When China hoards its hackers everyone loses

They say you don’t notice something good until it’s gone. With China’s decision to restrict its information security researchers from participating in global hacking competitions, we’re about to see what that looks like on the global “zero day” stage.

For over a decade Pwn2Own — happening this week — has brought together security talent from across the globe in a friendly hacking competition that is a cornerstone of research and advancement on par with Black Hat and Def Con.

China’s hackers routinely win, sweeping the board — notably, the Tencent and Keen teams. Pwn2Own is good-natured, and all in the name of researchers finding big bugs, nabbing great bounties and drawing attention to security holes and zero-days that need to be fixed.

But this year, according to Pwn2Own manager Brian Gorenc, China is no longer allowing its researchers to compete. Prior to the start of Pwn2Own this week, Gorenc told press “There have been regulatory changes in some countries that no longer allow participation in global exploit contests, such as Pwn2Own and Capture the Flag competitions.”

One thing’s for certain: yearly champions Tencent’s Keen Labs and Qihoo 360’s 360Vulcan team are nowhere to be found and Trend Micro, the conference organizer, has confirmed to Engadget that there are no Chinese competitors in this year’s competition.

Stuck behind the Great Firewall

A spokesperson from Trend Micro told us via email, “If regulatory changes do prevent certain countries from participating, we would expect it to be across many events and not just Pwn2Own. These regulatory changes likely apply to other types of competitions.”

It’s a worrying development in the direction of isolationism and away from the benefits of competition in the spirit of improving security for all. It comes at a time when relations between the US and China strain under the weight of Huawei security concerns, which are not at all new, but are certainly coming to a head as American companies sever business ties with the firm.

It definitely puts all eyes on Def Con, which is having its first Chinese conference in early May. When reached for comment, the organization was still observing these developments.

The wider infosec community was just plain disappointed. Microsoft Edge Security hacker Jonathan Norman said in a tweet that the decision to keep China’s hackers out of Pwn2Own was “depressing” because he “Worked really hard preparing for this year and wanted to see the results.” Others said it just wasn’t going to be the same without Keen participating, and they’re not wrong.

One could argue that Pwn2Own makes everyone more secure. It’s a contest that lights a fire under fat boys like Microsoft, Google, Apple, VMware, Mozilla and others, who routinely release big security patches immediately before the event. In addition, those behind Pwn2Own note that “There have been instances of teams filing bug reports with vendors prior to the contest in the hopes of killing competitor’s exploits.”

Pwn2Own was formed by Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, an organization to “encourage the reporting of zero day vulnerabilities responsibly to the affected vendors.” They wrote in a blog post on Pwn2Own’s tenth anniversary:

Would movement towards more secure software like this happen without Pwn2Own? Possibly, but Pwn2Own serves as an annual forcing function for vendors. It’s an annual assessment of the state of security as we pit the best vendors have to offer against some of the best security researchers in the world.

A special edition of “Hoarders”

It appears that China’s government wants to keep vuln discoveries by its citizens within its borders, a sentiment expressed by the country’s top executives as well. Leading Chinese security company Qihoo 360’s CEO Zhou Hongyi is a vocal opponent of Chinese teams going abroad to compete in events like Pwn2Own.

In last year’s competition the top five winners were from China, with three of them hailing from Tencent. In reaction, Hongyi told Sina Technology that any vuln discoveries by Chinese researchers “should remain in China.” This suggests that while China’s hacking teams love to compete and skill-share, the country’s executives and managers are wont to hoard zero days and bugs.

For something like Pwn2Own, there are many bugs — and cash prizes — to be had. Last year, for the event’s ten-year anniversary, the Zero Day Initiative awarded $833,000 to white hat hackers, exposing 51 different zero-day bugs. Most were found by Chinese researchers. China’s researchers emerged as a force to reckon with at the 2013 Mobile Pwn2Own contest in Japan and Tencent’s Keen team hacked and remotely controlled Tesla cars, giving a presentation and demonstration of the hacks at Black Hat USA 2017.

Chinese teams have a solid track record at Pwn2Own, but their work at the 2016 contest is possibly the best example of how the global competition contributes to better security for everyone.

In 2016, Tencent’s rival Qihoo 360 walked away with $520,000 in prize money from sister event PwnFest; thanks to them the security of Google’s then-new Pixel phone was gone in 60 seconds by hackers from Qihoo 360. The same year, the Nexus 6p was hacked in under five minutes at Moblie Pwn2Own by the Tencent “Keen team” white hat hacking group.

“Google said the Chrome bug that Keen Team found was patched within 24 hours of the event and the changes have already been released into the stable branch by the Chrome team,” wrote The Register.

Divided we falter

Taking Chinese teams out of global hacking competitions may seem like a detail only noticed in the niche-est of security research chatter. Who cares if the guys making all the big strides in pushing the boundaries of big-name security get held back? Let’s give everyone else a chance, right?

If only it worked that way. One country’s decision to hoard its talent and their zero days shows us just how social security really is. It’s a group effort. Let’s set aside for the moment that taking one country’s teams off the playing field goes against the larger idea of Pwn2Own’s effectiveness. With everyone attacking the big companies under race-condition terms, everyone benefits.

Without groups like Keen Labs or 360Vulcan, we glimpse a future security landscape, one going backwards, into secular infosec practices, nationalism, and vuln hoarding. It’s a sick feeling, like watching the United States succumbing to separationism on the global stage, or the UK willfully cutting off its own oxygen with Brexit. It reminds us that a lot of the good parts of infosec, the conferences where other cultures mingle, are becoming a thing of the past.

China pulling researchers out of conferences so soldiers can create better weapons for an invisible arms race perfectly captures everything that makes us despair about both the state of infosec and the state of global politics — and all its brutish anti-intellectualism, its ignorance of what works over what’s more isolating. I just hope that somehow, eventually, we can right this ship and move forward, toward the security we’ve all been working for.

Alcatel’s Android Go phone is headed to the US

Two of the phones Alcatel revealed last month at MWC will be coming to the US, the company confirmed. One is the affordable Alcatel 1X is the brand’s first to feature Android Go, a version of the OS customized for lower-performing hardware, while the other is its dual-camera 3V smartphone. Both models will be GSM-unlocked and available in the coming months.

At MWC, multiple companies announced phones that would support the new Android Go OS. While it was pitched as a way for cheaper phones in developing countries to keep parity with Android versions in regions with more powerful devices, US consumers could certainly use an affordable smartphone that runs the latest apps. The 1X is expected to retail for $100 and be the first in the country to offer an 18:9 screen (5.5 inch) at that price — plus, the US edition comes with a fingerprint sensor.

As we saw in Spain, the 3V isn’t the highest-end phone in Alcatel’s lineup, but it does have a few things going for it. Chief among them is a 2160×1080 screen and the company’s first dual-camera setup in its US-sold devices (a main 12-megapixel paired with a wide-angle 2-megapixel).

Microsoft tests forcing Windows Mail users to open links in Edge

Edge might be Windows 10’s built-in browser, but it definitely isn’t the most popular browser — NetMarketShare reported just under 4 percent usage share as of February 2018, slipping well below Chrome’s 59 percent. And now, it looks like the company may be trying to boost its share through software policies. The company is testing a Windows 10 preview release in the Skip Ahead ring which opens all Windows Mail web links in Edge, regardless of your app defaults. It provides the “best, most secure and consistent experience,” Microsoft argued.

The move isn’t coming completely out of the blue. Microsoft required Cortana users to rely on Bing search and open any web content in Edge, so this is arguably an extension of that policy.

Even so, the move is likely to irk at least some Windows 10 users. To start, its claims are highly subjective. Edge certainly isn’t immune to security exploits, and relying on it could actually create an inconsistent experience if you aren’t completely invested in Microsoft software. If you use Chrome on an Android phone, wouldn’t you want every link on your PC to open in Chrome so that they’re easier to retrieve when you’re on your handset? We can’t imagine that European antitrust regulators would be happy about Microsoft locking users into its own browser, either. We’ve asked Microsoft if it can comment on the concerns and will let you know if it has something to say.

It’s important to stress that Windows 10 preview features won’t always make it to finished releases, and that you could always avoid this issue by using an email client that provides more options. Microsoft is taking feedback from Insider members. However, it’s safe to presume that many people aren’t going to relish the thought of existing choices being taken away, especially when they don’t believe there’s a good reason.

Via: The Verge

Source: Windows Experience Blog

Apple Seeds Sixth Beta of watchOS 4.3 to Developers

Apple today seeded the sixth beta of an upcoming watchOS 4.3 update to developers, a few days after seeding the fifth beta and more than a month after releasing watchOS 4.2.3, a minor update focusing on bug fixes.

Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General –> Software update.

To install the update, the Apple Watch needs to have at least 50 percent battery, it has to be placed on the charger, and it needs to be in range of the iPhone it’s paired to.

watchOS 4.3 introduces support for Nightstand mode in portrait orientation, a feature that was previously only available when the watch was placed in landscape orientation. There’s also a new charging animation when the Apple Watch is placed on the charger, a new app loading animation, your Activity data is now displayed on the Siri watch face, and the battery complication more accurately reports battery life.

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The watchOS 4.3 update also brings the return of a much-desired feature that allows music playing on the iPhone to be controlled using the Music app on the Apple Watch.

In prior versions of watchOS, starting with watchOS 4, the Music app could only be used to control music playing on the watch itself. With the tvOS 11.3 beta installed, there’s also an option to control music playing on the Apple TV with the watch.

Apple plans to release watchOS 4.3 to the public in the spring, and until then, it will be limited to developers. Apple offers public betas of tvOS, iOS, and macOS, but watchOS betas are not available for public beta testers because there’s no way to revert to an earlier version of watchOS once an update is installed.

As we’re on the sixth beta, we should be nearing a release date in the next couple of weeks.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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Quick Takes: Apple Pencil 2 Wishlist, Apple’s R&D Spending is Surging

In addition to our standalone articles covering the latest Apple news and rumors at MacRumors, this Quick Takes column provides a bite-sized recap of other headlines about Apple and its competitors on weekdays.

Friday, March 16

Highlights

1. Apple Pencil 2 wishlist: iMore’s Serenity Caldwell offers some good suggestions for a next-generation Apple Pencil, including integration of Apple’s W1 or W2 chips for improved pairing, haptic feedback, wireless charging, and multiple nib options both for improved friction and design.

Commentary: Apple today invited the media to an education-focused event on March 27 at Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago. The artwork for the invite suggests the Apple Pencil could be one focus of the event, with the possibility of both a new version and support added for the 9.7-inch iPad.

2. An Apple R&D bonanza: Above Avalon’s Neil Cybart notes that Apple is on track to spend $14 billion on research and development in its 2018 fiscal year, nearly double the amount it spent on R&D just four years ago. $14 billion would also be more than the amount Apple spent on R&D from 1998 to 2011 combined.

My theory on the dramatic rise in Apple R&D expenditures is that management is becoming more ambitious. Apple’s future is found in new industries. Just as Apple moved from desktops/laptops to personal music players, smartphones, and watches, the company will need to enter new industries to remain relevant. This is not a company that is holding onto the iPhone as tight as possible for fear of change. Apple management is investigating new ideas and processes in order to support future moves into new industries.

Commentary: Apple’s dramatic increase in R&D spending likely signals the company’s interest in a number of new areas. Cybart believes that two new items on Apple’s roadmap that are driving the recent surge in expenditures include augmented reality glasses and a Netflix-like streaming video service.

3. French cosmetics company L’Oréal acquires ModiFace, a Toronto-based startup that developed augmented reality innovations allowing customers to try on cosmetics using its mobile apps or in-store smart mirrors.

Commentary: ModiFace has iPhone and iPad apps for simulating new photo-realistic hair colors, eye colors, cosmetics, teeth whitening, and more. Ahead of the public release of iOS 11, the company also shared an ARKit demo showcasing a lipstick previewer and virtual beauty gallery in a cosmetics store.

Other Links

• Pokémon GO announced it will soon begin rolling out support for account linking with Facebook
• Linksys app is now optimized for iPhone X display
• Fortnite doesn’t load on jailbroken iOS devices
• Microsoft Edge is now available in beta on iPad via Apple’s TestFlight app for Windows Insider program members

For more Apple news and rumors coverage, visit our Front Page, Mac Blog, and iOS Blog. Also visit our forums to join in the discussion.

Tags: Apple Pencil, Quick Takes
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Review: Eve Button Offers Quick Physical Controls for Activating Your Favorite HomeKit Scenes

Elgato has been making HomeKit-enabled “Eve” Bluetooth accessories for several years now, and the company now boasts an impressive lineup that includes a range of sensors, switches and smart plugs, and motion detectors.

Eve Button, Elgato’s newest product, is a simple little three-gesture switch that’s designed to control all of your other HomeKit products, activating scenes, turning lights on and off, and more.

Design

The Eve Button has a simple, clean design with a silver aluminum shell and a black plastic front plate with a smooth, circular button outline that doesn’t protrude at all.

It’s using the same design introduced in the Eve Degree, so if you already have an Eve Degree, the Eve Button will complement it nicely.

While there is no visible button protrusion, if you press on the button outline in the middle of the accessory, it will depress and activate the Eve Button’s gestures. Pressing at the sides does not cause the front plate to depress, so the pressing motion is limited to the center, which is a clever design.

The back of the Eve Button is where the battery compartment is located, which can be opened with a coin. The Eve Button uses a CR2032 replaceable watch battery that can be purchased from a local store or Amazon.com for just a couple of dollars. You can check battery level in the Home app.

Elgato included four little rubber feet for the Eve Button so you can set it flat on a surface and it won’t slip around, but curiously, there’s no included adhesive strip or mounting option. The Eve Button is the kind of accessory I’d like to be able to attach to the wall near my light switch, but that’s not an option.

With other switches and buttons, like the Hue Tap, there’s an included mounting solution so it can go on the wall or be used anywhere, so this is a bit of a disappointing oversight with the Eve Button. Portability is, of course, the preferred functionality because not everyone is going to use this as a light switch, but it would be nice if mounting was an option. It’s certainly light enough that I could pick up a 3M Command Strip on my own to stick it to the wall.

In addition to the four little feet, Elgato also included a whole slew of HomeKit stickers you can place on the Eve to remind you which gesture does what, which is a nice addition. Hue Tap and other competing button-like devices don’t have that option, and it can be difficult to remember what’s what, especially when there are multiple family members using the device.

Functionality

There are three gestures available on the Eve Button, which can be tied to three of your HomeKit scenes: a single press, a double press, and a long press.

All of these gestures are simple to execute, and the Eve Button does a good job telling them apart. I didn’t have much trouble with it mistaking one gesture for another, and it takes just a few seconds (sometimes even less) from when I press the button to when the scene assigned to the button activates. You might think Bluetooth is slow, but it’s not, even when I’m in a different room.

I have noticed once or twice that the Eve Button refuses to respond to a gesture, causing me to repeat it, but it hasn’t happened often in the two weeks I’ve been testing it. For the record, I sometimes have the same issue with other accessories of this type. It’s irritating, but not a dealbreaker.

It can get a little confused if you’re pressing the button to activate different scenes that control the same accessory in rapid succession, but that’s not a normal use case and something I did just for testing.

Scenes are the only thing that can be associated with the Eve Button, but Scenes can incorporate as many HomeKit devices as you’d like. You can, for example, set something like a “Goodnight” scene that locks the doors, turns off the lights, turns down the thermostat, and turns on a night light, depending on which HomeKit products you own.

A “Wake Up” scene could do things like turn on the lights, start the coffee pot, warm up the house, and open the blinds. You can also use simpler scenes if you want the Eve Button to control a single device, like a light. Each gesture can also be tied to multiple scenes, which is handy if you want to keep your scenes separate for voice commands but combine them for the Eve Button.

I have the Eve Button set to turn the bedroom lights on with a single press, off with a double press, and then I have a long press set to activate a scene with my Nanoleaf Aurora for a kind of relaxing lighting scene that incorporates many of my Hue lights.

You’ll note that I am using two of the three button presses for an on/off state, because devices like these don’t naturally have on/off functionality. There is a way around this, though, as HomeKit scenes can be set to “Turn Off” after a set period of time in the Home app. So you could potentially set the Eve Button to turn the lights on in a room like a bathroom, and then set a timer to have them turn off again after 10 minutes without the need to use up a second button slot.

You can also add Conditions to Scenes that are tied to the Eve Button, such as allowing a Scene to be activated by the button only after 6pm or when the temperature is below a certain threshold, but I don’t think these are going to be commonly used with the accessory.

You can, of course, activate scenes without the Eve Button at all through the Home app, another HomeKit app, or through Siri voice commands, but sometimes it’s just easier to press a button. It’s hard to transition entirely away from light switches, especially when there are multiple people in the house, and these kinds of HomeKit buttons and switches are useful replacements, I’ve found.

Setting up the Eve Button, is, of course, as simple as any other HomeKit product and it takes just a few seconds. Open up the box, fire up the Home app or the Eve app, add an accessory, scan the code, assign scenes, and that’s it.

Bottom Line

Elgato’s HomeKit products are some of my favorite. When HomeKit was new, Bluetooth HomeKit devices didn’t work well, but with the myriad HomeKit improvements introduced over the years, Bluetooth HomeKit accessories like the Eve Button work flawlessly.

I am happy with all of the Elgato HomeKit devices that I use, and Elgato has one of the best product-based HomeKit apps out there. I often use the Elgato app to tweak my scenes and my non-Elgato HomeKit devices. I’m also a fan of the design of the Eve Button (and the Eve Degree), and I’m glad to see Elgato appears to be adopting it across the HomeKit lineup. It’s a big improvement over previous Eve accessories that were a plain white plastic.

If you’re new to HomeKit, you might think that it’s silly to go to the trouble of automating your smart home devices and then adding in a physical switch, but accessories like the Eve Button are useful and eliminate annoyances that come with not having an immediately accessible physical control for your devices. I’ve had a Hue Tap for quite some time and it’s one of my most used accessories just because it’s sometimes easier to tap a button than it is to ask my phone to do something for me.

Button accessories also come in handy in multi-person households and when you have guests who might need to control devices like lights.

I do wish the Eve Button had a few more gestures available because $50 is quite a bit to pay for just three, but you can tie each one to your most used scenes to get a lot of value it. I also wish Elgato had included a mounting solution, but you can fix that with a cheap adhesive strip if you really want it on the wall.

How to Buy

Eve Button can be purchased from the Elgato website or from Amazon.com for $49.95.

Note: Elgato provided MacRumors with an Eve Button for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received.

Tags: HomeKit, Elgato, Eve
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iPhone X vs. Galaxy S9+: Which Smartphone Has a Better Camera?

Over the course of this week, we’ve been taking a look at Samsung’s new flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+, as these two devices are the iPhone X’s biggest competition.

In our latest video, available on the MacRumors YouTube channel, we compared the Samsung Galaxy S9+’s dual-lens camera with variable aperture to the vertical dual-lens camera in the iPhone X.

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Samsung decided to focus heavily on image quality in its latest devices, and the S9+ has a 12-megapixel f/1.5 to f/2.4 variable aperture lens as its main camera, which is paired with a 12-megapixel f/2.4 telephoto lens, similar to what’s available in the iPhone X.

A variable aperture is unique to Samsung’s new devices, and it offers some benefits that are going to improve image quality. With a variable aperture, it’s easier to find a balance between light and image quality.

Click to enlarge
At the wider f/1.5 aperture, the Galaxy S9+ camera can let in more light in low light situations, but a wider aperture tends to compromise image sharpness at the edges of the photo. In conditions where the lighting is better, the narrower f/2.4 aperture will provide a crisper higher-quality image. The Galaxy S9+ can automatically select the proper aperture for the best image.

The iPhone X has two lenses like the Galaxy S9+, but no adjustable aperture, and that gives the S9+ a bit of an edge. As you’ll see in the images below, though, both the iPhone X and the Galaxy S9+ have fantastic cameras that are capable of taking some amazing images.

In these photos, we used an automatic mode to capture the images, and no editing was done. This image of a sunset demonstrates some key differences between the two cameras. The S9+ offers a crisper image with more definition, but the colors in the iPhone X image are warmer and more true to life.

Click to enlarge
The Galaxy S9+ has a “Live Focus” mode that’s similar to Portrait Mode on the iPhone X, and the photo below compares Live Focus with Portrait Mode. Both of these modes have some issues, but making adjustments to blur is easier on the Galaxy S9+, which gives it the win over the iPhone X. In general, the Galaxy S9 also has more built-in image editing tools with its Pro Mode for taking manual photos.

Click to enlarge
In addition to images, we also took a look at video modes. Samsung’s Galaxy S9 can record in slow motion at 960 FPS, a unique feature because the iPhone X’s slo-mo maxes out at 240 FPS. Both devices can also record in 4K video with optical image stabilization, but the Galaxy S9+’s video was less jittery. The iPhone X did win out when it came to suppressing outdoor wind sound, though.

Both of these cameras, as mentioned before, are great and can capture images that are on par with DSLRs in some situations, but there are definitely some features that make the Galaxy S9+ ever so slightly better than iPhone X when it comes to image and video quality.

Click to enlarge
Of course, Apple is going to be introducing the successor to the iPhone X in about six months, and with the camera improvements that come with every new upgrade, it’s likely iPhones coming in 2018 will outshine the Galaxy S9+.

Which images do you prefer? iPhone X or Galaxy S9+? Let us know in the comments.

Make sure to check out our other videos, which have compared the Galaxy S9 to the iPhone X and pitted Animoji against Samsung’s new AR Emoji.

Related Roundup: iPhone XTags: Samsung, Galaxy S9Buyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
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Education starts at home: nine educational apps for young children (age 3-to-6)

How much kids should be allowed to use technology is a very hot topic these days.  But regardless of how you look at the problem, you can’t deny technology can bring some unmistakable benefits.

For example, tech can transform drab things like math problems or grammar exercises into exciting adventures kids won’t shy away from.

Many parents fear allowing kids to use apps will hook them to a life of being dependent flashy smartphones’ screen. But on the other side of the coin, apps can be turned into great tools to help children expand their imagination or develop their cognitive skills.

It’s a matter of selecting the right apps for your child and allowing him or her use them with moderation.

There’s no shortage of educational apps available in the Google Play Store, and for this post, we’ve lined some of the best apps for 3-to-6-year-olds.

Alphabet Car: Learn ABC’s

What it is:

Alphabet Car is a fun tool designed to aid children who are just starting to learn words. Your little one will discover new words by means of playing and engagement.

Why we like it:

• The app comes with a bold and colorful interface that’s guaranteed to capture the attention of young children.
• Alphabet Car teaches kids the basics of letters and then gently moves on to words and implicitly spelling.
• Gameplay is easy enough to master. You drive a bus and as you roll along, big blocks of letters will appear on the road. Aim the bus towards a letter to make a word and hear the letter pronounced. When you gather enough letters for a word, kids will hear the word pronounced.
• The game uses visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles, and strengthens hand-eye coordination in the process.

Install Alphabet Car: Learn ABC’s

Kids Connect the Dots

What it is:

An interactive educational game which enables children to develop their imagination, but also learn how to pronounce numbers and letters.

Why we like it:

• Children simply have to tap a series of dots to outline a mystery animal or object. What could it be?
• Kids will be filled with wonder as they complete a drawing and see the animal or object “come to life”.
• The game teaches young children how to count, as they will have the tap the numbers up to a target number.
• As the player taps, letters of the alphabet, as well as numbers are articulated, so children can get more familiar with the correct pronunciation.

Install Kids Connect the Dots

Dr. Panda’s Swimming Pool

What it is:

An interactive game which aims to teach younger children how to solve problems and develop their critical learning skills.

Why we like it:

• Dr. Panda’s Swimming Pool teaches the basics of problem-solving to kids.
• It features five animals the child needs to take care of, while also enjoying a day at the virtual pool.
• Kids will be delighted to uncover hidden treasures, as they advance in the game.
• A great adventure  for kids that features no in-game advertisements and no in-app purchases (although it’s not free, it costs $1.99).

Install Dr. Panda’s Swimming Pool

Kids Numbers and Math

What it is:

A simple app which teaches your child to do basic math calculations, even before he or she starts going to school.

Why we like it:

• Kids Numbers and Math is an intuitive game for preschoolers that makes learning numbers and basic math fun.
• Children play the activities (solve math problems) and earn puzzle pieces for the big “Bug Collection Puzzles”.
• There’s a free version that teaches the numbers 1-20 via a variety of exercises including counting, adding, subtracting and comparing numbers, but if you want more the paid version offers more customization.

Install Kids Numbers and Math

Todo Math

What it is:

With Todo Math doing number operations is no longer boring. Not when you count the 700+ fun activities included.

Why we like it:

• The app teaches kids mathematical reasoning including pattern recognition, math memory matrices and numerical ordering using fun and colorful games.
• Features an introduction to basic geometry which explains shape recognition, identification, and tracing.
• By using Todo Math, children also get to learn about time and money. This section covers days and weeks, telling time, and understanding coins.

Install Todo Math

Memory & Attention

What it is:

A game which aims to teach young children how to focus and pay attention, while boosting their visual memory.

Why we like it:

• The app includes 4 mini-games to aid with the development of visual memory and 3 mini-games for training attention and concentration.
• The games were created by a professional child psychologist and are inspired by her experience with working with children in preschool and elementary school.
• The app is recommended to all children, but even more to those suffering from ADHD/ADHS.
• Each game has up to four levels of difficulty, for children who love a challenge.

Install Memory & Attention

Lightbot

What it is:

Coding is an essential skill these days and Lightbot is an app that teaches basic coding to children.

Why we like it:

• Because it’s a clever app that gets kids to program by solving puzzles in a video game.
• Lightbot introduces the basic coding concepts like instruction sequencing, procedures, and loops.
• The app features 20 interactive levels during which you can learn plenty, although the full version comes with an additional 30 levels.

Install Lightbot

Toca Mini

What it is:

An app which challenges kids to get creative and bring to life a character or avatar from their own imagination.

Why we like it:

• While math and language are important, developing the child’s creative spirit should also be a priority. Toca Mini is just the app for that, as it allows kids to design their own scary monsters of fantasy animals.
• Children can customize their new friend by adding colors, stripes, sleeves and playing with facial components like eyes, mouths, noses or eyebrows! Users can take advantage of stamps to create patterns, hair or clothes.
• The creations make funny sounds and gestures as the child brings them forth into existence.

Install Toca Mini

Astronomy for Kids

What it is:

A great app for children who have started to wonder about the stars and universe and want to learn more about the secrets of the cosmos.

Why we like it:

• The app teaches kids about the solar system through a series of astronomical games.
• Children also get to listen to astronomical facts and watch educational movies about space.
• A few short quizzes are available for those who want to test their knowledge.

Install Astronomy for Kids

Has your child tried any of these educational apps before? If not, you might want to download them for him or her.

Fed up with GPU prices? Crypto-rig builder says gamers must suck it up and mine

One of Easy Crypto Hunter’s six-card, 1080Ti mining rigs.

At a recent cryptocurrency investor show, one mining rig builder told Digital Trends he thinks the best way for gamers to offset the inflated cost of graphics cards is to mine cryptocurrency in their spare time. By his reckoning, most cards can pay for themselves in just over a year.

Although the peak value of many cryptocurrencies may be months behind us at this point, the mining boom that was born off of the back of it shows no sign of abating. In turn, graphics card prices remain ridiculously inflated. Even obsolete cards are selling for more than double their launch prices, as availability plagues gamers and miners alike.

While miners look to make a profit on their expensive investment, gamers just want to have fun. That’s not the tack they should be taking according to Easy Crypto Hunter‘s founder and Managing Director, Josh Riddett. During a sit down with Digital Trends at the London Crypto Investor show, he suggested gamers should be mining, too.

“I totally feel for them, I get it. I am an avid gamer myself,” he said when asked how he felt about the impact businesses like his were having on graphics card pricing and gamer upgrade limitations.

EasyCryptoHunter/Instagram

“I’ve spent a lot of my life gaming, I love it. I’ve made a lot of great friends in the online world. The reality of it is [though], no one rides horses when they’ve got cars,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to move with the times. At the end of the day, I appreciate that a graphics card will now cost you twice what it did before, I get that and it sucks, but it can also pay for itself in a year. So it’s kind of swings and roundabouts. It’s very easy to leave your computer mining overnight when you’re not using it, and effectively the graphics card will pay for itself.”

Riddet’s four-month-old business does deal exclusively in GTX 1080Ti graphics cards, and purchases in bulk from both distributors and manufacturers. That’s not a card that many gamers would have been buying, in any case, because of its high MSRP. However, there is a trickle-down element to that. If other miners and gamers can’t buy those cards, they’ll buy the next ones down the list, and the mid-range has already been decimated by miners building more energy-efficient rigs.

If gamers were willing to mine, however,  Riddet thinks they’d easily offset the cost of the card. “[Graphics cards] are harder to get [and] three years ago the prices were cheaper,” he admitted, “but three years ago the card couldn’t pay for itself. Now it can. It’s more money up front, but I’d argue less money out of your pocket in the long run.”

Riddet’s take seems a bit self-serving, but also offers some insight into the world of cryptocurrency hardware. His perspective makes it clear the companies building crypto-mining rigs still enjoy more than enough profit, despite the fact Bitcoin’s price is at roughly half its peak value. Gamers may not like his advice — after all, most don’t want to hassle with mining a cryptocurrency. If AMD and Nvidia can’t find a way to build and distribute cards at more reasonable prices, though, gamers may not have a choice.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Nvidia speaks out against rising price of GPUs due to cryptocurrency mining
• AMD wants to make it easier for you to buy its GPUs
• How to mine Bitcoin
• Yep, mining for cryptocurrency can now heat your home
• Digital coin miners purchased more than 3 million graphics cards in 2017

Intel CEO reveals hardware plans for addressing Meltdown, Spectre exploits

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said on Thursday, March 15 that the first processors to see hardware changes that address the Meltdown and Spectre flaws will be the company’s next-generation “Cascade Lake” Xeon Scalable chips for the server market, and eighth-generation Core processors shipping to the mainstream market in the second half of 2018. 

“We have redesigned parts of the processor to introduce new levels of protection through partitioning that will protect against both Variants 2 and 3,” Krzanich said. “Think of this partitioning as additional ‘protective walls’ between applications and user privilege levels to create an obstacle for bad actors.” 

As previously reported, Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754), Spectre Variant 1 (CVE-2017-5753) and Spectre Variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715) are three exploits presented in January by Google Project Zero, Cybrus Technology, and Graz University of Technology. They take advantage of how modern processors “think ahead” while computing multiple instructions using a technique called speculative execution. 

More specifically, processors “predict” the outcome of their tasks based on information stored in memory. This method speeds up the overall computing process but leaves all that unsecured data wide open for the picking as seen with the Meltdown and Spectre exploits. Since their public disclosure in January, processor manufacturers including Intel and Qualcomm have scrambled to fix the glaring hardware-based security issues. 

On the Intel front, the company released an initial batch of updates but hit the brakes when customers began experiencing problems. After regrouping and ironing out the kinks, a second wave of updates arrived to plug the security holes without issues. According to Krzanich, 100 percent of the processors released over the last five years are now protected against Meltdown and Spectre exploits as long as customers actually apply the updates. 

“With these updates now available, I encourage everyone to make sure they are always keeping their systems up-to-date. It’s one of the easiest ways to stay protected,” Krzanich said. “As part of this, I want to recognize and express my appreciation to all of the industry partners who worked closely with us to develop and test these updates, and make sure they were ready for production.” 

To date, updates addressing Meltdown and Spectre are available for all Intel processors ranging from its second-generation “Sandy Bridge” CPUs to its recent eighth-generation “Coffee Lake” chips. You can see the generational release of your processor by spotting the number after the hyphen in the processor’s name, such as the “6” in the sixth-generation Intel Core i7-6820HK. Intel is still working on fixes for its first-generation “Nahalem” and “Westmere” CPUs. 

The eighth-generation processors slated to arrive in the second half of 2018 likely stem from Intel’s “Cannon Lake” family based on 10nm process technology. It’s essentially a smaller version of Intel’s seventh-generation processor design, aka Kaby Lake, which began shipping to mobile device manufacturers at the end of 2017. Intel’s ninth-generation “Ice Lake” processors for 2019 will have protections against Meltdown and Spectre exploits as well. 

“Our work is not done,” Krzanich concluded. “This is not a singular event; it is a long-term commitment. One that we take very seriously.” 

Editors’ Recommendations

• Intel’s 9th-generation ‘Ice Lake’ CPUs will have fixes for Meltdown, Spectre
• Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 patch will address Spectre Variant 2 CPU flaw
• Apple protects MacOS Sierra, El Capitan from Meltdown, lists Google bugs
• HP’s Mike Nash on why new Spectre x360 15 is thicker, much more powerful
• Nowhere is safe now that AMD has suffered its own Meltdown