https://ift.tt/154AwVo Galaxy M52 5G and Samsung Galaxy F42 5G have gone on sale in India. They are up for grabs with a Rs. 3,000 discount on Amazon and Flipkart, respectively. The offers are only for Amazon Great Indian Festival and Flipkart Big Billion Days sales.
https://ift.tt/1aaWXu4 has rolled out iOS 15.0.1 and iPadOS 15.0.1 update for compatible users. This update brings a fix for the Unlock with Apple Watch feature on iPhone 13 units. It is a small point upgrade that largely focuses on bug fixes.
The creators of FluBot have launched a new campaign that uses fake Android security update warnings to trick potential victims into installing the malware on their devices.
In a new blog post, New Zealand's computer emergency response team Cert NZ has warned users that the message on the malware's new installation page is actually a lure designed to instill a sense of urgency that tricks users into installing FluBot on their own devices.
The new FluBot installation page, that users are led to after receiving fake messages about pending or missed package deliveries or even stolen photos uploaded online, informs them that their devices are infected with FluBot which is a form of Android spyware used to steal financial login and password data from their devices. However, by installing a new security update, they can remove FluBot from their Android smartphone.
The page also goes a step further by instructing users to enable the installation of apps from unknown sources on their device. By doing so, the cybercriminals' fake security update can be installed on their device and while a user may think they've taken action to protect against FluBot, they've actually installed the malware on their smartphone themselves.
Changing tactics
Until recently, FluBot was spread to Android smartphones through spam text messages using contacts stolen from devices that were already infected with the malware. These messages would instruct potential victims to install apps on their devices in the form of APKs that were delivered by attacker-controlled servers.
Once FluBot has been installed on a user's device, the malware often tries to trick victims into giving it additional permissions as well as granting access to the Android Accessibility service that allows it to run in the background and execute other malicious tasks.
FluBot is capable of stealing a user's payment and banking information by using overlay attacks where an overlay is placed on top of legitimate banking, payment and cryptocurrency apps. As mentioned before, the malware will also steal a user's contacts to send them phishing messages to help spread FluBot even further.
While FluBot was mainly used to target users in Spain at its onset, its operators have since expanded the campaign to target additional countries in Europe including Germany, Poland, Hungary, UK and Switzerland as well as Australia and Japan in recent months.
Specialist Japanese data storage company, Buffalo Technology, is probably the last SSD vendor we’d expect to release the first external SSD with a 1TB capacity costing less than $100.
And yet, the outfit, better known for its expensive high end TerastationNAS devices, has lined up the SSD-PG1.0U3B.
However, Amazon sells it at a premium to pretty much anyone worldwide who has an Amazon.com and that includes both UK and Australian customers for a far less enticing price of $163.49 (or local currency equivalent).
The price includes delivery (and courier fees) but not local taxes, which in the UK will add another 20% to the price.
What do you get for your money?
The drive is pitched as the perfect complement to the Sony PS4 and Sony PS5 gaming consoles. The box contains a USB Cable (Type-A), a USB Type A-to-C adapter, a quick setup guide with a warranty statement and a game console guide.
Speaking of warranty, it comes with a two year warranty that can be extended to three years once you register with Buffalo. We’re unsure why this is setup this way other than to collect the user’s information.
The drive itself is fairly compact at 11.7 x 7.5 x 1.3cm and weighs just over 90g. It appears to be made of hard plastic and claims to come with a shock-resistant, rugged design with improved drop protection. Buffalo has essentially converted an internal SSD into an external one. Clever! The use of shock absorbing material explains why it has passed the stringent U.S. MIL-STD 810G 516.6 procedure IV test, allowing it to withstand drops from four feet high.
It is not waterproof though, so no IP67 or IP68 rating. It contains no bundled software (no cloud storage, file sync, no antivirus or Adobe Creative cloud trials). The SSD-PG1.0U3B is exFAT formatted so can be used with Windows out of the box.
Just bear in mind that it uses a flat USB connector rather than a more recent USB Type-C connector and there’s a good reason for that.
What’s the catch?
There is a fairly big catch and that’s the fact that it is a relatively slow external SSD drive with top read speeds of 340MBps, which is far less than what rivals can reach (more on that later).
Write speeds are likely to be even lower than that. By itself, that is not bad (and significantly faster than even the fastest external hard drive).
Just make sure that your expectations are, well, adjusted. One minor aspect is that its formatted capacity is around 930MB, rather less than the headline 1024 (or 1000) GB. Still, the $100 per TB barrier has been shattered and that’s what counts.
How does it compare to the competition?
Well, there is plenty of competition between the $100 and $110 price range and most of them are objectively better than Buffalo’s 1TB external SSD.
Inland, the own-brand from popular US retailer Microcenter, is the next cheapest at $101.99; it has a smaller form factor and is about 60% faster. Pioneer is next at $103.99 (for a marginally smaller 960GB drive and Silicon Power, at $104.99, completes this trio of affordable alternatives. The PNY Pro Elite is our preferred low cost top dog though with a tiny footprint and almost three times the performance of its Buffalo rival.
If you want to go even further down the per TB price point, then large capacity external SSDs are the way forward. Netac is the current price champion with a barely believable $91 per TB.
What comes next?
While other core components (processors, GPUs and memory) have seen their prices go up (and up) because of the ongoing chip shortage, SSDs are one of the few that have seen a downward trend, one that we believe will continue, especially as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holidays approach.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see price parity between low capacity internal SSD and hard disk drives
Analyst firm Trendforce reported in September 2021 that “shipments have been below expectations for consumer electronics such as smartphones, Chromebooks, and TVs during this second half of the year. At the same time, demand remains sluggish for retail storage products including memory cards and USB drives” before adding that “contract prices of client SSDs will drop by 3-8% quarter-over-quarter”.
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https://ift.tt/2ht2ZBQ Great Indian Festival 2021 sale is now live for Prime members. We've handpicked the best deals available today on mobile phones, laptops, Amazon devices, and other electronics.
If you prefer paying for your office software the old fashion way where you pay once for a lifetime license, you're in luck as Microsoft has revealed new details about Office 2021.
Unlike Microsoft 365 which uses a software-as-as-service (SaaS) business model where users pay annually for the right to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook, Office 2021 is the next standalone version of the software giant's office suite.
This is everything you need to know about Windows 11
It's been three years since Microsoft released Office 2019 and for a bit, it looked as if the company wouldn't be releasing another standalone version of Office. Now though, the software giant has released brand new details on Office 2021 including its price, updated features and more.
Office 2021
Office 2021 will be available worldwide on Tuesday, October 5 which is a date that Windows users likely already have marked in their calendars because it's also the release date for Windows 11. While Windows 11 will be available as a free update for Windows 10 users, those looking to test out the new features in Office 2021 will have to pay for the privilege to do so.
Office Home and Student 2021 will cost $149.99 and includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Microsoft Teams for PC and Mac while Office Home and Business 2021 will cost $249.99 and will include everything in the Home version, Outlook for PC and Mac and the rights to use all of Microsoft's office software for business purposes.
Although Office 2021 won't use a subscription model for its pricing, the latest standalone version of Office will also be getting many of the collaboration features available in Microsoft 365 including real-time co-authoring, OneDrive support and Microsoft Teams integration. The new software has been designed to fit in with the rest of the apps available on Windows 11 and as such, it will have a refreshed ribbon interface, rounded corners and a neutral color palette.
Interested users can check out this support document from Microsoft which details all of the new features in Office 2021 and even includes a few videos so you can see the next standalone version of Office in action.
We've also rounded up all the gear you'll need to work from home successfully
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has laid out its plans to stop both SIM swapping attacks and robocalls in an effort to protect US smartphone users from fraud and identity theft.
For those unfamiliar, SIM swapping is a technique used by an attacker in which they convince a mobile carrier to transfer a victim's phone number from their SIM card to one they own and control. Once in control of a victim's number, the attacker can receive two factor authentication (2FA) messages to take over their online accounts.
The FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking puts forward a number of ways to address SIM swapping such as amending the Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) and Local Number Portability rules so that mobile carriers would have to authenticate that a customer really is who they say the are before redirecting their phone number to a new SIM card or device. At the same time, the notice proposes requiring mobile carriers to immediately notify customers whenever a SIM change or port request is made on their accounts.
In addition to SIM swapping, these new changes will also address port-out fraud which occurs when an attacker poses as a victim and opens an account with another carrier in their name. They then arrange for the victim's phone number to be transferred or “ported out” to the account with the new mobile carrier which they control.
Robocall Mitigation Database
In order to combat robocalls, the FCC set a deadline for June, 20 of this year for large mobile carriers to implement the STIR/SHAKEN protocols while smaller mobile carriers have been given an extension to do so until June of 2023. As part of these efforts, mobile carriers were required to certify that they have implemented STIR/SHAKEN though they also had to submit a detailed robocall mitigation plan with the FCC.
Beginning today though, if a mobile carrier's certification and other required information is not in the FCC's Robocall Mitigation Database, other mobile carriers and intermediate providers will be prohibited from directly accepting that providers traffic. This means that if a mobile carrier hasn't submitted the necessary paperwork, other carriers won't be able to send calls from its network to their customers.
The deadline seems to be working though as 4,798 companies have filed in the Robocall Mitigation Database and all of the largest mobile carriers in the US have certified their implementation of the SHIR/SHAKEN protocols.
Acting FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel provided further details on how the government agency is fighting robocalls in a press release, saying:
“The FCC is using every tool we can to combat malicious robocalls and spoofing – from substantial fines on bad actors to policy changes to technical innovations like STIR/SHAKEN. Today’s deadline establishes a very powerful tool for blocking unlawful robocalls. We will continue to do everything in our power to protect consumers against scammers who flood our homes and businesses with spoofed robocalls.”
A DJ is only as good as their gear. An entertainment venue is nothing without a decent sound system. And even the most insightful keynote is meaningless if nobody can hear it.
Whether you're a corporate presenter, an entertainer, a musician, or a venue manager, audio tech is foundational to your profession.
Whatever sound system you use has to be powerful enough to reach your full audience without sacrificing clarity or quality. It must be compatible with a wide variety of other AV equipment, with a setup process that doesn't involve several hours of troubleshooting. And lastly, it must provide you with granular control over acoustics and volume levels.
Finding a speaker that provides all of this without breaking the bank tends to be extremely challenging. But thanks to audio maker JBL, it just got a great deal easier. The recently-released JBL PRX ONE Column PA not only offers crystal-clear, high-impact sound, it does so with a lightweight, stylish form factor perfect for everything from gig work to permanent installation.
Weighing in at just above 55 pounds and standing a little over two feet tall, the PRX ONE has some impressive tech under the hood. It sports a column array consisting of 12 2.5-inch, high-frequency drivers with copper-capped poles to minimize distortion. This array outputs an impressive 130 dB of full-bandwidth sound, delivered across a consistent area thanks to JBL's proprietary AIM array shading technology, while one-touch ducking keeps speech comprehensible.
The PRX ONE also includes a 12-inch bass-reflex woofer, extending its low-end response to 35 Hz. JBL also hasn't skimped on channel count, with an integrated dual-mode, 7-channel digital mixer that provides full control over both input faders and individual channels. This mixer is further augmented with four high-efficiency, low-noise microphone preamps and two channels of +48v phantom power.
The PRX ONE's Class D amplifier is equally impressive. With a peak of 2,000 watts, the fully-bridged unit is designed with both high-linearity inductors and power factor correction. This allows it to provide superior headroom, low THD, and voltage spike protection.
(Image credit: Harman)
JBL has also built DriveRack technology directly into the PRX ONE, providing unrivaled dynamic control over your sound. More importantly, it does so without requiring you to haul around a cumbersome rack of gear. All you need is the speaker.
Factor in sophisticated crossover management and triple-tier DSP control, and the PRX ONE is every audio engineer's dream. That's not the best part, either. Given its advanced functionality, it would be easy to justify a steep learning curve.
The PRX ONE doesn't suffer from that shortcoming, however.
The unit can be set up in a matter of minutes, and enables seamless speaker expansion and recording via XLR Pass Thru. The speaker’s Lexicon Effects Engine makes it easy to add effects such as reverb, delay, and sub synth. And with eight user presets for each function, it also supports effortless instant sound optimization.
(Image credit: Harman)
All this functionality is accessible through either the PRX ONE's full-color LCD screen or the JBL Pro Connect companion app, which is capable of managing up to 10 units via Bluetooth 5.0. Available for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, the app is essentially a professional soundboard directly in the palm of your hand.
With personalized workflows, the ability to control groups of speakers and devices, and app-exclusive features such as snapshots and tap tempo, Pro Connect lets you shape your sound with surgical precision and elevate your stage to entirely new heights.
There was a time when working with audio tech meant having to cart around a full van of gear. With the PRX ONE, JBL has proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that those days are behind us. Whether you're a DJ looking for some new gear, a sound engineer prepping for an important keynote, or a venue manager replacing outdated audio tech, this speaker is the answer.
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A lot of mysteries were solved this week in the science world, while new ones seemed to present themselves.
First, we might have finally found what's responsible for all those the ancient trench valleys on Mars that have long puzzled scientists, and the cause is about as violent as befits an ancient Greek god.
Then, there was news that a long-elusive intermediate black hole has finally been found, all on account of its voracious appetite.
Looking deeper into our own mind, researchers discovered that our thoughts might actually have a kind of geometry all their own, and that it isn't all too dissimilar from fractals.
Then, out beyond the orbit of Neptune, a new comet so large that it was originally mistaken for a dwarf planet is being watched as it enters our solar system, and some scientists think that yet another planet might be lurking out there in the Kuiper Belt – which is a totally different one than the proposed Planet Nine that everyone's been looking for over the past few years.
Mystery of Martian trenches solved
A colored topographical image showing river valleys on Mars, with the white line representing a deeply-carved trench with the black lines being softer, more gradually eroded river valleys.(Image credit: NASA/GSFC/ JPL ASU)
Mystery of Martian trenches has a violent solution
This week, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) published a paper analyzing 262 craters on Mars that were once believed to house ancient lakes or seas, and discovered that these may be the key to understanding Mars' heavily scarred surface.
According to the paper, these crater lakes would exert so much pressure on the walls of the crater, which extended high above the surrounding region, that eventually these walls would rupture, dumping out nearly the entirety of the water contained within them in fast-moving, violent floods.
"They greatly varied in terms of their volumes," Tim Goudge, an assistant professor at UT's Jackson School of Geosciences and lead author of the paper told us earlier this week, "but some were the size of small seas on Earth (e.g., Caspian Sea)."
These massive lakes or seas would empty out in a soon as a few weeks, and the amount of sediment the rushing waters carved out of the Martian surface was incredible.
“When you fill [the craters] with water, it’s a lot of stored energy there to be released,” Goudge said. “It makes sense that Mars might tip, in this case, toward being shaped by catastrophism more than the Earth.”
Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Finally Found?
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH)
An intermediate-mass black hole has finally been found when it got caught snacking on a star
We've long known that black holes come in at least two sizes: stellar-mass black holes that are 15 to 100 times the size of the sun, and supermassive black holes, which are a million times the size of the sun or even greater.
But we've long wondered if there were any black holes in between, a so-called intermediate-mass black hole, and now we know that they do indeed exist after catching one tearing apart a hapless star that got caught in its gravitational tendrils.
A team of researchers at the University of Arizona (UA) analyzed records of a previous flare from a tidal disruption event – where a star gets torn to shreds by the gravity of a black hole and emits powerful X-rays in the process – and were able to deduce both the spin and the mass of the black hole that caused it. According to their calculations, the black hole weighed in at about 10,000 solar masses.
"The fact that we were able to catch this black hole while it was devouring a star offers a remarkable opportunity to observe what otherwise would be invisible," said Ann Zabludoff, a professor of astronomy at UA and co-author of the paper. "Not only that, by analyzing the flare we were able to better understand this elusive category of black holes, which may well account for the majority of black holes in the centers of galaxies."
Is the human mind made of fractals?
(Image credit: Wolfgang Beyer / Wikimedia Commons)
The human mind bears a strong resemblance to mathematical fractals
Even though it has been studied since antiquity, there is a great deal we simply don't know about the human mind, but new research is giving us some insight into what happens when we think.
Dartmouth College researchers had volunteers listen to a 10-minute short story and analyzed the patterns of activity in the brains network of neurons and found that these patterns looked a lot like fractals.
"To generate our thoughts, our brains create this amazing lightning storm of connection patterns,” Jeremy R. Manning, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth and the paper's senior author, said. “The patterns look beautiful, but they are also incredibly complicated. Our mathematical framework lets us quantify how those patterns relate at different scales, and how they change over time."
Yet another hidden planet beyond Neptune?
(Image credit: ESO)
Yet another planet might be hiding out beyond Neptune, this one a rocky world the size of Mars
Everybody's probably heard by now that scientists are hard at work looking for a possible ninth planet out beyond the orbit of Neptune, but we might need to add one more to the mix.
Astronomers, using powerful computer simulations, now say there is about a 50% chance that a rocky planet was dragged out of the inner solar system by the outer gas giants and effectively used as a gravitational foothold for the gas giants to achieve their current positions and orbits – and shoving the rocky Mars-sized planet out into the Kuiper Belt, if not out of the solar system entirely, in the process.
"Our simulations found that in about half of the cases, all of the Mars-scale planets in the outer Solar System were ejected into interstellar space,” said Scott Tremaine, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. “But in the remaining half, one ‘rogue’ planet was left in an orbit similar to that of the detached population of Kuiper Belt objects."
Whether such an object can be found will be tricky, but if true, then there could be even more mysteries out in the Kuiper Belt than we originally thought.
Largest comet ever found heading for the sun
(Image credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva)
A colossal comet once mistaken for a dwarf planet is making its way towards the sun
The comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is making its second trip through the solar system after about a 3.5-million-year hiatus, and it's the largest comet we've ever seen.
First discovered in June 2021, Bernardinelli-Bernstein is believed to be somewhere between 60 and 120 miles wide (about 100 to 160 km) and was originally thought to be a dwarf planet when it was first spotted in the vicinity of Neptune from an image taken in 2014.
Now closer to Uranus, the comet has already sprung a tail, the farthest comet to ever be seen doing so. The fact that it is so large indicates that this might be one the second time the comet has made its way through the solar system.
"It's very rare to see big comets basically because unless you're catching it in its first or second passage, most of its material would already be gone," Bernardinelli said.
The loss of material comes from their approaching the sun. Since comets are effectively gigantic snowballs in space, getting close to the sun melts the ice around their core and produces their spectacular tails. This melting though also reduces their mass each time they pass through the inner solar system.
The nearest Bernardinelli-Bernstein will come to Earth will be about 11 AU, or 11 times the distance Earth is from the sun, which puts it just outside the orbit of Saturn and far enough from us that it isn't a threat to us, at least not this go around. If it were to hit us though, boy howdy, Earth would be in for a world of hurt.
Scientists are getting a better look at Bernardinelli-Bernstein, the largest comet ever discovered, as it slowly makes its way back into the solar system after 3.5 million years.
The comet, officially designated C/2014 UN271 and discovered in 2021 by Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein, might be as big as 100 miles (160km) across, making it much larger any other comet we've discovered. In fact, when it was first discovered, the astronomers mistook it for a small dwarf planet or similar trans-Neptunian object.
And even though some more recent observations suggest it might not be that large, it has already sprouted a tail, even as it is about as far away from the sun as Neptune, making it the farthest a comet has ever been seen to do so.
As our colleagues over at LiveScience point out, the comet poses no threat to Earth, and its perihelion – its closest approach to the sun – will be at about 11 AU, or 11 times the distance of the Earth from our star. This will put it just outside Saturn's orbit when it makes its nearest approach in 2031.
The comet is believed to have entered the inner solar system only once before, making it an especially "young" comet in that regard, since it still has so much of its icy material. "It's very rare to see big comets basically because unless you're catching it in its first or second passage, most of its material would already be gone," Bernardinelli told Space.com.
Analysis: What the heck, here's what would happen if it hit Earth!
While there is literally no chance of this comet coming anywhere close to hitting Earth, we here at TechRadar like to play with calculators and who doesn't like a little doomsday scenario to start off month of October?
We did a quick work up on the consequences of a Bernardinelli-Bernstein impact event with the Earth, and while these calculations should in no way be considered authoritative, here's what we found. Assuming a density of 0.6g per cubic centimeter (roughly that of the comet Hale-Bopp), a speed of about 53 km/s (typical for a comet), and an impact angle of about 75 degrees from horizontal (the comet's orbit is nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic), well, let's just say we would really be in for it here on planet Earth.
The impact would release an energy equivalent to about 440 times the energy released during the K-T Impact Event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, which itself released about a 100-million-megaton blast that created firestorms across the entire planet.
The impactor itself would leave behind a crater about 540 miles / 874 km across and just over 135 miles / 218 km deep, which is about 10 times deeper than the Earth's crust is thick.
In every sense of the word, this comet would be an absolute planet killer if it hit Earth. Fortunately, it's not coming anywhere near us, so if you have a powerful amateur telescope at home (or can get one in the next decade), enjoy the show as Bernardinelli-Bernstein makes its comeback tour in 2031.
