KOFESTO TECHNOLOGIES

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Microsoft’s largest U.S. data center to be built partly in Warren County

Microsoft will begin building its largest data center in the country in Warren County in 2017, local leaders announced last week.
The massive data center will be built near the Cumming exit off Interstate 35. Plans include a facility twice the size of Jordan Creek, about 1.7 million square feet, that will bring in $12 million in tax revenue annually.
West Des Moines Mayor Steven Gaer said Friday at a press conference the 200-acre project will be a $3.5 billion investment by Microsoft.
Of the 200 acres, 160 are in Warren County and 40 acres are in Madison County.
“I’m an accountant by trade so you can imagine I heard about this project and I started rattling all these numbers around and it’s amazing,” said Warren County Board of Supervisors chairman Doug Shull. “Fantastic numbers and a heck of a project.”
The project will roll out in four phases over five years, starting in 2017.
The first phase, according to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, will add a capital investment of more than $417 million and more than 50 permanent jobs will be created.
Branstad, who made it back from the Republican National Convention in Cleveland just in time for the conference, said he “didn’t want to miss this [announcement] for anything.”
He said he’s proud of his state for several reasons, including its initiative for creating clean energy, which has attracted many projects like Microsoft.
Iowa leads the nation in its percentage of electricity generated by wind, Branstad said, with 31 percent. MidAmerican Energy, he said, intends to invest another $3.6 billion in the near future, so Iowa should have 40 percent of its energy coming from wind power by 2020.
“These highly technical companies look for locations that are safe from hurricanes, earthquakes and rolling blackouts,” Branstad said. “By all accounts the leadership we provided and the continuing commitment to renewable energy has made Iowa stand out as a good place to locate for companies like Microsoft.”
Shull said the project will benefit Warren County in more ways than one.
It will complete the last phase of the southwest connector, or Veterans Parkway, which connects Cumming to West Des Moines.
“The byproduct is 5,000 acres that are going to be developed as part of this project and that’s going to be tens of millions of dollars of projects in itself,” Shull said. “For me, and again I’m an accountant, the significance of this project is hard for me to describe.”
Jay Byers, the CEO of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, said the Microsoft announcement will further position central Iowa as a national data center hub.
“As you know,” Byers said, “a key ingredient to our region’s economic development success is the ability to collaborate.”

Sikich LLP receives 2 Microsoft partner awards

NAPERVILLE --Professional services firm Sikich LLP has been named 2016 US SMB Champions Club Heartland Partner of the Year and 2016 US SMB Champions Club Heartland Influencer Partner of the Year by Microsoft's US Small and Mid-sized Business Champions Club.

The Heartland Partner of the Year award recognizes the US SMB Champions Club partner who has demonstrated significant Microsoft sales and year-over-year revenue growth with Heartland Area SMB customers. The Heartland Influencer Partner of the Year award recognizes the US SMB Champions Club partner that demonstrates a significant commitment and success in working with Microsoft and the influencer community (chambers of commerce, professional organizations, etc.) to drive awareness and adoption of Office 365 in the Heartland Area.

Members of the US SMB Champions Club have shown dedication to arming the small business community with the right technology and services they need to be successful.

Sikich, a member of the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle, offers ERP and CRM services, including Microsoft Dynamics AX, GP, NAV, SL and CRM implementation and support. Additional technology services from Sikich include cloud enablement services, Office 365, Azure hosting, IT managed services, security and compliance, disaster recovery, and business intelligence.

Sikich along with winners in six other categories were recognized during the Microsoft SMB Champions Award Reception in Toronto, Canada.

Less than three years ago, Microsoft launched the Xbox One at $500. Ahead of its first major refresh, the company has cut the price on the existing bulky model to just $249. That’s a significant drop for the platform just a few months after its last round of price cuts, and it makes the Xbox One a compelling option for the right kind of customer.
While this is hardly the first time Microsoft has performed a midstream refresh, these kinds of price cuts are unprecedented, particularly on this kind of timeline. The Xbox 360 debuted in two configurations: A $399 Premium system with a 20GB HDD and a $299 “Core” system with no internal storage at $299. Microsoft introduced and end-of-life’d a number of Xbox 360 SKUs over the system’s lifetime, but never slashed prices this deeply — the closest it came was with the Xbox 360 Arcade, which launched in October 2007 at $279 and was discontinued in June 2010 with a final price of $150.
Slashing prices this quickly — this is the Xbox One’s third price cut since E3 — is probably a sign that Microsoft wants to clear the SKU out and rapidly refill it from the upcoming Xbox One S, an updated platform with 4K output support and high dynamic range display support, as well with a 2TB HDD and a $399 SKU price. A 1TB and 500GB version of the console will be available for $349 and $299 respectively.

Is the Xbox One a good deal at $249?

I’m a PC gamer, not a console aficionado, but the original Xbox One is pretty darn attractive at just $250. It’s now cheaper than the Wii U, yet significantly more powerful than that system. While it’s not as fast as the PlayStation 4, there’s a solid library of titles available for the Xbox One, and a fairly extensive group of Xbox 360 games available through emulation. Reports on the quality of that emulation have come back positive as well.

When Microsoft and Sony launched the Xbox One and PS4 at $400, there was some debate about whether or not you could match or exceed their performance with equivalent PC hardware. Granted, a few years has passed since then, but the $250 price point obviates the debate. If all you need is a new GPU, yes, you can easily beat the Xbox One — AMD’s RX 480 is available starting at $200, while the GTX 1060 is $249.
If you need a new system, or even a new CPU, motherboard, and graphics card, there’s no way to pick up all three components new for the cost of an Xbox One. As an entry-level gaming system, in fact, it’s hard to argue against the platform — and it comes with features that an entry-level gaming PC wouldn’t necessarily have, like the ability to stream titles from the Xbox to any compatible PC in the house.
The flip side to this is that the Xbox One’s shelf life isn’t a sure thing. Microsoft will move to the Xbox One Scorpio by Christmas 2017, and it hasn’t spelled out its backwards compatibility plans. Presumably the company will keep backwards-compatibility as a top priority, but if it plans to leap over Sony and push next-generation hardware it may be tempted to allow titles to target Scorpio as a baseline platform.
While the $249 price doesn’t include the monthly cost of Xbox Live, it’s hard to argue with that price tag for an entry-level gaming box. So long as you know what you’re buying, it’s an attractive option. It’s not clear yet what the trade-in / trade-up value of future Xbox One’s will be when Scorpio finally launches, so keep that in mind when evaluating the console.

Microsoft Authenticator brings two-factor logins to your Apple Watch

Two-factor authentication on Microsoft platforms doesn’t have to be a pain in the rear end. That seems to be the takeaway from Microsoft’s Monday announcement of a new authenticator app, the eponymous Microsoft Authenticator, that’ll debut for “all major mobile platforms” on August 15.

The new app is a merger of what was previously several, essentially. Under the old system, Microsoft demarcated two-factor business and personal accounts along a very clear line: Microsoft accounts (MSAs) on the one end, and Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) on the other. The two categories of customers lived within their siloed ecosystems, and everything, in theory, puttered along just splendidly.

But that wasn’t the case in practice. As Neowin notes, Microsoft had no fewer than four two-factor authentication apps across mobile: Azure Authenticator app on iOS, Authenticator for MSAs on Windows, and Microsoft Account on the Play Store. ddly, iOS lacked any form of app for managing MSAs. It wasn’t pretty, needless to say.

That’s why Microsoft’s starting fresh with Microsoft Authenticator, which Microsoft Identity Division’s Alex Simons said “combines the best parts of our previous authenticator apps into a new app.” The app’s biggest benefit? The ability to log into both MSAs and Azure ADs from a single interface. But that’s not the only improvement it has in tow. The user interface has been refreshed, and it’s gained support for one-click push notifications: initiate a login and you’ll get a message on your mobile with an “approve” button. Hit it, and you’re free to continue on your merry way.

There’s more. Microsoft Authenticator supports wearables, for better or worse — you can use an Apple Watch or Samsung Gear smartwatch to “approve MFA challenges.” Enterprise users can sign in using certificates now, too, but not to worry if you prefer biometrics to a PIN, passcode, or file: The new app supports fingerprint-based approvals on Android and iOS.

There are a few quirks of note. In terms of wearable approvals, Microsoft’s own Band and Band 2 won’t be supported, initially — Microsoft told Neowin that Band support is “one the roadmap” — and neither will devices running Google’s Android Wear operating system. And fingerprint support apparently isn’t in the cards for Windows Phone users, at least at launch. But that may change with the debut later this year of HP’s Elite x3 — the first Windows Phone device with an active fingerprint sensor.

The new authenticator app will replace Azure Authenticator in the form of an update, as will the Microsoft Account app on Android. Existing accounts will be “automatically upgraded,” Microsoft said.

The University City Science Center said Tuesday it has formed a “digital alliance” with Microsoft Corp. that will focus on digital literacy, small business and entrepreneurship, health and wellness, and youth engagement with STEM subjects.

Stephen S. Tang, president and CEO of the Science Center, said the partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will expand on the work the organization has already been doing at the Science Center to support entrepreneurship and engage middle-school science, technology, engineering and math students. “Together we will be able to reach new audiences and introduce even more people to the transformative power and potential of technology,” Tang said.

As part of the alliance, announced during a Microsoft YouthSpark Town Hall program in Philadelphia on Tuesday, the two organizations will jointly host a health care innovation roundtable on July 27 from 1 to 3 p.m. for local members and partners of the Science Center and neighboring health care communities.

Science Center showcases the use of technology to improve democracy

After the Democratic National Convention, the Science Center will work with Microsoft to offer a “DigiCamp” program for boys, a “DigiGirlz” day program for girls, and an educational forum that will focus on development and capacity building for startup organizations and small businesses through the Microsoft BizSpark program.

The programs will take place at the Microsoft Reactor space on the ground floor of 3711 Market St.

“Microsoft is thrilled to support the Science Center because we believe that the power of technology helps individuals and communities do more and achieve more, so they can ultimately realize their full potential,” said Donna Woodall, director of Microsoft citizenship and public affairs, in a prepared statement. “This strategic alliance with the Science Center is exciting as it provides youth with access to coding courses such as video game development and small businesses and entrepreneurs with innovation workshops as well as technology tools to help them reach their goals.”

Microsoft workers using a 'hackathon' to help those in need

SEATTLE -- Yossi Banai and his family have taken in 29 foster children over the last 10 years. They do it to show love and support to kids who may never have known it.
Banai also knows what it's like to deal with the Washington State Department of Social Services, which handles foster kid cases.
"You're working with a system that's big and complicated and inefficient and no one is there to help you," he said.
A couple of years ago he and his family joined The Mockingbird Society, a non-profit private agency intended to improve foster care and end youth homelessness.
The group follows a family care model where six to 10 families help a licensed foster care family navigate bureaucracy and unexpected emergency.
But the agency was stuck in the age of pencil and paper. That was unacceptable to Banai, who works as a project manager for Microsoft.
"At Microsoft, we are used to using data to make decisions and this is not what I'm seeing in social services," he said. "So I really wanted to fix it."
Enter nearly 14,000 Microsoft employees worldwide who are using this week to provide their expertise in 72 countries to create products that non-profits and special causes most likely could never afford. The company calls it "hack for good".
"The way we think about hacking is really kind of a state of mind, more of an attitude," said James Roomey, an organizer of a hackathon now underway at Microsoft.
Inside a large tent dubbed the "Hacknado," thousands of software developers are devoting the next three days to create products, apps, databases, custom software to benefit upwards to 4,000 causes including The Mockingbird Society.
"A call goes out to employees for ideas for a hackathon" says Roomey. "They can put any idea they want in our hackathon system, recruit other employees to help, so it's very grass roots and entirely employee led."
Banai did just that. He recruited a team to create a custom program that lets the staff of Mockingbird track the progress of foster families through their system. It's a program the state can't provide.

"This is an absolute blessing for us" says Degale Cooper, a director at The Mockingbird Society.
"The hack team, they are excited and passionate. We are excited and passionate about what we do. Mixed with the Microsoft team we are going to change this whole child welfare system" says Cooper.
It's the third year Microsoft has held a massive "hack for good" hackathon on its campus. The company is picking up the tab on all expenses including paying for all the work down by its volunteer hackers.
Banai couldn't be happier.
"What we usually do at Microsoft is painting and planting when we volunteer," he said.. "Now we can do what we do best to make a real difference in the world.

Microsoft just made it way easier to write a research paper with Word

If you've used the last few versions of Word, you'll know it's really hard to pinpoint exactly what's changed. Word might feel feature complete right now, but Microsoft isn't giving up on adding new and interesting features. This month, Microsoft is adding a new Researcher feature to Word. As the name implies, it's designed to make research paper writing a lot easier.
Researcher uses Microsoft's Bing Knowledge Graph to query content from the internet and then pull it straight into Word. Microsoft has a curated list of trusted sources and reference materials which the company plans to expand upon over time. If you add source material, it will even automatically create the citation in your bibliography as part of your research paper. If you're a student using Office 365 then Researcher is available immediately, and Microsoft is planning to bring the feature to mobile variants of Office in the future.

Alongside Researcher, Microsoft is also introducing a new Word Editor feature. While Word has had grammar and spellcheck features for years, this new Editor feature is more of an advanced proofing service. Microsoft is using its machine learning skills to process content, and the Editor will suggest improving your writing by flagging words that are used too frequently. It's more of a style guide initially, but Word will start teaching you words or phrases later this year to improve your writing style. Spelling edits will still be underlined with a red squiggle, and grammar with a blue double underline, but writing style suggestions will get their own gold dotted line.

Word's new editor is your very own proofing service

Elsewhere, Excel might not be getting any new features this month but Outlook and PowerPoint haven't been left behind. Outlook is getting the Focused Inbox feature typically found on the mobile version of the app. It works the same way, allowing you to move email into the other section and ensure all your important messages remain in the focused version of your inbox. Mentions using the "@" symbol are also arriving today, letting you flag people in emails. Microsoft is planning to bring mentions to Outlook for iOS, Android, and Windows 10 Mobile in the future, but they're available for the desktop PC and Mac versions of Outlook today.

PowerPoint got a really interesting Morph feature last year, and Microsoft is introducing a similar Zoom addition today. Zoom is designed to make presentations a little more engaging so you can present slides with the use of sections. It's really designed to let the audience know exactly how long is left in the presentation, with a clear view of what section is being covered. Microsoft is introducing Zoom to PowerPoint 2016 on Windows PCs today.

Microsoft wants you to write better, stay focused and bore fewer people

Microsoft announced a number of updates to Word, PowerPoint and Outlook today that will bring more of its machine learning smarts (among other things) to some of its core Office suite products.
For Word, the focus is on helping you become a better, more confident writer. With Researcher for Word, the team is now building a new tool into Word that helps you find information regarding the topic about which you are writing. Those sources can be online journals and encyclopedias, history databases, national science and health centers, as well as other trustworthy sites, and you can import formatted references directly into Word.
The idea here, of course, is to allow you to do your research without switching content. While this is probably a great tool for high school students and maybe even college students, chances are this won’t replace the kind of subscription-based research database to which your local college library has access. For the most part, though, Microsoft isn’t trying to sell it as that either, and mostly considers it a way to help you start your research.
Microsoft says this features is powered by the Bing Knowledge Graph.
Office 365 Insiders will get this update this month and other subscribers will get access soon thereafter.

Also new in Word is Editor for Word. Editor uses Microsoft’s machine-learning expertise to provide you with spell and grammar cheques that go beyond the kind of basik tools currently available in most word processing tools. “Instead of just highlighting mistakes, Editor teaches users of all abilities how to improve their writing, accounting for conciseness, word choice and more,” Microsoft says. So when you once again use “affect” instead of “effect,” Word won’t just tell you that you’re wrong, but also explain why (just like that poor uninsured adjunct who taught your English 101 class has probably done a million times now, too).

You will now see red squiggles for spelling issues and blue double underlines for grammar problems. When Word spots issues with your writing style, it’ll highlight those with a gold dotted line.
If you, like a million others, use Outlook on the desktop, you’ll now also finally get access to what’s probably the best feature of Outlook for mobile: Focused Inbox. Like Gmail’s priority inbox, Focused Inbox also highlights the emails that are most likely important. While I’ve found that Priority Inbox and Focused Inbox on mobile do occasionally highlight different emails, it’s hard to imagine wading through my inbox without these tools, so it’s good to see them come to the desktop, as well.
Also new in Outlook is support for @mentions (yep — just like on Twitter). When you @mention somebody in an email now, that person will be automatically added to the TO: line and the recipient will get an extra notification and know that this is a really important email (I assume). This feature is now available to all Office Insiders using Outlook 2016 on Windows and Mac.
The last new feature is Zoom for PowerPoint. This takes some cues from other presentation tools like Prezi, in that it aims to make your presentations more dynamic and allow you to go beyond the basic slide-to-slide style and rearrange your presentation on the fly when you notice that your audience is slowly falling asleep. Here is what this looks like in practice:

Microsoft is investigating widespread reports of battery issues with its line of Surface Pro 3 devices. Reports of Surface Pro 3 battery drain originated back in May, and some users are now reporting that their devices only last up to an hour after a full charge. It's not clear exactly what's causing the issues, but most Surface Pro 3 users who are experiencing the problems have SIMPLO batteries installed in their devices. Microsoft used SIMPLO and LG to manufacture batteries for the Surface Pro 3, and it appears that the SIMPLO ones are affected by capacity issues.

"We are aware of some customers reporting a scenario with their Surface Pro 3 batteries in which the system is reporting lower battery capacity than expected," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. "This is a top priority for our team, and we are working quickly to understand the root cause. If you are experiencing this scenario, please contact Microsoft customer support."

While Microsoft is encouraging affected users to contact customer support, a 24-page thread on Microsoft's support forums has gone unanswered. A lot of affected batteries appear to deteriorate during the month of May, which could suggest a firmware update issue or simply a faulty batch of batteries. As the Surface Pro 3 was originally released back in 2014, most devices are out of warranty and affected users have to spend hundreds of dollars to replace the faulty batteries.

Tim Sweeney doesn't like Windows 10 or Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform, the common development platform that allows developers to create software that can run on Windows on PCs, phones, tablets, HoloLens, and the Xbox. In March he published an op-ed in The Guardian saying that UWP "can, should, must, and will die" because, he claimed, Microsoft could use UWP to create a walled garden, with UWP games not available through competing stores such as Steam. Still apparently concerned with the health of the PC gaming industry, Sweeney is now claiming, through an interview with the print-only Edge magazine, that Microsoft will use Windows updates to kill Steam.
Sweeney's complaints about UWP were technically off-base. His issues are based on the assumption that all UWP apps had to be individually vetted by Microsoft and could only be delivered by the Windows Store. This was somewhat true in Windows 8—apps built using the WinRT platform (the predecessor branding to UWP) could not be trivially sideloaded, as the ability was officially restricted to enterprise users only. But it's not true in Windows 10. Sideloading is enabled by default in Windows 10, and any third-party store could download and install UWP-based games in much the same way as they already do for software that uses the Win32 API.
Sweeney's Steam concerns are once again driven by UWP:

There are two programming interfaces for Windows, and every app has to choose one of them. Every Steam app—every PC game for the past few decades—has used Win32. It's been both responsible for the vibrant software market we have now, but also for malware. Any program can be a virus. Universal Windows Platform is seen as an antidote to that. It's sandboxed—much more locked down.
The risk here is that, if Microsoft convinces everybody to use UWP, then they phase out Win32 apps. If they can succeed in doing that then it's a small leap to forcing all apps and games to be distributed through the Windows Store. Once we reach that point, the PC has become a closed platform. It won't be that one day they flip a switch that will break your Steam library—what they're trying to do is a series of sneaky maneuvers. They make it more and more inconvenient to use the old apps, and, simultaneously, they try to become the only source for the new ones.

As before, it's worth remembering that UWPs are not tied to the Windows Store. Anyone can produce a UWP that installs and runs on Windows without having to use the Windows Store at all. Even if Microsoft were to remove Win32 somehow, this would not be equivalent to forcing the use of the Windows Store.
On the one hand, it's certainly possible to imagine a future world in which at least some PC users need never use anything other than UWPs. For a PC primarily used for mail, Web browsing, and a little light gaming, UWPs can handle this job. This is not a problem in itself. Some people today don't need anything more capable than an iPad, so of course there will be a certain audience for whom UWPs apps (with or without sideloading) are sufficient to handle their computing needs.
But, on the other hand, this is neglecting to consider some important details. For example, UWP is built on Win32. It is a fairly large subset of Win32, and it runs in a sandboxed environment, but there's no clear path for Microsoft to completely strip Win32 from Windows without also removing UWP. Similarly, core applications currently depend on Win32: this includes things like Windows' own Explorer shell, as well as critical applications such as the full Office suite. This makes ditching Win32 even more untenable; Microsoft would have to get all of its own software off Win32 first, and that's not going to happen for many years.
On the gripping hand is a vast array of Win32 software that isn't going away any time soon. This includes major applications such as Adobe Photoshop and all manner of custom, line-of-business applications. This enormous legacy of software is a key part of Windows' value proposition: 64-bit Windows today will run almost any 32-bit Windows application (going back to Windows NT 3.1 in 1993). 32-bit Windows today will run almost any 16- or 32-bit Windows application and a substantial number of DOS applications dating back further still. The big reason that Windows is what it is, and Microsoft hasn't gotten rid of weird quirks such as drive letters, is precisely so that these applications continue to work. They're not discardable relics; they're why Windows is used on more than a billion computers.
Microsoft has even been down this road before. Windows RT, the version of Windows 8 and 8.1 for ARM processors, included a near-complete Win32 API, but it locked that API away; only applications developed and digitally signed by Microsoft could use it. Third-party applications all had to use WinRT, making the systems running Windows RT functionally equivalent to "Windows but without Win32." They bombed, hard. Windows without Win32 means Windows without Win32 applications, and the market for Windows without Win32 applications is very limited indeed.
Sweeney appears to be betting that Microsoft will make the same costly mistake again. While a richer UWP ecosystem will certainly make ditching Win32 more palatable, especially for those with simple needs, the notion that Microsoft will willingly break compatibility with a million or more extant Win32 applications is ridiculous. Indeed, the company is, if anything, working in the opposite direction: Project Centennial makes it possible for developers to use the Windows Store to sell and service their existing Win32 applications without having to rewrite them to use UWP.
Xbox chief Phil Spencer even recognizes how core this backwards compatibility is to gaming. Back when rumors of an updated Xbox first started circulating, Spencer said that any hypothetical upgrade or replacement would "effectively feel a little bit more like we see on PC, where I can still go back and run my old Doom and Quake games that I used to play years ago, but I can still see the best 4K games come out and my library is always with me." This compatibility is a virtue, and the still-mysterious next generation Xbox system Project Scorpio will boast full compatibility with the Xbox One and Xbox One S.
More extraordinarily, Sweeney believes that Microsoft will somehow sabotage Steam to drive gamers away:

Slowly, over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. They'll never completely break it, but [Microsoft] will continue to break it until, in five years, people are so fed up that Steam is buggy that the Windows Store seems like an ideal alternative. That's exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Now they're doing it to Steam. It’s only just starting to become visible. Microsoft might not be competent enough to succeed with their plan, but they're certainly trying.

If this were Wikipedia, both the "that's exactly what they did" and "they're certainly trying" claims would be adorned "citation needed." Evidence of Microsoft doing such a thing is decidedly thin on the ground. Perhaps Sweeney is thinking back to beta versions of Windows 3.1, which issued warnings when used in conjunction with DR-DOS, Digital Research's competitor to Microsoft's MS-DOS.
It's true that Steam is somewhat reckless as a Win32 application. Steam plays fast and loose with file permissions so that a Steam client can update itself, download games, and download patches without requiring Administrator rights. One could perhaps imagine Microsoft doing something, eventually, to crack down on this behavior. If so, Valve would have to change Steam accordingly. But breaking Steam in some kind of incremental patch-by-patch way to drive users away is a non-starter for much the same reason that ditching Win32 is a non-starter. Steam is a Win32 application, and Win32 applications represent a major part of the Windows value proposition. Microsoft can no more start breaking Win32 apps in weird, secretive ways than it can scrap Win32 entirely. If Win32 stops working properly, Windows stops working properly.
Sweeney's fixation with Windows 10 and gaming in particular is peculiar. Gaming is an important part of the Windows platform, but it's a small factor when compared to the hold the company has on the corporate desktop market. The very idea that Microsoft would jeopardize Windows in business situations by breaking Win32 just to kill off Steam is extraordinary.

Microsoft silently kills dev backdoor that boots Linux on locked-down Windows RT slabs

Microsoft has quietly killed a vulnerability that can be exploited to unlock ARM-powered Windows RT tablets and boot non-Redmond-approved operating systems.
The Register has learned that one of the security holes addressed this week in the July edition of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday closes a backdoor left in Windows RT by its programmers during its development.
That backdoor can be exploited to unlock the slab's bootloader and start up an operating system of your choice, such as GNU/Linux or Android, provided it supports the underlying hardware.
Normally, Windows RT devices are locked down to only boot software cryptographically signed by Microsoft. That's left some Windows RT owners frustrated because they're unable to switch to another OS: the firmware refuses to accept non-Microsoft code, and curious minds have been trying for years now to defeat these defenses and run whatever they want. The bootloader cannot be unlocked even if you have administrator-level access on the device.
Windows RT is essentially Windows 8.x ported to devices powered by 32-bit ARMv7-compatible processors. It is a dead-end operating system, though: Microsoft has stopped developing it, and mainstream support for Surface RT tabs runs out in 2017 and Windows RT 8.1 in 2018.
This is why a means to bypass its boot mechanisms is highly sought. Yet, one was right under everyone's noses in the operating system – and MS16-094 released this week closes that loophole, according to computer security sources who asked to remain anonymous.

So if you want to investigate how to unlock your Windows RT slab, hold off applying that particular patch, and study the changes it will make to the system to reveal where the backdoor lies and how to exploit it. We're told it doesn't involve editing the registry – an area some people have looked at – rather it involves applying a specially crafted policy.
According to Microsoft's advisory on MS16-094, the fix blocks that magic unlock policy:

A security feature bypass vulnerability exists when Windows Secure Boot improperly applies an affected policy. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could disable code integrity checks, allowing test-signed executables and drivers to be loaded on a target device. In addition, an attacker could bypass the Secure Boot Integrity Validation for BitLocker and the Device Encryption security features.
To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker must either gain administrative privileges or physical access to a target device to install an affected policy. The security update addresses the vulnerability by blacklisting affected policies.

Details on how to evade the Secure Boot defenses are not public. Although, before unlocking the bootloader, we're told you should run manage-bde -protectors C: -disable to make sure BitLocker is disarmed, or your slab won't boot.
The Secure Boot hole is also present in Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 10, and Windows Server Core, again patched by MS16-094. But you need admin or physical-level access to abuse the loophole, and if you have that kind of access on those operating systems, you can do anything you like – including change the operating system. Windows RT devices are different: you can't change the OS on a device unless you have Microsoft's secret signing keys.
We've asked Microsoft if it plans to open up RT devices and let users install other operating systems. This is the response we got back:

Microsoft released security update MS16-094, and customers who have Windows Update enabled and have applied the July security updates are protected automatically.

The Need for Big Data!

Big data is a term for data sets that are so large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate. Challenges include analysis, capture, data curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, visualization, querying, updating and information privacy. The term often refers simply to the use of predictive analytics or certain other advanced data analytics methods that extract value from data, and seldom to a particular size of data set. Accuracy in big data may lead to more confident decision making, and better decisions can result in greater operational efficiency, cost reduction and reduced risk. Analysis of data sets can find new correlations to "spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on." Scientists, business executives, practitioners of medicine, advertising and governments alike regularly meet difficulties with large data sets in areas including Internet search, finance and business informatics. Scientists encounter limitations in e-Science work, including meteorology, genomics, connectomics, complex physics simulations, biology and environmental research. Data sets are growing rapidly in part because they are increasingly gathered by cheap and numerous information-sensing mobile devices, aerial (remote sensing), software logs, cameras, microphones, radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers and wireless sensor networks. The world's technological per-capita capacity to store information has roughly doubled every 40 months since the 1980s;[8] as of 2012, every day 2.5 exabytes (2.5×1018) of data is created. One question for large enterprises is determining who should own big data initiatives that affect the entire organization. Relational database management systems and desktop statistics and visualization packages often have difficulty handling big data. The work instead requires "massively parallel software running on tens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers". What is considered "big data" varies depending on the capabilities of the users and their tools, and expanding capabilities make big data a moving target. "For some organizations, facing hundreds of gigabytes of data for the first time may trigger a need to reconsider data management options. For others, it may take tens or hundreds of terabytes before data size becomes a significant consideration." Big data usually includes data sets with sizes beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture, curate, manage, and process data within a tolerable elapsed time. Big data "size" is a constantly moving target, as of 2012 ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many petabytes of data. Big data requires a set of techniques and technologies with new forms of integration to reveal insights from datasets that are diverse, complex, and of a massive scale. In a 2001 research report and related lectures, META Group (now Gartner) analyst Doug Laney defined data growth challenges and opportunities as being three-dimensional, i.e. increasing volume (amount of data), velocity (speed of data in and out), and variety (range of data types and sources). Gartner, and now much of the industry, continue to use this "3Vs" model for describing big data. In 2012, Gartner updated its definition as follows: "Big data is high volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery and process optimization." Gartner's definition of the 3Vs is still widely used, and in agreement with a consensual definition that states that "Big Data represents the Information assets characterized by such a High Volume, Velocity and Variety to require specific Technology and Analytical Methods for its transformation into Value". Additionally, a new V "Veracity" is added by some organizations to describe it, revisionism challenged by some industry authorities. The 3Vs have been expanded to other complementary characteristics of big data:

Volume: big data doesn't sample; it just observes and tracks what happens
Velocity: big data is often available in real-time
Variety: big data draws from text, images, audio, video; plus it completes missing pieces through data fusion
Machine Learning: big data often doesn't ask why and simply detects patterns
Digital footprint: big data is often a cost-free byproduct of digital interaction

Your website may be engaged in secret criminal activity

Most of us think of website hacks as illicit activities aimed at siphoning critical information or disrupting the business of website owners. But what happens when your site becomes hacked, not for the purpose of harming you but rather to further the ends of other parties? Most likely, the attackers would manage to feed off your resources and reputation for months or years without being discovered, because it’s hard to take note of something that isn’t directly affecting you. This is what a recent report from cybersecurity firm Imperva shows, which proves that you should harden your website not only to protect yourself, but also to protect others and prevent your online assets from being taken advantage of for illicit activities. Compiled by researchers at Imperva Defense Center, the report unveils a long-running blackhat SEO campaign in which hackers are exploiting vulnerabilities in thousands of legitimate websites in order to promote the search engine ranking of their clients’ websites. The hackers are using botnets (networks of remotely hijacked computers) in order to amplify their campaigns and are using known hacking techniques such as SQL injection and comment spam in order to inconspicuously insert backlinks to their clients in the targeted websites. The attackers use CSS and HTML tricks to hide the inserted snippets from the eyes of visitors and site administrators while keeping them visible to web crawlers. The fact that the targeted websites are not directly affected by the attacks (aside from SEO penalties) makes the attacks much harder to detect and notice. In fact, according to Imperva, the campaign is still ongoing and the hackers continue to seek out and target vulnerable sites. Although the Imperva report is the most recent and expansive case of websites being piggybacked for malicious purposes, it is far from being the only instance. There’s a long precedence of websites being hacked and used as a beachhead for activities that in most cases are far more damaging than blackhat SEO. In February, hackers broke into the official Linux Mint website and surreptitiously distributed their own backdoored version of the operating system to thousands of oblivious users. In October last year, hackers breached thousands of websites powered by eBay’s Magento e-commerce platform through a zero-day exploit and abused them to deliver malware to visitors. A joint research led by experts from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and Stony Brook University in the U.S. showed how hackers were compromising advertisements on illegal livestreaming websites to inflict visitors with malware.

More than our own data and security is at stake when we’re operating websites.

But websites of questionable nature aren’t the only targets that hackers exploit to deal their damage. According to Cisco’s 2015 Annual Security Report, the aviation, agriculture, mining and insurance industries top the list of websites that pose the risk of harming visitors. And a rash of malicious ads turning up on sites such as The New York Times, BBC and MSN earlier this year showed that even the big-name sites can unwittingly become complicit in the crimes of cyber-evildoers. Source code flaws are at the heart of website hacks Not all website-related hacks are carried out by compromising the server. Many of them use malvertising, a hacking technique that takes advantage of ad delivery networks and leverages vulnerabilities on client machines such as bugs in Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. But where web servers are concerned, source code flaws are the main reason websites are compromised. “Today we see that a major number of attacks against websites are based on vulnerabilities which have not been properly addressed at the code level of the web application,” says Amit Ashbel, CEO of cybersecurity firm Checkmarx. While developers usually do test the code of their websites, it isn’t necessarily the security flaws they seek. “Unfortunately it is not always common practice to have developers identify and address the vulnerabilities just like they would address functionality bugs triggered by their code,” Ashbel elaborates. Organizations are starting to understand the importance of rooting out security flaws from their applications, but there’s only so much you can do when dealing with hundreds of thousands of lines of code. This is a challenge that, according to Ashbel, can be overcome with the use of static application security testing (SAST) tools, solutions that help spot security bugs in software as you code. “Source code analysis can be implemented in a very efficient and effective manner if organizations adopt the idea of introducing security,” he says. The advantage of SASTs, Ashbel says, is that they become integrated into the development lifecycle of web applications and reduce the cost and time required to fix bugs. “While this may not provide 100% protection, it is a key step which should become part of every organization’s SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle),” he stresses. “Making sure that code is analyzed for vulnerabilities as part of the SDLC is just like analyzing code for functionality bugs.” Checkmarx has designed its tools with the focus to help developers quickly mitigate vulnerabilities in their code, while at the same time increase their secure coding skills via a set of functionalities designed to deliver education as part of the mitigation. Other viable initiatives in this regard include efforts led by several security startups to leverage artificial intelligence in hunting software bugs. The innovations have been set forth in a Cyber Grand Challenge competition hosted by DARPA. Among tasks given to participants is to design tools that can disassemble software, analyze it and plug any potential security holes. DARPA’s vision is to have AI that complements the work humans do in finding bugs — and, of course, exploiting them.

Not every organization has the know-how and resources to fix security bugs in the source code of their web applications.

A small team from the University of Idaho’s Center for Secure and Dependable Systems is among the competition’s finalists. Their goal is to make tools and methodologies available to developers that will make it easier and cheaper to build secure code. Jim Alves-Foss, who leads the two-person team, says they have opted for a combination of algorithms and heuristics to root out bugs that have been known to researchers for decades but pop up in newly written code, which he describes as “low-hanging fruit for attackers.” Another team from software security firm GrammaTech and the University of Virginia are developing an AI-powered task master that can determine which parts of software are more likely to have security bugs and optimize computation resources to analyze those sections. The efforts are still far from being deliverable to consumers, but the challenge environment is showing promise and will crop up some interesting results. Not every organization has the know-how and resources to fix security bugs in the source code of their web applications and make sure they don’t expose their visitors to harm. In fact, for the most part, organizations rely on popular CMS and blog engines such as WordPress, which let you power up your website with little or no coding skills. This by itself can become a security hole, because, in many cases, site administrators remain oblivious to hacks because of their lack of knowledge. As it happens, a huge number of website hacks are made possible through zero-day flaws in these engines, or known flaws in unpatched instances installed on web servers. And as most of these engines are open to third-party extension development, many data breaches take place through badly coded plug-ins installed by careless site administrators who only wish to access the added functionality. But this problem isn’t without a solution. Firms with little or no security staffing and web application experience can invest in the use of cloud-based security services, which are easy to integrate with different forms of IT infrastructure. For instance, cloud-based Web Application Firewalls (WAF) add a layer of security to web applications, and their installation is often as simple as a redirection of a website’s traffic through the WAF provider. WAFs function by monitoring website traffic at the application layer, which basically means they are much more effective than traditional security tools in discovering and blocking known attacks and zero-day exploits on web applications. According to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant 2015, WAFs are one of the most popular tools for securing websites and can act as an alternative to vulnerability scanning tools and processes for organizations that don’t have the necessary resources. Most major cybersecurity vendors and hosting services such as Amazon and Microsoft Azure offer some kind of WAF protection to their clients, but there are also many startups and mid-sized companies that are carving out a position for themselves in the cloud-based WAF industry, including Imperva, DenyAll and Positive Technologies (ranked as Leaders and Visionaries in Gartner’s MQ). WAFs do come with their own caveats and require in-house cybersecurity talent. They also have their shortcomings when it comes to dealing with the complexities and diversities that characterize web applications. However, cloud-based security solutions often remedy the situation somewhat by requiring the least involvement from the client and deferring the bulk of the work to the WAF provider and its teams of experts. Recent hacks serve as a reminder that more than our own data and security is at stake when we’re operating websites. It’s hard to call any single tool a panacea that will plug all the holes and prevent your website from becoming a vehicle for cybercrimes. That’s why we’re still seeing websites getting hacked on a large scale. However, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try your best to protect your website (and, of course, its visitors) with as many tools as you can lay your hands on. After all, as the saying goes, you only need a stronger lock than your neighbor.

Microsoft announces professional degree program to fill the skills gap

Microsoft wants more data scientists in the job market. But some young people need to acquire their knowledge starting completely anew, while mid-career professionals need to build on their previous experience. To plug the skills gap for both categories, Microsoft launched a series of classes in data science through edX.org, the nonprofit online learning destination founded by Harvard University and MIT. The Data Science Curriculum is the first offering of the Microsoft Professional Degree program, a Microsoft-led initiative to help professionals grow their skills in critical fields. Launched today, the program aims to offer an “employer-endorsed, university-caliber curriculum for professionals at any stage of their career,” the company said in a press release. Data scientist is probably one of the most desired professions, with more job offerings than candidates. The Microsoft course consists of nine classes and a final project. All classes can be audited for free. However, to receive credit toward the Microsoft Professional Degree, students must purchase a certificate for each of the 10 steps of the curriculum. The certificate for the orientation class costs $25, the verified certificate for “Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics” costs $99 and all other classes offer certificates for $49 each (the complete Data Science course costs $516). Students need to enroll in specific course sessions. A calendar for each class is available here; prospective students can read the detailed syllabus, examine the elective options for each unit and enroll on the edX page of the class. Each step requires a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 8 hours to be completed. Microsoft is not the first major tech company to enter the field of IT online education — Google and Udacity have partnered to offer an Android nanodegree and other classes, and Amazon offers AWS training and certification for advance technical skills, including a big data class.

Facebook Challenges Apple For Control Of The Next Major Battleground

The news that Facebook is working on encrypting end-to-end communication in its chat client is another sign that messaging is the next major battleground online. Facebook also is also working for SnapChat style ‘self destructing’ messages, and the rise of messaging bots allows third-party developers to deliver solutions inside the chat environment. End-to-end encryption is increasingly being seen as a desirable product for many users of IM platforms, and the addition of this feature should be seen as Facebook emphatically planting a flag to say ‘we are here in this space and we plan to dominate it’. It’s important to realise that the messaging clients on desk-bound computers and (especially) on mobile are more than people talking to each other. It is seen by many as ‘the next platform’ for growth and development of the market. In Facebook’s case it allows it to reach across operating systems and devices and to be the fabric that joins everything together – with Mark Zuckerberg’s empire at the centre. If you can provide a route between the users and the developers, you have a platform. And if you have the platform you have far more impact on the future direction of the whole industry. That’s why Facebook has been leaning heavily on Messenger for many years, spinning it out as a separate mobile app, and ensuring it is well placed to be that new platform. The size of Facebook gives it an edge over almost every other IM client. The exception is Apple. Apple spent a significant amount of stage time at its recent Worldwide Developers Conference to show off the new features of Messages. On the surface ideas like ‘triple-sized’ emoji, spoiler-tagged messages you scrub away, and different font sizes were all a bit of light fluff. For many younger members of the geekerati it said something else. It said that Apple was focusing on iMessage as a platform, and it would be kept as relevant and on-message as possible. Then there’s the ability for developers to tap into Messages through a new SDK and add functionality. That could be calling an Uber from Messages, adding stickers to messages, transferring money to a friend (with Apple Pay), or whatever the developer community can come up with. Apple noted at WWDC that Messages is one of the most frequently used apps on iOS. There are no exact public numbers, but with a billion active devices, Apple has a significant presence in the market and has the drive to challenge Facebook and the third-party messaging apps – although its cross-platform ambitions are restricted to Apple’s own ecosystem of devices. The curious question in all of this is what Google is planning. Although it has a suitable platform in Google Hangouts – which is part of the Google Play package and can be found on virtually every Android device – the hunger that is being exhibited by the competition. Given Hangouts mission is to be seen as the default application for text messaging and telephony n Android, it’s perhaps not as focused on becoming a ‘platform’ when compared to the competition. And if it was, the interaction by Google of a new messaging app (Allo) and Duo (video calling), neither of which are replacing Hangouts. I’d expect Google to fully join this battle in the near future, but in the meantime Facebook and Apple are going to be leading the consumer push on messaging as a platform. The third-party clients such as WhatsApp, SnapChat, Cola, Telegram and Signal continue to impact the messaging ecosystem, but the focus of Facebook and Apple on will define this ecosystem as ‘the next big thing’ to the public.

2017 Tesla Model 3 Already Overwhelms Bolt, Leaf

There is no direct competitor to the Tesla Model 3, merely because it is considered a premium compact sedan. We could argue for the BMW i3, but even with a range extender it doesn’t really come close at all. And unless the BMW 3-Series or Mercedes C-Class arrives starts offering fully-electric models, its closest rivals would be the Chevrolet Bolt and Nissan Leaf. They actually stand up against the Model 3 pretty well. The Bolt, for one, is going to arrive sooner than the other two. It’s also going to be eligible for the $7,500 federal tax incentive for more of its buyers; plus it boasts most occupant and storage space among all three vehicles in question. Let’s not forget that in comparison to Tesla, GM has way more experience producing reliable vehicles, and has more infrastructure at hand. The same could be said for Nissan, which promises quite an interesting EV in the second-gen Leaf. Besides contending with Tesla Autopilot with its own semi-autonomous driving system, the Leaf is reportedly arriving with a range extender option called e-Power that would help it match the larger battery variants of the Model 3. Having noted all of that, there’s still one advantage Tesla has that GM and Nissan simply cannot equal, and it’s the growing Supercharger network. There’s no common standard adopted by other automakers for their EVs, and because of this alone Tesla overwhelms all of its competition. Yes, Nissan Leaf owners do enjoy free charging from the stations built by Nissan, which won’t be the case for future Model 3 owners. However, there are currently more than 200 Supercharger sites in the US, compared to only 38 dedicated stations for the Leaf.

Nissan Leaf 30kWh Tekna car review – ‘It’s relaxing’!

ften, when I think an idea won’t catch on (the mobile phone, the breakfast bar), it’s just because I haven’t thought about it as hard as its inventor has; I fear this may be true of the Nissan Leaf. It struck me as inherently preposterous to design a car that has to be delivered on the back of another car, because no one can be sure it’ll make the journey on electricity alone. While we’re here, why eschew the option of a petrol hybrid? Why not throw in some petrol so that the superbly organised can bask in their virtue, having remembered to charge it for eight (or 16) hours the night before (depending on the voltage), while the feckless can be allowed to sometimes forget? It dawns on me (slowly, so slowly) that some people really are organised, really are virtuous, really are committed to an electric future, really do, already, have the simple smarts to install an outdoor plug on their drive. Some people have a drive! Some people, when the manufacturer says, “Don’t use an extension cord because you’ll break it” just believe it, and don’t feel the need to prove it to themselves. These people exist; they’re not faking it to make me feel bad. And since they exist, they need a car. This is that car. With a top speed just shy of 90mph, the Leaf doesn’t have many pretensions in the boy racer department, but its very existence encourages a different kind of driving: the kind where you’re in a race against your own electricity usage, rather than time itself. This is extremely relaxing. You never win a battle with time – you kill yourself saving seven minutes over 190 miles, which you waste in a cataleptic state when you reach your destination. The estimates of distance left on the battery are the best I’ve come across. Indeed, all the displays and twiddly bits of the cabin are intuitive, easy to read, nicely placed, leaving your mind free to focus on the weirdness of making so little noise. The steering is perfectly responsive and the handling is reliable; again, though, the kind of driving it encourages puts the accent on different things. You don’t really want to accelerate like a maniac or hare around a corner. You’re no longer that sort of person. If I have one criticism, it’s that the exterior hasn’t much charm. Not enough effort has been taken to distinguish it from the rest of the Nissan family; it could stand to look a little kookier. But it couldn’t be greener, and the future salutes it. Nissan Leaf 30kWh Tekna: in numbers Nissan Leaf 30k Wh Tekna interior Price £27,230 Top speed 89mph Acceleration 0-62mph in 11.5 seconds Range 249km per charge CO2 emissions 0g/km Eco rating 10/10 Cool rating 6/10

Fedora 24 Pushes Linux Boundaries

Red Hat has announced the release of Fedora 24, an open source Linux operating system maintained by the Fedora Project community.Fedora Linux is the community version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or RHEL. Fedora 24 is comprised of a set of base packages that form the foundation of three distinct editions: Fedora 24 Cloud, Fedora 24 Server and Fedora 24 Workstation. Delayed four times during its development cycle, Fedora 24 includes glibc 2.23 for better performance, and improvements to POSIX compliance and GNU Compiler Collection 6. All base packages have been rebuilt with GCC 6, providing better code optimization across all Fedora 24 editions, and improving the overall stability of each addition. Fedora 24 is the result of Fedora's drive to provide the latest powerful open source tools and components to a variety of end users, according to Matthew Miller, Fedora project leader. Those users range from developers to systems administrators. "The different Fedora Editions -- Workstation, Server and Cloud -- aim at different target user bases, but they share a common base and some common strengths," he told LinuxInsider. "All of Fedora moves quickly, with new releases twice a year, but we also have an incredible quality assurance team, so we aim to be leading edge without bleeding." Fedora 24 offers a technology preview of the not-yet-ready Wayland, a next-generation X display server. Fedora developers plan to fully implement it as the default graphics server for future versions of Fedora. The Fedora 24 release is based on the 4.5.7 Linux kernel -- the last release in the Linux 4.5 series. However, rather than delay the Fedora 24 release any longer, the Fedora developers decided to add the Linux 4.6 kernel branch in the coming weeks. Fedora 24 emphasizes new tools and capabilities for developers seeking to better leverage Linux containers and orchestration. Fedora's chief advantage is that it is well supported by Red Hat and a developer community, noted Roger L. Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. "As of version 24, many of the early kinks have been ironed out and features added. Fedora is reaching maturity," he told LinuxInsider. Fedora 24 workstation's default desktop environment is GNOME 3.20 Delhi, the latest iteration of the GNOME 3 desktop, but users can select from five desktop alternatives to GNOME, known as "spins." They include KDE Plasma 5, MATE 1.14, Xfce 4.12, LXDE 0.99.1 and Cinnamon 2.6. All are built using the GCC 6 compiler. The Workstation desktop editions include The NetworkManager 1.2 and other GNU/Linux technologies, such as Mono 4.2, Boost 1.60, Node.js 5.10, Python 3.5, Ruby 2.3 and Golang 1.6. Included with the new Fedora Workstation are the latest versions of common desktop programs -- among them, the LibreOffice 5.1.4 office suite, Shotwell 0.23.1 photo editor and Firefox 47 Web browser. Fedora Workstation is meant to provide a highly productive Linux desktop for software developers. It is for anyone working to build cloud and server applications for websites or mobile apps, according to Fedora's Miller. "We are really excited in Fedora 24 that Wayland, the next generation graphics stack, is almost ready for production use. This will provide some niceties, like no more tearing during video playback. But most importantly, it has a better security model for emerging sandbox-based application packaging, like Flatpak," he said. Cloud Exploration Fedora Cloud 24 includes OpenShift Origin, which gives Fedora users an additional Kubernetes-based cloud tool to build, deploy and orchestrate many of the latest innovations in Linux containers, said Miller. It is optimized for application development -- automating deployment, operations and containerized applications scaling. "Fedora Cloud is in some ways our experimental space," said Miller. "The basic cloud offering gives you a nice, svelte image you can run in Amazon EC2 or on your own OpenStack cloud, with all of the Fedora universe of software available." Fedora Atomic Host changes the way the whole OS is put together, with an emphasis on containers. Many people see that as the future of computing, he said. In developer mode, the host is downloaded automatically and starts Cockpit (an easy way to administer GNU/Linux servers via a Web browser) along with tmux, a terminal multiplexer session. That makes it much easier to start working in the Fedora Atomic Host developer console. It also streamlines the ability to capture key session information, like the IP address and root password. Server Features Fedora 24 Server has a smaller footprint, thanks to the removal of unneeded packages. Fedora Server is in a really unique place, Miller noted. "We freely admit that it is not the server distribution for everyone. It moves too fast for some cases and certainly does not have the years of support you will get from something like Red Hat Enterprise Linux," he said. If you need the system to just sit there and be boring, Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS are probably better choices. However, if you do not mind an upgrade every year, there is really no better way to get the latest server software on a very recent Linux kernel and foundational libraries, he explained. Fedora 24 Server includes better use of rolekit to simplify setting up server roles. It has FreeIPA 4.3, an open source identity management program with an improved Domain Controller. It helps streamline replica installation, segment creation and replica topology visualization.

HandyLinux Is a Great Toolbox for Linux Newbies

HandyLinux is a distro that offers a simplified approach to using the Linux desktop operating system. HandyLinux first appeared about three years ago. The latest version, 2.5, was released in early June. The developers make it easy to peal off the "Handy" layers to reveal a more standard Linux environment as users learn the system. Those who no longer need the IT tools included with the initial installation can remove them easily using the Handy2Debian application from the main menu. That turns HandyLinux into a relatively standard Debian-based distribution running the lightweight and slightly remixed Xfce desktop environment. The remixed desktop is the distinguishing feature of this distro. It is built around HandyMenu, a custom start menu with applications and Internet bookmarks grouped in tabs. When Linux newbies find their comfort zone, it is easy to switch to more standard Linux menus. Meanwhile, the Xfce software remains the same so the Linux newbie easily transitions into a more standard Linux environment. As is typical for the Xfce desktop, HandyLinux lacks eye candy and graphics effects, but the Xfce settings tools make it easy to "remix" the desktop's appearance and functionality for more convenient options as the user gets more familiar with what Linux offers. The latest version is a maintenance release that updates system tools and a few border and theme displays. Users of earlier versions do not have to reinstall or formally upgrade to the latest version through the package management repository. Earlier versions automatically switch to the new version during the system update process. HandyLinux is a solid choice for users who want to learn Linux the easy way or just have a solid computing platform that does not require fussing. However the HandyLinux community needs to tidy up several pieces to make this distro friendlier to English language users. The English language is an add-on to the original French release. Clearly, French language users are the intended user base. That is obvious throughout the website and with the distro's look and feel. The landing page for the distro's website is in French, but there's a tab to select English under the banner display. Users also can get help from Google Translate with a browser that supports it. Either way, the translations to English leave much to be desired, and some of the documentation and illustrations on the various pages do not display in English even with workarounds. The same language issues show up within the menus and panel options in the English version of the OS. HandyLinux has only two language options -- French and English. The keyboard settings, however, give you a seemingly global list of layout options based on geographic locations. The download link is easy to spot near the top of the home page, to the right of the embedded video about HandyLinux. The download page displays in French. You must click the English icon at the top of the page to see the English language display and access the mostly English version of HandyLinux. Be careful when you select the option to download. HandyLinux comes in two flavors: 586 and 686-pae. The 586 version is for pre-2005 computers with processors that do not support the PAE memory-paging option. The 686 version is for all modern computers (32 bits or 64 bits) designed after 2005. Newcomers to Linux will appreciate the simplified directions for burning the ISO to a bootable DVD or USB drive, but finding them on the sometimes language-limited website can be a problem. Unlike most live session ISOs, HandyLinux has two modes, so you have to pay attention to the screen when you boot up the computer to test HandyLinux. All the options for running in full mode or safe mode default to French when the OS loads. Click on the very last booting option to run HandyLinux in English. That gets you into the live session. Everything works. It is a pleasant user experience. However, there is no option to install HandyLinux while running the live session. To install it, you must reboot the computer and select the installation option from the booting menu. The installation routine works effortlessly, but it does not have an automated disk partition feature, so newbies will find the entire hard drive overwritten. To partition the hard drive to create a dual boot, for instance, you would need to use a partitioning program and maybe seek some advanced local tech help. Navigating around the Secure Boot and UEFI restrictions and the added Windows 10 lockdown of the hard drive can be daunting

Malware hits millions of Android phones

Up to 10 million Android smartphones have been infected by malware that generates fake clicks for adverts, say security researchers. The software is also surreptitiously installing apps and spying on the browsing habits of victims. The malware is currently making about $300,000 (£232,000) a month for its creators, suggests research. The majority of phones that have been compromised by the malicious software are in China. Remote control A spike in the number of phones infected by the malware was noticed separately by security companies Checkpoint and Lookout. The malware family is called Shedun by Lookout but Hummingbad by Checkpoint In a blogpost, Checkpoint said it had obtained access to the command-and-control servers that oversee infected phones which revealed that Hummingbad was now on about 10 million devices. China, India, the Philippines and Indonesia top the list of nations with most phones infected by the software. Hummingbad is a type of malware known as a rootkit that inserts itself deep inside a phone's operating system to help it avoid detection and to give its controllers total control over the handset. The ability to control phones remotely has been used to click on ads to make them seem more popular than they actually are. The access has also been used to install fake versions of popular apps or spread programs the gang has been paid to promote. "It can remain persistent even if the user performs a factory reset," wrote Kristy Edwards from Lookout in a blogpost. "It uses its root privileges to install additional apps on to the device, further increasing ad revenue for the authors and defeating uninstall attempts." Ms Edwards said the recent spike in infections could be driven by the gang behind the malware adding more functions or using their access to phones for different purposes. The malware gets installed on handsets by exploiting loopholes in older versions of the Android operating system known as KitKat and JellyBean. The latest version of Android is known as Marshmallow. In a statement, Google said: ""We've long been aware of this evolving family of malware and we're constantly improving our systems that detect it. We actively block installations of infected apps to keep users and their information safe." Google released the latest security update for Android this month and it tackled more than 108 separate vulnerabilities in the operating system. So far this year, security updates for Android have closed more than 270 bugs.