last five years, kind of as a follow up to what we’ve learned from the microbiome in other [biological] systems,” Harsh Bais, a plant and soil scientists at the University of Delaware, says. “But the whole functional significance of the microbiome association in plants is still not fully out in terms of the detailed mechanisms of why a plant needs them,”

For decades, researchers have known that bacteria on plants and in the soil help “fix” nitrogen, allowing the plants to better access this key nutrient. But in 2015, Sharon Doty, a plant microbiologist at the University of Washington, showed that entire communities of beneficial bacteria exist within plants and allow species like poplar and willow trees to grow tall and strong in rocky and otherwise nutrient-poor conditions. In her study, Doty was even able to transfer these nitrogen-fixing microbes to another plant — rice, in this case — which let the crop grow taller, with a fuller root system.

Indigo Agriculture

“Just as the human microbiome is important for our health, so too the plant microbiome is necessary for plant health, but perhaps more so,” Doty wrote in her book, Functional Importance of the Plant Endophytic Microbiome. “Since plants cannot move, they face more challenges in acquiring sufficient nutrients from a given site, defending against herbivores and pathogens, and tolerating abiotic stresses including drought, salinity, and pollutants. The plant microbiome may help plants overcome these challenges.”

Building on this knowledge, the folks at Indigo have sequenced the genes of tens of thousands of plant-based microbes: the largest database of plant microbe that exists today. With this data, they use machine learning algorithms to predict the microbial strains that have the greatest impact on important crops like cotton, corn, rice, and wheat.  The hope is that Indigo can restore — and even boost — the microbial environment to help these crops perform better out in the field.

“The real impact will come from combining this tool with other technologies we have that are rapidly evolving in the plant breeding space.”

“All in all, with machine learning, we can precisely identify microbes, map their functional capabilities, understand the communities they live in, and unite this information with laboratory and field data to rapidly develop and target new microbial products,” Moores said.

Ultimately, Indigo provide a microbial coating that’s applied to seeds before they are planted in the ground. And while there are other companies looking into beneficial bacteria for plants, they’re primarily focused on those found in the soil, while Indigo investigates those inside plants.

Indigo’s approach shows huge potential for agriculture and its funding rounds have reeled in over $400 million as a result. But there are plenty of question marks behind the company’s research. Indigo may be able to identify what microbes are present in plants, and they may even be able to pick out which ones are beneficial, but determining their role and the most effective combinations will prove challenging. It’s one thing to know which bacteria are present, and another thing entirely to know what they do and why.

For his part, Bais remains cautious but intrigued. “There are a lot of open-ended and unanswered questions that we have no clue about” he says. Not that these questions can’t be answered, but that it will take a lot of trial and error to do so. As Bais explains, scientists will have to “take a bug, take a plant, and see what the bacteria is doing to that plant. Then take the same bug and take multiple plants and see whether that can be translated to multiple plants.”

But as the science behind the plant microbiome progresses, Indigo has positioned itself to be a top contender, if not ahead of the game.

“The scientific community is still early in its study of the plant microbiome, particularly as compared to fields such as plant pathology and soil science,” Moores says. “That being said, our emerging understanding of the role that microbes play in humans has sparked a revolution in healthcare. We believe that we’re on the forefront of a similar revolution in agriculture. There is a tremendous opportunity here.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• How ‘speed breeding’ will supercharge farming to save us from starvation
• The best SUVs you can buy
• Before ‘plantscrapers’ can grow food in the city, they’ll need to grow money
• The GroBox One lets your indoor garden grow, no green thumb needed
• Twitter is using A.I. to ditch those awful auto-cropped photos

Tesla’s plan to charge electric semis relies on its customers

Customers have been lining up to order some of Tesla’s electric big rigs since the Semi debuted in November, but there is one big question: where will they get charged? According to Reuters, at first the rollout will rely on customers like Pepsi and UPS to build on-site “megachargers” and trucks will be restricted to going back and forth on routes that keep them near home base. Representatives for the companies confirmed they’re working with Tesla to build in-house charging locations, however, the plan for a Supercharger-like network that could juice up trucks on the road is a bit fuzzier.

Source: Reuters

Dell XPS 8930 review

Research Center:
Dell XPS 8930 Tower

There’s been a lot of excitement surrounding Dell’s XPS hardware in the last few years. Whether it’s the XPS All-In-One or the XPS 13, they’ve been the flagship products in Dell’s lineup. They focus on style and design without sacrificing the capabilities you’d expect from a premium PC.

Further in the background, Dell has a line of desktop towers with the XPS branding. We got a chance to review the new XPS 8930, an all-black PC that comes with 8th-gen Intel Core processors and some surprising gaming capability. Our review unit came with the four-core Core i3-8100, 8GB of RAM and, most importantly, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, for a retail price of $1000. The XPS 8930 Tower works as an entry-level gaming PC, as well as a simple home workstation. You can, of course, move to a Core i5 for an extra $100, a Core i7 for an extra $250, or up even upgrade to a Radeon RX 580 if you want.

With the rising prices of GPUs, systems like this have become a lot more attractive. But does the XPS 8930 give you a solid base for your future computing needs? Let’s dig in.

Safe, familiar, and inoffensive

There’s not much you can do to a tower like this to make it stand out. Unless you’ve got a tricked-out gaming desktop with glowing neon lights, people often prefer these things to sit under desks where no one can see them.

The XPS Tower isn’t at all marketed as a gaming desktop and doesn’t look like one.

In its recent redesign of the XPS 8930 Tower, Dell hasn’t done all that much to spice up the formula. It uses a combination of matte and glossy finishes to create a black version of the gaming-focused, silver XPS Tower Special Edition. This new all-black version of the XPS Tower is nice enough to not want to completely hide it at the back of your desk, but it’s definitely nothing new.

It should be noted that the XPS Tower isn’t at all marketed as a gaming desktop – and it doesn’t look like one either. Compared to something like the Dell Inspiron Gaming Desktop, this is a far more subtle case, relying on clean lines and subdued design choices. It’s not a bad-looking product, but it’s not nearly as interesting as we wished it was.

The good news is that the case itself feels firm and durable across all the different panels and connection points. Even though the exterior is plastic over a metal chassis, you won’t feel much flex or give. On top of that, it’s fairly small and light, coming in at 22 pounds, which is lighter than the 30-pound Inspiron or even something like the 33-pound Lenovo Ideacentre Y900. It’s also two inches shorter than the Inspiron and an inch skinnier.

Everything you need, and then some

The XPS features a decent selection of ports, mixing in two USB-C ports among a smattering USB-A, an HDMI, Display Port, Gigabit Ethernet, Mic-in, and an SD card reader. In other words, there’s plenty of USB to go around here, and everything else you’d need, too. USB-C is nice to see, since more and more devices and accessories are using the newer port type – and especially since it was missing on Dell’s Inspiron 5675 Gaming Desktop.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Dell has put a handful of the ports on the front for convenient access, along with the rare optical drive. It makes plugging in a flash drive, smartphone, or peripheral quick and easy. You won’t ever run out of ports in the front or wish you had more – and that’s a good thing to not have to worry about.

Ready for upgrades — just look closer

As is customary with mainstream market desktops, access to your internal components isn’t exactly obvious. But what they’ve done here is a bit more interesting. In fact, if you’re anything like us, it might not be immediately apparent how you even get this thing open. We eventually found a subtle black latch at the top of the back of the tower, which pulled open to pop the side panel out. Once we did have it pulled open, we didn’t feel like we could see much more. The CPU was completely obscured and we were immediately annoyed that Dell had chosen to keep everything so cluttered.

Dell calls its tool-less system “innovative” and we agree. We just wouldn’t call it intuitive.

Or so we thought. Not unlike the side panel, we found out via the official website that the entire power supply rack swings out to expose the rest of the components. It’s a very different way of putting together a PC tower in smaller space — and we’ve got to applaud Dell for that.

Most importantly, the unique system allowed Dell to pack a substantial amount of power in the chassis — enough to handle some significant upgrades.

Speaking of upgrades, the CPU comes soldered on, so you’re stuck there. However, the GPU can be easily replaced. In addition, you’ve got access to two available slots of PCIe for expansion cards, and two empty HDD slots. While the size of the chassis limits upgradability, there’s plenty of room here to level up your specs down the road.

Dell calls its tool-less system “innovative,” and we agree. We just wouldn’t call it intuitive. After all, it took us a while to even figure out what we could do with it. But that doesn’t take anything away from the fact that Dell made it possible to easily access all the important components without having to break out a single screwdriver.

A secret quad-core CPU

Our review unit came with the Core i3-8100, which is the first time we’ve tested it in a full PC package. Despite what you may think, some gamers have been basing entry-level builds off this CPU, thanks to the fact that this generation’s Core i3 is now quad-core, and fairly affordable. The i3-8100 is obviously positioned on the lower end of the spectrum, but it proved to have some muscle behind it, clocking in at 3.6Ghz.

In single-core performance, we found it to beat out older desktop PCs like the Surface Studio (Core i7-6820HQ) and the Dell Inspiron 27 (Ryzen 7 1700), but not so much in multi-core performance in most comparisons. In real-time usage, we found it more than capable for daily activity and moderate workloads — just don’t expect it to edit 4K video. It should also be noted that you can’t overclock the i3-8100 — what you see is what you get. It’s a CPU meant for efficiency and low power-draw, and in some ways, that’s perfect for what the XPS 8930 is meant to be.

The price is where things get a little dodgy. It’s not that the i3-8100 is a bad CPU — Dell is just charging a bit too much for it here. It’s something that won’t be noticed if you aren’t pushing your system to its limits, but you might notice it in performance of certain games and other processor-intensive applications. Compared to something like Dell’s Inspiron 5675 Gaming Desktop or the Asus G11DF, you’re paying just a bit extra for less processing power.

Super fast, super slow

Our review unit came with 256GB of NVMe SSD storage from Toshiba and a 1TB SATA hard drive from Western Digital. The inclusion of the SSD for storage is a big plus, but is unfortunately only available in the higher-end configurations, which is a bit of bummer. For anything under $1000, you’ll end with the standard spinning, slow-as-molasses hard drive.

The good news is that the SSD is crazy fast, coming in at a blazing read speed of 2.72GB per second and a much slower write speed of 346MB per second. The extreme difference is a bit odd, though it’s hard to complain about a read speed that fast. As expected, the hard drive is much slower by comparison, though it’s roomy 1TB of storage is always nice to have — just don’t expect to pull files from it quickly.

Gaming wasn’t an afterthought

The thing most people will want to know about this relatively inexpensive desktop is whether it can play games. The answer is yes, especially when you’re talking about 1080p.

Featuring the capable Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB of GDDR5, we found game performance to be smooth, handling For Honor at a steady 77 fps (frames per second) on Extreme. It even handled Deus Ex: Mankind Divided better than some of its competitors, averaging 51 fps on High graphics setting, over the MSI Trident 3 and the Asus G11DF. Meanwhile, in our 3DMark tests, we found the XPS 8930 to be competitive with the MSI Trident 3, a compact gaming PC that features the same graphics card. It’s hard not to be impressed, considering the look of the chassis and the price you paid. Performance in Civilization VI was similarly fluid, hitting 62 fps on Ultra.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

It continued to outperform its competitors in Battlefield 1, where we tested it at both Medium and Ultra graphics detail in 1080p. Either way, you’re getting a lot out of that GTX 1060, surpassing framerates from desktops like the Asus G11DF and MSI Trident 3. Obviously, you’ll get more from a system with a GTX 1080 — or even the Dell Inspiron 5675’s Radeon RX 580, which landed 93 fps in Battlefield 1 — but we were quite happy with how well XPS 8930 could handle our game tests in 1080p.

We also took it for a spin on a 1440p display to see how many pixels the GTX 1060 could push. The XPS 8930 was up for the challenge, breezing through games like Battlefield 1 and Civilization VI on Ultra, getting 60 fps or higher in 1440p.

However, as you can see, the XPS 8930 hit a bit of a wall when we tried running Deus Ex on Ultra mode in 1440p. It squeezed out only 34 fps. Gaming at 1440p on the XPS 8930 can be done, but you’ll find that there are limitations in terms of what games and graphics settings you can use. We even tried Battlefield 1 in 4K for kicks, and the results weren’t great (around 31 fps), but it was still playable.

Overall, we were surprised at well the XPS 8930 handled pretty much everything we threw at it. Clearly, the GTX 1060 is a capable little GPU and should last you well into a couple of game cycles before you want to upgrade. And don’t forget, in addition to gaming, the high-performing graphics card means things like 3D rendering and photo editing get easier too.

Warranty

The XPS 8930 comes with a basic 1-year hardware service, which includes in-home service bundled into the price. That’s not bad, but you may want to jump up to one the Premium Support plans, which range from an extra year up to four years of support.

Dell XPS 8930 Tower Compared To

Origin Millennium

Asus G11DF-DBR5-GTX1060

Dell Inspiron 5675

Asus ROG Strix GD30CI

Velocity Micro Raptor M60

Origin Neuron

Alienware Area 51 (2017)

MSI Trident 9S6-B90611-02S

Digital Storm Velox (Kaby Lake)

Cybertron CLX Ra

Digital Storm Velox

Origin Millennium (2014)

iBuyPower Erebus

Gateway FX6800-01e

HP Blackbird 002

Our Take

The Dell XPS 8930 Tower is made for a small demographic of people. It’s not a dedicated gaming PC, meaning it doesn’t go far enough in terms of custom cases or expandability options. However, it’s a good option for families who want a shared desktop that can be used for work in a home office, as well as great game performance.

Is there a better alternative?

You might think building your own dedicated gaming rig is your best alternative, but these days, high GPU prices make something like the XPS 8930 a much more attractive offer. However, there are some very strong alternatives that you should check out before buying.

The first is the Dell Inspiron 5675 Gaming Desktop, which offers better overall value. You can get a similar package to the XPS 8930 for just $750, or a significantly better Core i7-8700 and GTX 1060 for $1000. The design is not as understated as the XPS, but it wouldn’t look completely out of place in a home office, either. The only downside is at that configuration, you only get the 3GB version of the GTX 1060, as well as a smaller 128GB SSD compared to the XPS’s 256GB.

Another possible option is something like the MSI Trident 3, which has quite a different form factor, but some very comparable performance. It comes at an additional cost, however, making the XPS 8930 a better value. Meanwhile, the $1000 Asus G11DF isn’t exactly a looker, but delivers a more gaming-focused package with the Ryzen 5 and GTX 1060 — and some impressive performance results. In addition, the G11DF can be configured with the GTX 1070 and Ryzen 7 if you so please.

How long will it last?

As far as ports go, there’s a nice array of legacy and future-proof. In addition, there’s plenty of room here to upgrade, meaning you could start with something a bit humbler, and eventually save up enough nickels for some upgraded components.

Should you buy it?

Yes, if you want or need a jack-of-all-trades. The Dell XPS Tower isn’t the best value in any specific area, but it does everything well, making it a good choice for a family PC, or anyone who wants to work hard, play hard on a single desktop machine.

Video cards are so expensive, you’re better off buying an entire desktop PC

Let’s be real. It’s taken way too long for companies like AMD and Nvidia to address the issue of skyrocketing GPU prices.

Thanks to cryptocurrency miners nabbing up GTX 1080s like they’re gold, it hasn’t been easy for the everyday gamer to build or upgrade their PC. There’s been some attempt by retailers and manufacturers to get graphics cards to gamers, but it feels more like grandstanding than actually solving the problem.

The truth is that if you want to go out there and buy a new GPU, it’s going to cost you way more than it should. Over on eBay or Newegg, prices for something like a GTX 1060 with 6GB of GDDR5 range anywhere from $500 to $800. If you want something like a GTX 1080, you’re looking well over a thousand bucks.

The best solution to the problem might be to just put a hold on your plans to build a PC. AMD has finally announced plans to ramp up production to address the problem, and Samsung is already planning on developing chips specifically for the purpose of cryptocurrency mining. Finger crossed — the issue might be solved by the end of 2018, but a lot of that depends on the rollercoaster ride of bitcoin values.

However, there is another option. We recently reviewed the Dell XPS 8930, a modest desktop PC that looks nothing like a gaming tower. Beneath the surface, our review configuration came with a GeForce GTX 1060 with 6GB of GDDR5 that dominated our benchmarks and tests. It might not do 4K gaming at 60 frames per second, but most people will be pretty happy with the game performance here. The entire system costs $1,000, while the graphics card itself will cost you almost $800 on its own.

Want to do one better? Go over and check out the new Dell Inspiron 5675 Gaming Desktop, which comes the GTX 1060 with 3GB of GDDR5 and the same CPU, but starts at only $750. We haven’t benchmarked the Inspiron yet, but there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t be in the same ballpark.

Until Nvidia, AMD, and their various manufacturing partners figure out how to fix this problem, your best bet just might be to check out one of Dell’s new desktop PCs.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Dell XPS 8930 review
• Nvidia speaks out against rising price of GPUs due to cryptocurrency mining
• Dell Inspiron 15 7577 Gaming Review
• The best VR-ready laptops you can buy right now
• Dell’s customizable Inspiron Gaming Desktop has something for all types of gamers

Bitdefender Box (2018) review

There’s a good chance you have an antivirus installed on your computer. Having antivirus is of course an excellent idea, and highly recommended — but its scope is limited. It protects only the device it’s installed on. In today’s era of always connected smart speakers, locks, and cameras, that’s not good enough.

Bitdefender thinks it has a solution with the Box. Now in its second generation, the Box is a cross between a home router and antivirus software. It does the usual home router tasks, but also scans devices for common vulnerabilities, and warns you of unusual behavior.

Easy to install, usually

Simple, quick installation is a focus of the Box. It comes with straightforward instructions that get the router up and running within five minutes. Bitdefender knows that you likely already have a Wi-Fi network, and so prominently includes the option to clone your existing network, which makes for a seamless transition. That’s an important feature given the number of Wi-Fi devices in today’s homes. Resetting ever smart speaker, laptop, phone, and game console is a chore the Box avoids.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

We did run into an issue setting up the Box with a Zyxel C2100z router provided by CenturyLink. Setup was easy yet wired Ethernet speeds were mysteriously constrained. Thankfully, this initial issue seems an exception, since we had no problem configuring the router with several other networks.

Simple, quick installation is a focus of the Box.

Box is designed as part of a full ecosystem of Bitdefender products including its Total Security software (a one-year subscription is included). That means you’ll have to install Bitdefender on your PC and smartphones for fully functionally. The Bitdefender Central smartphone app makes that simple, as you can push email links to devices for quick setup.

The router’s performance is acceptable. It supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi over the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and we found it reliable at ranges of 20 to 30 meters, which is enough for most homes. Wired use is more limited because there’s only a single gigabit Ethernet port. This seems to be a trend among more modern, security-minded routers. Still, given the price, we’d like to see more ports. There’s no support for smart home standards like ZigBee of Z-Wave, either.

A watchful router

Once up and running, the Box is fully controlled through Bitdefender Central. Despite the name, Central is split between app and browser interfaces.

The app handles most tasks. You can use it to check up on data use, see what’s connected to your network, pause devices, and so on. It also delivers notifications; for example, it will tell you when a new device connects to your network, or when any protected device attempts to access a malicious URL. That latter feature is, we think, a key benefit for families. Maybe you’re being mindful of security, but what about everyone else who uses your computer or network? The Box can tip you off if someone’s gullible enough to click on an ad promising a free iPhone.

Given the price, we’d like to see more Ethernet ports.

We can’t tell you with certainty that the Box will defend against any threat, and even if it did protect against all malware at the moment you read this review, it wouldn’t protect against malware that exists tomorrow. A degree of trust is required. Luckily, there is reason to believe in Bitdefender. The company’s antivirus scores well in AV-Comparatives testing and has earned tops marks from the AV-Test Institute.

Parents may also be interested in the parental control features, which are mostly handled through the web interface. Box has the usual tricks, like restricting access by time or by type of website. It goes a step further though with phone management — and lets your kid check in as “safe” with the press of a button. An even greater degree of monitoring is available with Android phones, including real-time location tracking.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Box can detect threats through social media, too. The software can, if given proper access, alert you if someone asks for your child’s address. At the same time, the tool is built for a degree of privacy. Box doesn’t continually log conversations, but instead exposes only the messages it believes a threat. It seems a nice compromise between privacy and safety.

Security, at a price

The Bitdefender Box is expensive at $250. It comes with a year’s subscription to Bitdefender Total Security (with support for an unlimited number of devices) but, after that, you’ll need to spend around $40-$50 per year on the software. The Box will work as a router without it, but its network monitoring and parental control features will be severely curtailed.

That adds up to a good chunk of change. You’re likely used to free antivirus suites, and Bitdefender’s Box is a step in a different direction. Whether it’s worthwhile depends on your household. The bigger it is, the more sense the Box makes. A family of five will likely have at least five devices but, once you’ve added sensors and phones and laptops, it could be in the upper teens.

Just make sure you’re okay going all-in on the Bitdefender ecosystem and paying a subscription fee each year. This is not just a router. It’s a commitment.

DT Editors’ Rating: 3/5

Editors’ Recommendations

• Bitdefender Box 2 is bigger and bolder than its older brother
• Protect your home with Securifi’s mesh Wi-Fi and smart home combo
• Google updates smart devices to fix Wi-Fi crashing issues
• D-Link Covr brings reliable Wi-Fi to your 6,000-square-foot mansion
• Modem vs. router: What’s the difference?

Got A.I? Facial recognition now works on cows, with goal of better milk

Facial recognition is good for more than security features on Facebook and organizing your photo albums — the artificial intelligence-based technology could soon help ensure that milk in your fridge came from a well-fed cow. That’s right, facial recognition now works on cows. This week, agricultural company Cargill and machine-vision company Cainthus announced a partnership that will create an A.I. system for dairy farmers.

The image-recognition system is able to recognize a cow using both the animal’s pattern of spots and the cow’s actual face. The system takes a few seconds to recognize an individual cow, the companies said.

So why tell a specific cow apart from the rest of the herd? By giving the cameras the ability to determine which cow is which, a computer and camera system can monitor each bovine’s food and water intake, along with looking for odd behaviors and sending health alerts when something changes. The camera-based system can also use heat detection to monitor the herd’s health.

Giving computers the ability to monitor just how much food and water each cow receives turns what would be a several week manual process into something that happens almost in real time, according to the companies. With that information, dairy farmers can anticipate issues and use the information to adjust feeding — all factors that can help increase a farm’s efficiency, along with preventing animal loss.

The partnership will first focus on the computer-tracking system for the dairy industry, but the group plans to expand to additional types of animals in the future, including pigs and chickens as well as aquatic fish farms.

Cargill already has an app that helps farmers track factors like milk production and feed, a platform called Dairy Enteligen. Partnering with the machine vision company Cainthus, which is based in Dublin, will bring new management options that use a camera system, rather than manual data entries, to track data.

“Our shared vision is to disrupt and transform how we bring insights and analytics to dairy producers worldwide,” SriRaj Kantamneni, managing director for Cargill’s digital insights business, said in a press release. “Customers’ ability to make proactive and predictive decisions to improve their farm’s efficiency, enhance animal health and well-being, reduce animal loss, and ultimately increase farm profitability.”

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Giant cryptocurrency mine that runs on green energy coming to Iceland

Everyone wants to be a part of the cryptocurrency revolution, but it’s not necessarily so good for the planet. For instance, the Bitcoin network alone consumes more energy than the country of Bulgaria. Cooling the rigs involved also requires a whole lot of power. If cryptocurrency mining really is going to be a long-term solution, it’s important that environmentally friendly, sustainable methods are put into place to help carry it out.

The Moonlite Project is building a data center in Iceland that will be used for the mining of cryptocurrencies — including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash and Litecoin — on an industrial scale. Construction on the data center will begin in April and it will open in August. While it will be used to help Moonlite pursue its ambition of becoming one of the largest cryptocurrency-mining organizations in the world, Moonlite wants to do so using low-cost, sustainable and green energy exclusively.

“Our data center, and future data centers, will always make use of 100 percent clean and renewable energy sources, such as energy being generated from hydro, wind, and geothermal sources,” Eric Krige, Moonlite Project’s founder and CEO, told Digital Trends. The site will also benefit from Iceland’s naturally cool climate, which will help eliminate the need for extensive cooling infrastructure.

Krige said that the data center will employ some smart tech beyond its use of environmentally friendly means of cooling and generating power. “We will be deploying custom mining software and additional software that is already on the market,” he said. “Our teams will be implementing some smart mining tech as well, including A.I. and custom algorithms to assist in miner management, and to ensure that we are focusing on what is profitable at all times.”

The Icelandic data center will, Krige said, be running at a capacity of 15 megawatts, with plans to expand beyond that level. It aims to produce roughly $8 million per month in mined currency. While we’ll wait until it’s all up and running before getting too excited, it’s an intriguing project — and proof that the drive toward using sustainable energy and making serious cryptocurrency bank (hopefully!) don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

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Alexa will stay calm during Amazon’s Super Bowl ad

Given that Amazon’s latest Super Bowl ad mentions Alexa no less than 10 times, that begs a question: will you have to unplug your Echo speaker to avoid Burger King levels of chaos as it responds to every single utterance? Thankfully, the answer is “no.” Amazon has confirmed that it’ll use acoustic fingerprinting techniques to prevent Alexa-equipped devices from going into a tizzy during the 90-second commercial. Your gadgets will know they’re listening to the ad, not someone in your living room, and will ignore the requests.

The company doesn’t go into to too much detail about what the fingerprinting involves, but it stems from a command filtering patent. For the Super Bowl ad and other promos where Amazon already knows what’s coming, Amazon will send fingerprints in advance so Alexa can compare input and ignore requests from ads. In situations where Amazon can’t predict what will happen (such as a TV segment), it uses dynamic fingerprinting that looks for many simultaneous activations based on the same audio. This won’t catch every false request, but it typically stops “80 to 90 percent” of devices from responding. Let’s put it this way — a funny incident shouldn’t devolve into national chaos.

Amazon has another technique where it can send an inaudible signal in the 3kHz to 6kHz range to stop Alexa from responding, although that doesn’t appear to be in use here.

Unfortunately, the patent suggests that other companies will have to find other ways to screen for unintended input. And that’s unfortunate — just ask anyone who’s had a phone go off when a show says “OK Google” or “hey Siri.” However, it’s good to know that companies are just as annoyed by false responses as you are.

Via: Bloomberg

Source: Amazon, Reddit, Google Patents

Chinese Counterfeiter Busted for Selling $1.1M of Fake iPhones and iPads

A Chinese counterfeiter who participated in a scheme to traffic and smuggle counterfeit products mimicking Apple’s iPhones and iPads today pled guilty to trafficking and conspiracy charges, according to a press release shared on the website of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Jianhua “Jeff” Li, working through a company called Dream Digitals, conspired with several other individuals to smuggle more than 40,000 fake iPads, iPhones, and accessories into the United States from China from 2009 to 2014. The electronic devices in question included labels and packaging bearing counterfeit Apple trademarks.

To get the counterfeit products into the country, Li shipped the devices separately from the counterfeit trademarks. Fake devices were sent all over the United States, and proceeds from the sales were funneled into bank accounts in Florida and New Jersey.

Li, who was officially charged with one count of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods and labels and to smuggle goods into the United States and one count of trafficking in counterfeit goods, received payments totaling more than $1.1 million from U.S. accounts.

Li could be facing several years in prison for his crime. A co-conspirator, Rosario LaMarca, was sentenced to 37 months in prison back in July, while two others Li worked with, Roberto Volpe and Andreina Becerra, are awaiting sentencing.
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