Just as Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich opens the regular staff meetings before a dramatically reduced IDF2015 Shenzhen conference, it is a good time to review how government and enterprises don’t see eye to eye when it comes to strategic business.

China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer is world’s fastest supercomputer, at 33 PFLOPS demonstrated and 55 PFLOPS theoretical performance.

Remember the Tianhe-2 machine at Guangzhou Supercomputer Center, the current World’s number one according to Top 500 Supercomputer list? Unlike some other China supercomputers – Tianhe-2 is fully Intel based machine,  the world’s largest assembly of Intel Xeon CPUs and Xeon Phi accelerators.

Even after Intel ‘opened the kimono’ and gave a nearly 70%  discount on its processors and accelerators, it has given Intel, and therefore US technology sector a major foothold in China and Asian region as such. Over the course of past two years, we were involved in a lot of discussions with Intel staff who were not privy to see the financial impact of the deal — and even argued our undoubtedly solid information. We’re not here to report how things should be, or are in marketing and investor presentations to its numerous staff, but how things really are.

During 2015, the Tianhe-2 supercomputer was supposed to be doubled in its size, up to 110 PFLOPs peak, again using the very same Intel processors and accelerators. Since now these are mature products with lower real manufacturing cost for Intel, they could finally make some real money.

Well, it was not to be: our tweety bird from the window chirped to us that Uncle Sam has put this supercomputer centre, together with National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, the system’s creators, and Tianjin centre, among others, on so a so-called “Denial List”, which prevents any high technology from the USA to be sold to these sites. Our sources used even harsher words.

Knowing that these several sites alone are expected to order some 250+ PFLOPS of compute in the next few years (around 500,000 top-end Broadwell-EP Xeon E5v4 processors, or  approximately $1 billion high margin list price) and they were THE Intel friendly ones, this is quite a loss to Intel, thanks to Uncle Sam.

But, what’s worse strategic loss in time is that, based on this decision as an excuse, indigenous China high end processor architectures can now push the government to gradually remove any dependence on US. This means just one thing: an AMD or Intel x86 processor technology is increasingly becoming errata non grata. Should the Chinese government react in force, it will give the Chinese vendors the blank check support to go all the way a developing their Alpha, POWER and MIPS processors for both the government and the mainstream commercial use.

You may think they are not up to the mark, but remember how fast British ARM architecture became the dominant processing architecture in the world. And this group doesn’t need to worry about the antiquated x86 ISA, worry about satisfying the dumbed down shareholder masses, or overpaying their marketing and sales staff, as well as the fat check, golden parachute-protected CxOs.

They have taken the best that the USA has developed (some of key Alpha, GPGPU and MIPS architects left US over the course of past four years, a lot of them due to non-renewed visas) and discarded due to corporate shenanigans, and the continued developing it much farther than anyone expected both on hardware and software side.

Five years ago, ShenWei showed a CPU that performed faster than the fastest GPUs of the time. Now, fifth generation is approaching, slotting between Tesla and FirePro GPGPUs and next-gen Xeon Phi accelerators. However, this is not an accelerator or a GPGPU – this is a CPU.

So, thanks to Uncle Sam, China might not have a 110 PFLOPS Intel based supercomputer but it definitely will launch a 100 PFLOPS system based on upcoming 64-core, TFLOPS-class ShenWei Alpha, with true blue CPUs possibly faster per socket then even the next generation Xeon Phi or Volta/Pascal-based Teslas.  Next, of course 100 PFLOPS Chinese POWER8 or 9 — (thank you IBM) and then possibly even Loongson MIPS – -it may come back into the high end field with renewed government support because of this Uncle Sam move. All are clean, elegant, scalable high end RISC architectures.

So who are the winners and losers from this?

NUDT and Tianhe may be the losers for now, but only short term. They will simply speed up their HPC ARM plan.

Intel comes out the big loser from this and a lot: who will want to do a phased deployment large x86 machine in China now, and worry about future phases? Then comes Uncle Sam himself: they lost even that little bit of influence on the high end China HPC. How is that for “cutting your nose to spite your face?”.

VR WORLD’s  Analysis: US government moves accelerate the Chinese CPU roadmap while curtailing juiciest sales for Intel and other US vendors.

The post Uncle Sam Shocks Intel With a Ban on Xeon Supercomputers in China appeared first on VR World.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is no stranger to the press. He’s appeared in dozens of interviews with major media outlets as well as an Oscar nominated documentary called Citizen Four.

But HBO funnyman John Oliver provided what is no doubt the toughest interview yet for Snowden. Granted there was plenty of light banter, such as if the NSA can intercept your “dick picks”, but there were a number of sharp, pointed questions on whether Snowden’s mass disclosure of documents was well-warranted whistleblowing or reckless behavior.

John Oliver – Edward Snowden interview

“How many of those documents have you actually read?” Oliver asked.

“I’ve evaluated all the documents that are in the archive,” Snowden responded.

Pressed he elaborated further: “I do understand what I turned over.”

But for Oliver that wasn’t good enough.

“There’s a difference between understanding what’s in the documents and reading what’s in the documents. Because when you’re handing over thousands of NSA documents the last thing you’d want to do is read them,” Oliver said. “So The New York Times took a slide, didn’t redact it properly, and in the end it was possible for people to see that something was being used in Mosul on al Qaeda.”

“That is a problem,” Snowden replied.

“Well, that’s a fuckup,” said Oliver.

The interview is hard hitting and well worth the watch. Check it out in the video embedded above.

The post John Oliver Grills Edward Snowden on ‘Last Week Tonight’ appeared first on VR World.

The end of the revenge porn phenomenon may be soon upon us, as a San Diego court recently sentenced revenge porn site operator Kevin Bollaert to 18 years in jail and a $10,000 fine. He was charged with identity theft and extortion for his role in revenge porn site ugotposted.com.

Bollaert was the operator of ugotposted.com, a site that encouraged jilted ex-lovers to post nude pictures of their former partner along with personal details such as name, address, and date of birth. Victims had to pay $300 to $350 to have the images removed. According to reports, Bollaert earned upwards of $30,000 from the removal fees.

“Sitting behind a computer, committing what is essentially a cowardly and criminal act, will not shield predators from the law or jail,” state Attorney General Kamala Harris told San Diego’s CBS8. “We will continue to be vigilant and investigate and prosecute those who commit these deplorable acts.”

While Bollaert isn’t the first revenge porn site operator to land in prison, he’s the first to be charged for his role in operating such a site. Hunter Moore, who ran the site Is Anyone Up? until 2012, was indicted in early 2014 for conspiracy, identity theft, and unauthorized access to a computer. Moore was paying a hacker by the name of Charles Evans to hack into email accounts of victims and extract nude pictures.

This looks like the beginning of the end of the revenge porn industry. Now that a precedent has been established in court to hand revenge porn site operators lengthy jail sentences, law enforcement and prosecutors should have no problem clearing out the rest of them. But, perhaps, some will take the initiative to shut down their sites first after seeing that their actions can have serious consequences.

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Two United States Navy F-18s made an emergency landing in Tainan, a city in south Taiwan, Wednesday afternoon after declaring an in-flight emergency due to a mechanical issue.

The two aircraft transmitted a 7700 “squawk” code which is recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization as meaning general emergency. The two aircraft landed safely at Tainan Air Force Base shortly after 1:00 pm.

An American diplomatic official is quoted by local media as saying the two aircraft were on a “routine” flight when they encountered a mechanical emergency and required to land. The official thanked Taiwan for its assistance in getting the planes safely to the ground.

As Taiwan’s Air Force does not have F-18s in its fleet, the aircraft and pilots will remain in Taiwan until technicians and spare parts can be sent in from the closest US base in Okinawa, Japan.

A sensitive landing

Landing two US military aircraft in Taiwan has the potential to create further complications due to the island’s unique relationship with China and most of the world.

Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, does not have formal diplomatic relations with most countries. Following the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party retreated from China to Taiwan in 1949. That same year, Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China. Until the late 1970s most of the world considered the Republic of China (Taiwan) to be “China”. In 1979 that recognition shifted to China, with China taking the ROC’s former seat at the UN and the US and most countries of the world opening up full diplomatic relations.

Relations between most countries and Taiwan are conducted through non-official “Trade Institutes” that act as de-facto embassies without the official title.

To this day Taiwan and China see each other as the legitimate “China”, with the other being considered a rogue province. Relations between the two improved in 1992, when both ROC and PRC officials met to sign the 1992 Consensus which states that both sides agree there is “One China” but that definition is subject to interpretation. In 2005 the two sides agreed to have daily cross-strait flights.

While the United States does not have official relations with Taiwan, it provides defensive weapons to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act. The act does state that the US will come to the defense of Taiwan should the PRC attack it, provided that Taiwan does not declare independence first. While the US does not provide top-tier weapons to Taiwan for fear of angering China, it has provided the nation (under protest from China) with F-16s, Black Hawk helicopters, and Apache attack helicopters amongst other kit.

A ‘routine’ flight?

While diplomatic officials in Taiwan maintain that the flight was “routine”, it was likely anything but.

The area the jets flew through is heavily contested, and to get there they no doubt had to traverse through Chinese Air Defense Identification Zones.

In the last few years China has taken an aggressive posturing in the South China Sea, to the protest of neighbouring states. Many states in the area, such as the Philippines, have expressed concern about China’s expansion in the area. China has recently been carrying out military drills in the South China Sea’s Bashi Channel, near Philippines’ territorial waters, which is notable because of the distance from China’s coastlines.

It is likely that the US jets were in the region to shadow or monitor the drill to symbolize to China that the US has interests in the area as well. The emergency landing in Taiwan was no doubt noticed by China — but perhaps that was the point.

The post US F-18s Make Emergency Landing in Taiwan appeared first on VR World.

Dropping out of a perfectly good airplane — that’s something than only those with a few screws loose can do. While I may be quoting the guys from Band of Brothers a bit, the fact remains; it’s hard to mentally justify such a thing and only the brave men and women in the military world are performing such tasks on a weekly basis.

Canada had hosted a military exercise called the Maple Flag a few weeks ago. Established in 1978, Maple Flag is one of the largest of such exercises in the world, as it makes use of the extensive Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (CLAWR) which is co-existent with Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake. Occurring annually, the military exercise takes place during a four-week period, where the Royal Canadian Air Force takes up their mission status readiness type drills, together with different allied nations from around the world.

It is yet unclear who screwed up in this jump. While the region mostly forested, there was a big patch of clear fields visible in the video. But as military parachutes are somewhat difficult to navigate with, its no wonder that, in combination with the prop blast, heavy winds and onset air flow above the landing area, all resulted in this scary situation. Luckily, the paratrooper has utilized his training well. Affording him a safe landing, except revealing to the world that even Canadians can curse in such situations. Check out the complete drop right below.

Image: Canadian Air Force Hercules C-130 Photo By BriYYZ

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Earlier, an Airbus A320 carrying at least 144 passengers and 6 crew crashed Tuesday in Southern France, fueling a mainstream media frenzied debate over plane safety as well as airline protocols and training procedures. The Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 was on its way from Barcelona to Dusseldorf when it unfortunately crashed in the Alpes de Haute-Provence, France, specifically near the town of Méolans-Revel, probably killing all its passengers and crew. Germanwings is a subsidiary of Lufthansa Group, one of the largest airlines in the world. The flight was a routine flight that was taking one of the most popular passenger aircraft in the world, alongside a route that these planes traverse on a daily basis – all without incident.

The state of emergency was declared by Air Traffic Control (ATC) 09:47AM GMT when the plane disappeared from the radar. According to scattered information, it seems that the plane made a rapid descent from 38,000 feet to 6,000 feet in mere 8 minutes. This is an eerie pattern similar to the one witnessed on fatal Air Asia Indonesia 8501 flight, which crashed on December 28, 2014 while en route from Jakarta to Singapore.

A question thus arises: how well are pilots and crew trained for the fly-by-wire systems? The Airbus A320 family consists of short- to medium-range, narrow-body, commercial passenger twin-engine jet airliners. The A320 family pioneered the use of digital fly-by-wire flight control systems, a rather important advancement in civilian aviation in that time. These jets also use side-stick controls, a first in commercial aircraft as well. For many pilots, utilizing the fly-by-wire technology was a peculiar experience and many struggled with such controls, specially the older, more experienced pilots that didn’t have much experience with new technology and wanted a more hands on approach to controlling the aircraft. However, this also brought many improvements to safety, as more people are flying in the air than ever with fewer accidents than ever.

According to several sources, the behavior of the full flight envelope protection was the source of these issues, making for several specific situations where both the Airbus and Boeing jets didn’t perform as designed.

These include the recent Air Asia Indonesia 8501, China Airlines Flight 006, FedEx Flight 705, American Airlines Flight 587 and the most prominent, the US Airways Flight 1549 where the airplane experienced a dual engine failure after a bird strike and subsequently landed safely in the Hudson River. Thanks to the zeal and experience of the pilot, the catastrophic scenario was averted. The NTSB accident report mentions the effect of flight envelope protection: “The airplane’s airspeed in the last 150 feet of the descent was low enough to activate the alpha-protection mode of the airplane’s fly-by-wire envelope protection features… Because of these features, the airplane could not reach the maximum AOA attainable in pitch normal law for the airplane weight and configuration; however, the airplane did provide maximum performance for the weight and configuration at that time… The flight envelope protections allowed the captain to pull full aft on the sidestick without the risk of stalling the airplane.”

What exactly happened with the Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 is yet unknown. The exact specifics, nature and conditions of the flight have not yet been revealed. The A320-211 was a 24 years old airplane. The jet has made its first flight in 1990, delivered to Lufthansa in 1991 and passed on to Germanwings in 2014. Airbus says there are currently 6,191 A320 aircraft in operation across the world.

On the other hand, Lufthansa has an impeccable maintenance record. Aviation expert Michael Boyd, chairman of The Boyd Group consultancy, told CNBC there were no known issues with Germanwings. “Anything involved with Lufthansa is going to be clean as a whistle as far as maintenance and operations goes,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “There hasn’t been anything untoward with the A320 series. … It’s a very reliable airplane.” We can only hope that this situation gets resolved and our prayers are with the passengers, crew on the plane, but also their families.

Image: Mark Harkin

The post Germanwings Crash: Are Low-Cost Carriers Safe? appeared first on VR World.

Whether you like it or not, the B-2 bomber is probably the only stealth bomber that will stay that way for a long, long time.

Even though we’re seeing plenty of stealth technology being implemented, the sheer scale and size of the B-2 is overwhelming. It has the capacity to carry close to 40,000 lbs of ordnance. This includes the B61 and B83 nuclear bombs; the AGM-129 ACM cruise missile was also intended for use on the B-2 platform. Some people may argue that newer Russian bomber designs will have similar capabilities, I wouldn’t agree. Not for the fact that Russian bombers wont be able to provide the same (or greater) amount of stealth or carry the similar ordnance packages, the deployment of stand-off weapons like cruise missiles is what Russian air-force is putting a big emphasis on these days.

The B-2 is capable of all-altitude attack missions up to 50,000 feet (15,000 m), with a range of more than 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km) on internal fuel and over 10,000 nautical miles (19,000 km) with one midair refueling. The last part is the main theme of this video, ensuring the public stays rather profoundly interested in these air-planes, somebody at U.S. DoD released a rather interesting showcase of the bomber’s capabilities.

As stealth is the main aspect of this airplanes, the retractable fuel cover that seemingly vanishes into pin-point precision alignment with the rest of the bomber’s exterior skin is simply staggering. It seems like the bomber is alive and the part once open to receive a bunch of fuel – simply joins with its exterior shell almost without a single line being seen. To see how this thing works, please take a look at the video shown below.

Images: First B-2 Image by U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III, second B-2 image by USAF

The post Stealth Is Non-Negotiable With the B-2 Bomber appeared first on VR World.

As the Russian Airforce is deploying its TU-22M3 ‘Backfire’ aircraft into the recently incorporated area that is Crimea, there are several things changing for the NATO and other military forces in the region. While the political situation has everything to do with these being added to the might of the Russian air and sea fleet over there, the relevance to the whole situation is not that important at all. The idea behind this is to show how the Russian military, albeit strapped for cash in more ways than one since the Soviet Union took a nose dive, does have more than capable military hardware to mess up plans for United States Navy, let alone some other, smaller forces around the world that are part of NATO for example.

What the TU-22M deployment means

The TU-22M was part of Russia’s quest for a strategic bomber, capable of carrying more than enough firepower to make any military or navy cringe. This swept-wing strategic bomber might look rugged and rather simplistic in shape (compared to modern day western bombers), but this supersonic beast has all the firepower to mess up any navy captain’s day in a hurry.

The Tupolev Tu-22M (Russian: Туполев Ту-22М; NATO reporting name: Backfire) is a supersonic, variable-sweep wing, long-range strategic and maritime strike bomber developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau. Significant numbers remain in service with the Russian Air Force, and as of 2014 more than 100 Tu-22M are in use. Several are now modernized into the TU-22M3 version, allowing for all sorts of goodies like upgraded avionics, Shompol side looking airborne radar and other ELINT (electronic intelligence) equipment. Just what the doctor ordered, specially in today’s naval warfare: ELINT

Stick to the skies

The title says it all: the Russian airforce and navy never really bothered with countering United States Navy in carrier might. Simply, there was no reason to do that. On the other hand, they had more than enough firepower to protect themselves from any and every carrier strike group out there: land based TU-22M airplanes, SLAVA class missile cruisers and other, preferably missile equipped vessels (above and beyond the surface) like the Kirov class battlecruiser or the Akula class submarines. The main idea behind this was to use their supersonic and hypersonic missiles, but also cruise missiles, all in the idea to destroy a U.S. naval carrier and eventually (after the carrier destruction, when the air power is defeated) the rest of the support group as well.

The TU-22M was well countered by the usage of the F-14 Tomcat air wings, found on the aircraft carriers for the duration of the cold war, providing air cover for the fleet ships overall. These, with enough range and the Phoenix missile, could engage the Mach 1.6 capable strike groups of the said plane with a great deal of effect at distance that allowed to carrier group to stay safe entirely. The Tomcat is (sadly) long gone from the carriers. Replaced by the capable (albeit not in the same way realistically) F/A 18 Hornet for the defense and attack capabilities.

This means that the carrier groups, even though shielded by the AEGIS on board navy ships, still lacks the stand-off defense capability, offered by the F-14 Tomcat and the above mentioned Phoenix missile. Anything carried by the F/A 18 Hornet, in terms of air-to-air missiles, cannot combat these air squadrons before they launch their deadly contents on the groups. This, when the carrier attack group discovered the incoming bogies of any type, could engage these at distance, thanks to the missile available, projected range and overall, with greater efficiency as well.

The logic stands, where the TU-22M would dash along the Russian borders, achieve its top speed, launch its BVR missiles at the carriers, then scoot back to safety of the Russian airforce’s anti-air and other protection capabilities that would grant it safety after the attack happened. While the carrier or any other navy cluster of vessels does have anti-aircraft capabilities, deploying a swarm of either one of the anti-ship stuff found in Russian inventory would be a tough pill to swallow for any CIWS or other means of defense within the ships present.

Flight of the Phoenix

There’s one lethal counter to the TU-22M: the AIM-54 Phoenix. The AIM-54 Phoenix is a radar-guided, long-range air-to-air missile (AAM), carried in clusters of up to six missiles on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, its only launch platform. With several guidance modes, the Phoenix is a worthy opponent and a classy match for Russia’s strategic bomber force – primarily the TU-22M and TU-160 airplanes then. The Phoenix achieves its longest range by using mid-course updates from the F-14A/B AWG-9 radar (APG-71 radar in the F-14D) as it climbs to cruise between 80,000 ft (24,000 m) and 100,000 ft (30,000 m) at close to Mach 5. The Phoenix uses this high altitude to gain gravitational potential energy, which is later converted into kinetic energy as the missile dives at high velocity towards its target. At around 11 miles (18 km) from the target, the missile activates its own radar to provide terminal guidance.

The minimum engagement range (the minimal distance for the missile to hit the target efficiently) for the Phoenix is around 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) and active homing would initiate upon launch. With an operational range of up to 190 kilometers, this would prove to be a better fit to target combat aircraft coming in from Crimean air bases.

Denial of the seas

How is this possible? The Russians, as stated earlier, always liked to counter the US Navy and its carrier forces with anti ship missiles. With the TU-22M, there are two significant aircraft based anti-ship missiles used.

These are the fastest anti-ship missile in service today, the Kh-15, NATO name ‘Kickback’ which can plow in to an altitude of about 40,000 m (130,000 ft) and then dives in on the target, accelerating to a speed of about Mach 5, which makes it the fastest aircraft-launched missile to date. Some believe that even without it’s high-explosive contents it would still do a lot of damage to the ships with kinetic energy alone. With a 300 kilometer operational range, there isn’t anything the current air wing airplanes found on the US Navy carriers can throw at them, before they launch their missiles – when you count in the distance to target seen there.

The second one is the The Raduga Kh-22, NATO name ‘Kitchen’ that is a cruise missile, a ship destroying thingie that flies in at mach 4.6 to its target.

The Kh-22 uses an Isayev liquid-fuel rocket engine, fueled with TG-02 (Tonka-250) and IRFNA (inhibited red fuming nitric acid), giving it a maximum speed of Mach 4.6 and a range of up to 600 km (320 nmi). It can be launched in either high-altitude or low-altitude mode. Both modes can be used in a swarm type of an event, allowing several TU-22M bombers to launch their missiles in various modes and overwhelming a possible target. In high-altitude mode, it climbs to an altitude of 27,000 m (89,000 ft) and makes a high-speed dive into the target, with a terminal speed of about Mach 4.6. In low-altitude mode, it climbs to 12,000 m (39,000 ft) and makes a shallow dive at about Mach 3.5, making the final approach at an altitude under 500 m (1,600 ft).

The missile is guided by a gyro-stabilized autopilot in conjunction with a radio altimeter. With, let’s say six of the TU-22M’s attacking the particular navy group, this would mean that each carries four of these, totaling 24 missiles headed in various configurations, probably overwhelming any CIWS it encounters. if both the high-altitude and low-altitude modes are used, the ships and their defenses might prove to be overmatched for the swarm of missiles headed into their hulls that way.

This means that, with swarms of TU-22M’s hurdling at 1.6 mach, unleashing either the long range or short range anti-ship missiles, any and every carrier battlegroup would be pressed to combat these attacks. In other words regarding this, that the current Black Sea deployment from NATO, consisting of the Standing NATO Maritime Group Two (SNGM2) vessels the flagship USS Vicksburg (CG 69), HMCS Fredericton (FFH 337), TCG Turgutreis (F 241), FGS Spessart (A 1442), ITS Aliseo (F 574) and ROS Regina Maria (F 222), might be too little too late to combat Russia’s power over there. With the probable Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines lurking around, all armed with similar destructive means, the overall firepower the Soviets Russians are capable of launching at any NATO task group – is impressive.

In a way, the Black Sea security situation changed quite a bit with the introduction of these weapon systems, entirely changing the possibilities of any country, even the United States to engage Russian targets in that area. With the geographical situation making the Black Sea Russia’s own little pond, these airplanes, together with the naval might of the Black Sea fleet together with these weapon impacting the strategic relations, might provide the naysayers with the final shut up about the Russian military power alltogether. At least in this aspect.

The post Why The TU-22M Deployment To Crimea Changes Everything appeared first on VR World.

Internet.org, the brainchild of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has the ambitious goal of “connecting the next 5 billion” Internet users by focusing on the emerging economies — the lower tiers of mobile users whose primary means of getting online is via mobile devices.

With a goal of having a presence in 100 countries within 2015, Internet.org sets foot in Southeast Asia through PLDT (NYSE:PHI), which operates the Philippines’ biggest mobile and fixed line network by subscriber base. According to estimates, only 38% of the country’s population had Internet access as of mid 2014. Meanwhile, mobile penetration rate has surpassed 100%, although only a minority are on smartphones.

Facebook’s effort to connect the otherwise underserved sectors of society is done in partnership with public and private organizations in its target countries. Internet.org vice president Chris Evans said in a keynote at the recently-concluded Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the effort will essentially provide basic Internet services like access to educational and health information. But it also aims to be a feeder to other mobile services, as well, envisioning to “see more people coming online, buying data and voice and SMS bundles.”

Internet.org launched initially in countries like Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia, Ghana and India. The Philippines launch marks the first Southeast Asian country that carries free basic Internet access through the initiative.

Through Internet.org, users can access a curated set of websites, currently numbering 24, which include sites like Wikipedia for news, Inquirer for news, Accuweather for meteorology and Jobstreet for job hunting (the list of services differs by market). As expected, the service will also provide free access to social networking staples Facebook and Facebook Messenger.

Access will be available to users within PLDT’s mobile brands, which includes SMART, Sun Cellular and Talk n’ Text. The biggest mobile network by subscriber base, the group counts about 71.2 million prepaid subscribers, which comprise about 90% of its cellular business.

Prior to the local Internet.org launch, PLDT already initiated its “Internet for All” campaign, which provided free access to mobile users, with 50MB daily allocation. While this is decidedly a small amount for most, it was deemed enough for basic access like instant messaging and light social networking.

“Smart’s partnership with Facebook is a big boost to our ‘Internet for All’ campaign, an advocacy we have been strongly pushing for,” says Smart president and CEO Napoleon L. Nazareno. “By launching Internet.org app with Facebook in the Philippines, we are making useful information within reach of millions of Filipinos.”

Earler this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared some statistics on Internet.org, saying about 7 million people used the Internet for the first time through the service. In addition, the carriers involved also saw an upsurge in data subscriptions and usage of basic services, an indication that Internet.org does not only serve to enhance access to the underserved, but it also contributes positively to carriers’ business. Other companies, such as Nokia, are also finding ways to enable Internet access with inexpensive Internet-enabled devices for the emerging markets.

The post Internet.org Launches in SEAsia With Free Access to Essential Online Services appeared first on VR World.

Earlier today, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB)  unveiled Facebook Payments to allow friends to send free friend-to-friend payments over the social network messages. This service can be seen as the direct response by the largest social media network in the world, all to the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, unveiled a few months earlier. It also shows how the financial sector is developing rapidly, all without much input from the older well-established companies in the sector recently.

The first time you send or receive money in Messenger, you’ll need to add a Visa or MasterCard debit card issued by a US bank to your account. Once you add a debit card, you can create a PIN to provide additional security the next time you send money. On iOS devices you can also enable Touch ID. As always, you can add another layer of authentication to your account at any time. The payment system lets you just tap a “$” button to send some of your friends money on iOS, Android, and desktop messenger applications, all with zero fees. Facebook Messenger payments will roll out first in the U.S. over the coming months.

European and Asian users will have to wait for Facebook to roll out the service to them. In accordance to recent developments in the sector, this serves as a reminder how quickly things can revolutionize in certain areas overall. This Facebook payment system will undoubtedly have a great argument for a choice between similar payment systems worldwide.

If Facebook can work out an agreement with European Union law makers, this could very well mean the payment system becomes one of the most popular money transfer systems out there. The zero fee approach is offset by companies paying a certain fee when payments are made with this system. Facebook may have a different approach to this aspect, but we believe this will be what the social network does in the future for this issue. While intended for friends, we can see a great deal of use by possible client to client transfers, but more importantly later we can expect this payment system to roll out for companies too.

The post Facebook Introduces Free Friend-To-Friend Payments appeared first on VR World.

Hello, how are you?

Yes, it is me, the guy who decided to get out of all the CPU or GPU tests and reviews almost a decade ago. And do I feel regret? Can’t I wait to jump right back into it like Michael Schumacher, God bless him, when he returned to F1 with rather mixed results? Trust me, and please believe me I don’t mean to offend anyone, but the days of motherboard reviews and sleepless nights spent trying and testing the latest and greatest PC components are gone for good.

Funny as it is, time has not stood still in the last eight years, since I finally turned my back on Tom’s Hardware, oh yes, with money in my pocket, yet that wasn’t and couldn’t have been the reason why I was oh-so tired of it all. True enough, there are still those who care about a new chipset, new motherboards, new graphics cards, even overclocking, but the numbers have dwindled and why? Because the PC is dying, along with it the notebook, go figure!

We are running out of excuses for building or buying a new PC system, a new motherboard, a juicier power supply and even a new graphics card. What is so power hungry that would justify the pain, the expense and the time spent on such a project? The latest computer game? Yes, for years that was the one last stand for the power users, but let’s be honest, how many really good games have been released in recent years? Do we really want to sink tons of money into the hottest new components, just to be bored to tears by yet another first person shooter with yet even greater graphics, but a thin or even idiotic story, or a totally dissatisfying end?

So what are we looking at today? Oh yes, there would be this company named Apple. It came out with the greatest gift to man, the first ever true smart phone. Boy did that revolutionise the world, hasn’t it? Today, years later, we are at the nth reiteration of the iPhone, we acknowledge the iPad, we look at all the Android devices, but do we still feel the excitement we experienced when 3dfx, long gone but not forgotten, released Voodoo2? Do you remember that time? Oh how pathetic it looks today, but weren’t we blown away back then? Are we shaking in excitement the same way over the iWatch, or Nvidia’s latest addition to the world or 3D-graphics? Not really, right?

Much has happened in my life in the last eight years. Today, I am the husband to a beautiful wife and the father of an amazing 6-month old boy. Family life has got me in its grip, and I would not want to have it any other way.  You know what upsets my little son the most? It’s mommy or daddy reaching for and staring into their smartphone, instead of giving him the attention he wants as well as deserves. Oh yes, I am a smartphone addict like the next man, but little Ciarán’s disdain for this device made me realise that this cannot possibly the future of mankind.

It makes us antisocial assholes – thank you so much Apple – and if we should believe that our future might go along the lines of the Terminator movies, then becoming antisocial would have to be the first step of humanity losing what it takes to differentiate itself from and be better than ‘the machines’. I am not gonna be a daddy who hands his child an iPad once he turns one and a half years old. I made that oath, and believe me, I am still as technology savvy and hungry as you remember me, but not at any price!

People asked me to talk about how the PC and other technology business evolved to what we are looking at today, but I better be careful, feeling a little bit of an outsider who hasn’t been invited to the hush-hush back rooms, the trade shows or intimate dinners with vendors for a long time. What I can see is Samsung going to produce everything, and the kitchen sink soon, focusing along with other Asian producers on creating yet the best copy of something invented by somebody else. I see Intel apparently busy digging its own grave, Microsoft also somewhat out of wits, the Taiwanese producers, Asus et al., concentrating on squeezing the last little bit of margin, so they can continue selling their stuff just that little bit cheaper once again, and Apple predominantly concentrating on making money, rather than creating something the world is really waiting for.

My dear friend Anthony, fellow dedicated daddy as well as technology editor, suggested I should write about VR and I would love to. When it comes to gaming, it seems to be the next big thing. However, I haven’t played with it yet, so who am I to comment? I’ll get my hands on one of those funky devices as soon as possible though, and I can’t wait sharing Anthony’s genuine excitement about this technology, … or not.

I have the request to give my view of what things will be like in 2030, and what to tell your child now in preparation for our glorious future. I used to be asked that kind of question a lot in bygone times, and my answer was always the same – I ain’t no oracle! I was just about to go there and embarrass myself, but the word count of my article made me reconsider, so why not wrap things up by speaking about the current state of computer journalism? Has it evolved, improved, withered? Well the landscape has changed, hasn’t it?

It feels very much as if all the good guys are gone, while the bad ones still remain. It has become more and more popular rewording press releases rather than doing research, hard work and arriving at one’s own point of view. I wish I could say why. If you allow me taking a wild guess, I would say it has plenty to do with balls versus greed. If it is money that you are after in this business, you cannot possibly say you’re searching for ‘the truth’ or ‘justice’ or – modestly – ‘the best interest of your reader’, can you? What it takes is drive, ambition, a certain level of fearlessness and inspiration. You have that and the money will come by itself. Just watch it arrive, nod if you have to and continue with your mission.

I have joined a team of people with ambition, balls and the determination to provide quality. I would not be writing this, would I not firmly believe in it. I never wanted to return to publishing, because it is a rather ugly business. However, things are going to change, and I have my own little idea how the publishing of old will be turned into something brand new and very exciting.

I have enjoyed writing this, certainly not exactly ground breaking or overly meaningful little piece and I can’t wait getting back into the scene and mixing things up my way. Give me a chance to assimilate all that I might have missed before I can give any kind of fundamental guidance. I’ll be there.

Tom’s back, for better or worse.

The post Thomas Pabst: Is the Computing Business Getting Boring? appeared first on VR World.

After recent delays, Sony (NYSE: SNE) has finally pinpointed a finalized release date for the launch of their next-gen console-and-handled combo for the Chinese market.

According to a recent press release from Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia, Sony’s PlayStation 4 and PS Vita comes to China on March 20, 2015 for 2,899 RMB and 1,299 RMB respectively.

SCEJA has revealed two special edition “dragon” variants for each system to commemorate the Chinese launch, and both systems will be accompanied by the following day-one games:

PlayStation 4 Chinese Launch Titles

• DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition
• King of Wushu: Free Early Access Edition
• Knack
• Mr.Pumpkin Adventure
• Rayman Legends
• Trials Fusion

PlayStation Vita Chinese Launch Titles

• DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition
• Farming Simulator 14
• FINAL FANTASY X HD Remaster
• FINAL FANTASY X-2 HD Remaster
• One Tap Hero
• Rayman Legends
• TOUKIDEN-KIWAMI

While that current launch selection might seem lackluster, SCEJA plans to release a “steady stream” of titles to the region with the help of more than 70 third-party software development studios–26 of which are native Chinese developers.

Sony is committed to actively supporting Chinese developers to ensure the platform has a thriving and expansive library of games, so it looks like the PlayStation has a solid future within the region.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) got a head start over Sony by releasing the Xbox One last September following the Chinese government’s decision to lift the 14-year ban on consoles, and it’ll be interesting to see if Sony can assert their dominance to the new frontier that is the Chinese gaming market.

The Xbox One was first to launch in China, but can Sony win over this region as well?

But Sony’s biggest competitor won’t be Microsoft; it’ll be China’s black-market gaming sector that’s thrived over the last decade and a half thanks to the government’s tight gaming restrictions.

Although the red tape has been lifted and the PS4 and Xbox One are now legal, consumers may be hesitant to embrace the consolidated and limited entertainment options that the consoles offer and instead stick to the huge array of games available on the underground market.

Like Microsoft, Sony will also go against the mobile gaming sector, which has proven to be massively popular within the region.

Despite the hurdles, in the next few months we may see China’s gaming presence make a paradigm shift towards console gaming thanks to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as the People’s Republic of China represents a relatively new frontier for the console games market–and a new battleground for Microsoft and Sony.

The post Sony’s PS4 And PS Vita Come To China This Month appeared first on VR World.

A new report says that Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA)  will cut jobs in China.

The highly touted technology company that produces one of the world’s most popular electric cars is about to lose 180 employees in the Middle Kingdom. Tesla currently has 600 employees in China, where the stated number of jobs to be cut is a rather high 30% of the employee numbers posted in China overall.

According to various sources, Tesla Motors aims to restructure and tighten its position in that particular market with this move. The goal is to provide a boost in sales. But overall, the market will be the deciding factor in China for the American company. Tesla Motors makes nice sales in its respective niche overall. We can say that Tesla is the leader when it comes to electric car sales, but this may come to an end in the future years as well. Globally, they saw some other heavier competitors like BMW (ETR: BMW), Cadillac  (NYSE: GM) and others joining in the fight for electric vehicle supremacy. This is naturally providing the car maker with plenty to worry in the forthcoming months as well.

Earlier this year, Tesla China has already seen turnover in its leadership. First, its President Veronica Wu left in December, while its vice president of communications, June Jin, resigned last month. This would be worry some for some bigger companies, let alone a rather small one (by comparison to other big car makers). Tesla Motors is in a rather difficult day in age with sales numbers growing slow on certain markets, specially China as one of the biggest sources of income for several larger car manufacturers.

China is a difficult country for Tesla (and other car makers) overall. The local car production companies are subsidized by the government, there is no clear charging infrastructure set in place, and overall, the cars Tesla Motors imports to China cost more. This is all due to local import taxes, added and set to protect the domestic car industry.

One of the solutions would be to produce the car on site or in the country itself, providing Tesla Motors with the same leveled playing field as the other Chinese manufacturers. While the future seems bleak for Tesla in China for now, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the car maker over there. The overall effort the Chinese government is inputting in making the country pollution free and depending less on gasoline consumption and import, might well be the beacon of light for the car maker going forward in the future.

The post Tesla Motors Will Cut Jobs In China appeared first on VR World.

On March 8 Malaysia Airlines (KLSE: MAS) vanished from radar screens after a customary hand off from controller to controller. The flight then deviated from its planned course, its final destination unknown.

Despite an international search for the plane, involving, at its peak, a half-dozen nations, the fate of MH370 is a mystery that still eludes us. In the absence of an official — satisfying story — that ends with the wreckage being found, conspiracy theories have emerged with attempts to explain the fate of the aircraft and its crew.

It’s natural human tendency to try and explain-away something when the evidence isn’t available, or if things just don’t add up.

The conspiracy theories range from outlandish, to shockingly logical. Here’s a round-up of some of the most interesting:

Russian special forces hijacked MH370

A Russian takeover of the plane is the most recent theory to explain the disappearance, appearing in an article by technology writer and Popular Mechanics editor Jeff Wise published in New York magazine.

Wise hypothesizes that highly trained Russian operatives broke into the plane’s electronics bay — which is accessible from the first class cabin — and hacked the plane’s satellite transponder to feed to the receiving satellites false information to make it look like the plane was headed to the Indian Ocean. Then the operatives hijacked the plane, flying it north into Kazakhstan landing it at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

While this theory might seem compelling, especially since another Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down by Russian backed and trained rebels in Ukraine, the technical challenge of spoofing the plane’s location borders on impossible. The planes electronics system has its own safeguards to prevent things like this from happening, so the attackers would have had to have a very intimate — binary-level — knowledge of the system’s firmware and likely a mole inside the companies that designed the systems.

But such a sophisticated attack would need to have an endgame with a big payoff. What exactly would Russia want with a 777? Perhaps one of its passengers had secrets worth stealing?

US military shot down MH370

One of the other conspiracy theories in the unlikely folder is that MH370’s fate ended with the impact of a missile from the US military.

Within the area in the Indian Ocean where MH370 could have likely disappeared lies the island Diego Garcia and a US military base. This conspiracy theory holds that MH370 was hijacked and the hijackers planned for a Kamikazee-like mission to crash the plane into the base. However their mission failed when the US military shot the plane down.

The most obvious problem with this theory is the lack of wreckage. Shooting down an airplane would make a big mess and to this day wreckage has yet to be found. Even if military operatives managed to clean up most of the wreckage it would be a herculean task to get absolutely everything without anyone noticing.

A cockpit fire took down MH370

One of the most logical of the conspiracy theories is that an electrical fire in the cockpit caused the plane to crash. The crew would have been too distracted trying to fight the fire to radio for help. Eventually, the theory purports, the crew would have died of smoke inhalation causing the plane to crash into the ocean.

Like a US military shootdown theory, the lack of wreckage means that such an event is unlikely.

Will we ever know what happened to MH370?

Without a doubt the fate of MH370 is the greatest aviation mystery of our time. Though conspiracy theories like those above are based in more fallacy than fact, there are so many things that don’t add up — and seem nearly impossible — that give those theories creedance.

Consider the fact that an independent report released on the anniversary of the crash said that the battery in the plane’s blackbox had expired almost a year before the plane disappeared. Things like this raise questions: was this the product of sloppy maintenance? Or part of an elaborate plan to keep the fate of MH370 sealed?

Photo credit: Jeff Kubina/Flickr

The post One Year Later There’s Still No Definite Answers on the Fate of MH370 appeared first on VR World.

Recently security consultancy Bluebox Labs reported on some major security flaws found in the latest Xiaomi Mi 4 phone. Xiaomi didn’t take this criticism lying down, and has prepared a lengthy rebuttal to Bluebox’s claims.

While Xiaomi had already called the report “inaccurate” in a statement to VR World, Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s VP International responded to Bluebox Labs by saying the phone purchased by the company in China had been tampered with. It’s important to note that Bluebox had already tested the device to make sure that it was authentic and not a knockoff.

“We are certain the device that Bluebox tested is not using a standard MIUI ROM, as our factory ROM and OTA ROM builds are never rooted and we don’t pre-install services such as YT Service, PhoneGuardService, AppStats etc,” Barra said in his statement. “Bluebox could have purchased a phone that has been tampered with, as they bought it via a physical retailer in China. Xiaomi does not sell phones via third-party retailers in China, only via our official online channels and selected carrier stores.”

If Barra’s claim holds true, this brings up the very worrying issue of supply chain security, as Bluebox points out. If these — authentic — phones are modified by the retailer, or someone else in the supply chain, that’s incredibly concerning for device security and brand reputation.

Barra says that customers should only purchase Xiaomi phones from the official online store to ensure authenticity and “reputable retailers”. But what makes a “reputable retailer”? If the one Bluebox purchased its phone from — and it went to great lengths to ensure authenticity — isn’t reputable than which ones are? After all, China is home to fake Xiaomi stores (and fake Apple as well as Samsung stores too).

If indeed what Barra says is true, this is largely a lesson in supply chain security. All vendors need to ensure that the China side of their supply chain isn’t compromised by a man-in-the-middle attack. Because clearly even local companies aren’t immune.

UPDATE: March 9 2015 11:00 AM China Standard Time

Xiaomi emailed VR World further statements to expand upon what it told Bluebox Labs. Here’s the statement in full.

There are glaring inaccuracies in the Bluebox blog post. Official Xiaomi devices do not come rooted and do not have malware pre-installed. Our investigation based on information received so far indicates that the phone Bluebox obtained is a counterfeit product purchased through an unofficial channel on the streets in China. We’re gathering more information to fully confirm this and should have a final answer in the next 24 hours.

With the large parallel street market for mobile phones in China, not only is it somewhat common for third parties to tamper with the software sold on smartphones, but there are counterfeit products which are almost indistinguishable from the original products on the outside. This happens across all brands, affecting both Chinese and foreign smartphone companies selling in China. 

Furthermore, “entrepreneurial” retailers may add malware and adware to these devices, and even go to the extent of pre-installing modified copies of popular benchmarking software such as CPU-Z and Antutu, which will run “tests” showing the hardware is legitimate — fooling even very discerning buyers.

Xiaomi takes all necessary measures to crack down on the manufacturers of fake devices or anyone who tampers with our software, supported by all levels of law enforcement agencies in China. However, for the safety of our users, Xiaomi and all smartphone brands always recommend buying phones through authorised channels. Xiaomi only sells via Mi.com, and a small number of Xiaomi trusted partners including mobile operators and select authorised retailers, such as Flipkart in India. 

In addition, contrary to what Bluebox has claimed, MIUI is true Android, which means MIUI follows exactly Android CDD, Google’s definition for compatible Android devices, and it passes all Android CTS tests, the process used by the industry to make sure a given device is fully Android compatible. All Xiaomi devices sold in China and international markets are fully Android compatible.

The post Updated: Xiaomi Hits Back Hard at Bluebox Labs’ Claims appeared first on VR World.

In a very special Xenoblade-themed Nintendo Direct, the Japanese gaming giant showcased a half-hour of straight gameplay footage for the upcoming Wii U exclusive JPRG Xenoblade Chronicles X.

The footage gives a delightful overview the RPG’s expansive battle system, which is a real-time action-based active system very much akin to the combat mechanics found in the original Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii.

Fighting sequences are pretty immersive, painting a distinct picture of being able to drop in and out of combat within the game’s wide-scaled environments. The UI is sleek and MMO-like, featuring a hotbar with various abilities balanced out by active cooldowns, as well as a dynamic party-based system for strategic and tactical battles.

Combat will be fluid and different characters will have “Arts” (as Gamingbolt notes these are very similar to Monado Arts featured in the first game) which are color-coded skillsets determined by various battle stances and techniques. There are four different kinds of arts: fighting, shooting, support and weakening.

Combos are an important part of combat, and you’ll be able to thread together attacks between various party members for spectacular high-damage finishing moves.

Plus every character has a sort of Limit Break-like Super Saiyan-esque boosted-damage status called an “Overclock”, which can raise damage output and unlock various other abilities.

Apart from combat sequences, the new 30 minute video gives us a decent glimpse at Xenoblade Chronicles X‘s class change system, and gamers can expect to see a multitude of different jobs and classes each with their own set of unique roles and abilities.

Nintendo still hasn’t revealed a release date for North America and Europe, and hopefully we’ll hear something on that account soon. I don’t know about you but I’m incredibly hyped for this game, and it looks to be a strong contender for 2015’s best RPG of the year.

Since were betting some of you don’t speak Japanese, Cheesemeister3k translated some of the more important facts from the video:

• Last time, we introduced Planet Mira. This time, we’ll explain the battle system. Tatsu can’t battle, so has to stay at home.

• You’d be in trouble without Tatsu. Need info? Ask him. You won’t get any info without him. He’ll keep things going smoothly.

• Now introducing beasts near NLA (New Los Angeles). Switch between sword and gun for simple attacks, activated by auto attack.

• More advanced techniques are called arts. They’re categorized into fighting, shooting, support, and weakening arts.

• Be careful when using arts: you have to wait a certain amount of time before you’re allowed to recast the same art.

• It’s important to balance usage of auto attack and arts. Soul Voice lets you communicate with your party to use specified arts.
• Soul Voice settings let you plan out strategies in advance of battle. The characters will use the ones you select
  Combos increase damage. Learn arts to generate combos. Doing a combo will let you deal 1.5x damage. Hit from behind.

• Shooting from above or below will increase your accuracy. You can target parts of an enemy to break defenses piece by piece.

• Double recast, waiting for the recast meter to refill a second time after becoming available again, will boost arts strength.

• You can bring your fallen party members back by resuscitating them. You can use auto attack while waiting for double recast.

• Overclock Gear reduces recast waiting times. Using the same arts consecutively ups damage. Triple recast is stronger still.

• Enemy Icons display their level, other info. An eye indicates visual search. A bolt means seismic sensitivity (tread lightly).

• Enemies with a circle around the eye icon hunt in packs, and will call others when they see you.

• Equipment. Weapons come in melee and shooting varieties. Armor: helmets, body armor, left arm, right arm, and leg armor.

• As you use weapons and armor, the supplying company will develop new equipment products for you.

• Equipment slots allow you to customize your weapons and armor with stat-modifying items.

• Leveling up. Gain experience not just from battle, but by finding treasure, etc. Unlocked the arts in your class to open more.

• Choose which class and set of arts to unlock and change to.

• You can form teams of 4 characters. Here’s Ilina. Guin has youthful strength. Doug uses heavy equipment, and is kind.

• This is Lao. Many characters will surprise you with what they bring to battles.

• How are you supposed to fight this big robot? Use your battle skills to win. There’s another weapon at your disposal: dolls.

• Next presentation will be about Dolls

The post Xenoblade Chronicles X Gets New 30 Minute Combat Trailer appeared first on VR World.

The last two years have been rife with reasons to be concerned about national cyber security in the United States: From Edward Snowden’s leaks regarding NSA domestic and international surveillance, to the allegedly North Korean attack on Sony Pictures, to a recent Russian attack on a White House network, to the GAO’s “high-risk” listing on the terrible gaps in U.S cybersecurity. It should therefore come as no surprise that we find the U.S government flailing to haphazardly establish various and poorly connected initiatives in a desperate attempt to stay above water in a brave new world.

The latest step in these efforts is the establishment of the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. During a keynote at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism Lisa Monaco said: “Currently, no single government entity is responsible for producing coordinated cyber threat assessments, ensuring that information is shared rapidly among existing cyber centers … and supporting the work of operators and policymakers with timely intelligence about the latest cyber threats and threat actors. The CTIIC is intended to fill these gaps.”

The “gaps” to which Monaco refers are really tremendous chasms between U.S agencies like the FBI, CIA and NSA which traditionally don’t like talking to one another. In the golden age of espionage, this could be a good thing that aided national security. But in the information age, more information is better, and sharing is the only way to improve national safety.

With an increasingly large number of organizations dedicated to handling the daunting task of keeping the United States safe from outside attacks, it is all the more paramount that they communicate with one another and stay organized and transparent.

“In the cyber context, we need to share threat information more broadly and to coordinate our actions so that we are all working to achieve the same goal,” said Monaco.

Just another agency

But not everyone is convinced that the CTIIC is necessary, or that it will really accomplish its stated purpose. One new member in a sea of acronyms, the CTIIC is considered extraneous by some, or a potential excuse for the government to collate and collect private information: not worth the $35 million it will cost to establish.

A huge influx of governemnt programs to fix a national crisis is an American tradition

Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology is one such skeptic, and has been quoted as saying: “Given the number of other agencies that have cybersecurity threat integration responsibilities, it’s not clear that a new agency is needed.”

Speaking with The Guardian Norjem added, “We are keen to hear from the White House about the measures it will impose to ensure that this new agency operates transparently, with effective independent oversight, and does not become a repository for personal information unnecessary to counter cyber threats.”

What’s more, the CTIIC follows a familiar template, and is modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center which deals with terrorist threats at home and abroad.  The U.S government understands terrorism, and knows all too well how to fight it, and thinks that the same methods will help it to manage a cybersecurity crisis.

But the facts show this strategy is failing miserably. The CTIIC is not the first effort the U.S government has made in the last few years to improve public IT, as the government has already spent billions of dollars to manage the digital frontier – the Pentagon itself spends $5 billion every year on cybersecurity. And according to this month’s GAO report, national cybersecurity is still plagued by terrible problems, and words like “inadequate”, “inconsistent” and “partial” were used to describe the government’s efforts. Since 2006, the number of information security incidents reported by federal agencies to the US-CERT have increased by 1,121%

.

Cyber threats and terrorism are apples and oranges: both fruits, but of completely different kinds. The U.S government is trying to manage a 21st century problem with 20th century solutions, much as the FCC has done by trying to regulate the Internet as utility. Leading technology companies are feeling the brunt of these moves, and Verizon released a satirical statement in morse code regarding the FCC’s new rules to emphasize the inadequacy of outdated methods where new problems are concerned.

So is the CTIIC good or necessary? Perhaps, with proper oversight, it could marginally improve the existing nature of U.S cybersecurity. But perhaps the time has come to stop thinking of ways we can glue the old system together, and come up with something better suited for the decidedly unique threats of the modern world.

The post Is the Newest U.S Cybersecurity Agency Necessary? appeared first on VR World.

CitizenFour, a documentary on Edward Snowden and the surveillance state by filmmaker Laura Poitras, took home the top Oscar for documentary features Sunday night with Lindsay Mills, Snowden’s girlfriend, accepting the Oscar on stage with Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

“The disclosures that Edward Snowden revealed don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself,” Poitras said in her acceptance speech. “Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage and for the many other whistleblowers.”

The bulk of CitizenFour is from footage Poitras shot over the course of eight days in Hong Kong, where Snowden first hid after making contact with Poitras and Greenwald. Once Snowden was offered political asylum in Russia, Poitras travelled there to interview him on his life after he revealed himself to the public.

Snowden sent his best wishes to Poitras for the Oscar win in a statement via the American Civil Liberties Union.

“When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me,” Snowden said in the statement. “The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.”

Poitras earned two previous Oscar nominations for her Iraq war documentary My Country, My Country, released in 2006, and 2010’s The Oath, about prisoners in Guantánamo Bay.

The post Edward Snowden Documentary ‘CitizenFour’ Nabs Oscar Doc appeared first on VR World.

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is under fire for incorrectly listing the specs of the GTX 970, and while the manufacturer has announced that it will provide a way for users to return the card to those looking to do so, that does not seem to extend to a majority of Nvidia’s partners around the globe.

Major retailers such as Amazon and NewEgg are offering refunds to any user looking to return the GTX 970, but in countries like India, customers are left to fend for themselves as retailers are refusing to process returns.

The issue with the GTX 970 is that Nvidia implemented a new memory segmentation in the card, which meant that the 4GB available memory was sectioned into a 3.5GB segment and a 512MB segment. The memory controllers in the 3.5GB segment have direct access to the L2 cache, and deliver an advertised bandwidth of 196GB/s, but the last 512MB has to interface with another memory controller to access the cache, leading to a drastic reduction in bandwidth to 28GB/s.

The situation is more pronounced when a user has the two or more GTX 970 cards in SLI, with a noticeable decrease in framerates when gaming at higher resolutions. Indian hardware site HardwareBBQ posted a conversation between a user facing such issues with the GTX 970 in SLI, and his failed attempts to get a refund for the card. The conversation starts off with the user talking to an Nvidia engineer on the GeForce forums, after which he is redirected to talk to the card vendor directly to initiate the refund process (which in this case is Zotac India).

However, the e-mail communique results in the technical manager for Zotac India, Swarn Singh, refusing to provide a refund as the GTX 970 was delivered “as it is written on the box with all specification.” The user was redirected to contact Nvidia, with Singh stating that a refund would be entertained only if the card suffered from any warranty-related issues. A discussion with an Nvidia engineer based out of India by the name of Rajaram also fails to yield any results, with the engineer stating that it is not “possible to suffer lag (microstutters) when the FPS is high” on the GTX 970.

Zotac India’s stubbornness in acknowledging an issue exists with the GTX 970 is alarming, considering that the brand is one of several vendors processing returns on a global level. The situation is exacerbated when taken into account the fact that video cards often carry a markup of 30 to 35% in the country.

Furthermore, Nvidia claimed that it would assist users that were unable to claim a return for their GTX 970, but the conversations with retailers and discussions on message boards in India show that the chip manufacturer is not offering a solution to users who purchased the card in the country.

With card vendors like Zotac directing users back to Nvidia and the chip vendor not providing any recourse regarding the issue, Indian users are largely left in the cold when it comes to dealing with returns or refunds for the beleaguered GTX 970.

The post GTX 970 Owners In India Left To Fend For Themselves appeared first on VR World.

Apple (NASDAQ:APPL) announced Monday that is plans to construct two data centers in Europe and Denmark to power iTunes and iOS services for customers across Europe.

These two data centers are to be powered by 100% renewable energy, and will create thousands of new jobs during the process.

“We are grateful for Apple’s continued success in Europe and proud that our investment supports communities across the continent,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a press release. “This significant new investment represents Apple’s biggest project in Europe to date. We’re thrilled to be expanding our operations, creating hundreds of local jobs and introducing some of our most advanced green building designs yet.”

Apple’s decision to build these data centers in Europe comes with two sets of advantages. First, having servers outside of US soil keeps data away from the quickly expanding surveillance state. While there are court rulings which state that US firms must hand over data even if abroad, these may not survive the court circuit of continuous appeals. Because of this trend, Europe has seen an uptick in data center construction as firms opt to harbor data in jurisdictions with less intrusive laws on state surveillance.

This also gives Apple a chance to tap into its massive cash reserves that are stored outside the US. Should Apple repatriate that cash to the US it would need to pay tax on it. Keeping it outside the US both puts the cash to work and also saves Apple from the tax burden.

Apple says that both centers will be operational by 2017.

The post Apple Building 100% Renewable Energy Powered Data Centers in Europe appeared first on VR World.