The Technology Thread

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

9 Facts About Computer Security That Experts Wish You Knew

Every day, you hear about security flaws, viruses, and evil hacker gangs that could leave you destitute — or, worse, bring your country to its knees. But what's the truth about these digital dangers? We asked computer security experts to separate the myths from the facts. Here's what they said.

1. Having a strong password actually can prevent most attacks

Yahoo's Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos has spent most of his career finding security vulnerabilities and figuring out how attackers might try to exploit software flaws. He's seen everything from the most devious hacks to the simplest social engineering scams. And in all that time, he's found that there are two simple solutions for the vast majority of users: strong passwords and two-factor authentication.

Stamos says that the biggest problem is that the media focuses on stories about the deepest and most complicated hacks, leaving users feeling like there's nothing they can do to defend themselves. But that's just not true. He told me via email:

I've noticed a lot of nihilism in the media, security industry and general public since the Snowden docs came out. This generally expresses itself as people throwing up their hands and saying "there is nothing we can do to be safe". While it's true that there is little most people can do when facing a top-tier intelligence apparatus with the ability to rewrite hard drive firmware, this should not dissuade users from doing what they can to protect themselves from more likely threats and security professionals from building usable protections for realistic adversaries.

Users can protect themselves against the most likely and pernicious threat actors by taking two simple steps:

1) Installing a password manager and using it to create unique passwords for every service they use.

2) Activating second-factor authentication options (usually via text messages) on their email and social networking accounts.

The latter is especially important since attackers love to take over the email and social accounts of millions of people and then automatically use them to pivot to other accounts or to gather data on which accounts belong to high-value targets.

So I would really like the media to stop spreading the idea that just because incredible feats are possible on the high-end of the threat spectrum, doesn't mean it isn't possible to keep yourself safe in the vast majority of scenarios.​

Adam J. O'Donnell, a Principal Engineer with Cisco's Advanced Malware Protection group, amplified Stamos' basic advice:

Oh, and my advice for the average person: Make good backups and test them. Use a password vault and a different password on every website.​

Yep, having a good password is easy — and it's still the best thing you can do.

2. Just because a device is new does not mean it's safe

When you unwrap the box on your new phone, tablet or laptop, it smells like fresh plastic and the batteries work like a dream. But that doesn't mean your computer isn't already infected with malware and riddled with security vulnerabilities.

I heard this from many of the security experts I interviewed. Eleanor Saitta is the technical director for the International Modern Media Institute, and has worked for over a decade advising governments and corporations about computer security issues. She believes that one of the most pernicious myths about security is that devices begin their lives completely safe, but become less secure as time goes on. That's simply not true, especially when so many devices come with vulnerable adware like Superfish pre-installed on them (if you recall, Superfish came pre-installed on many Lenovo laptop models):

That's why the Superfish thing was such a big deal. They built a backdoor in, and they built a really bad, incompetent one, and now it turns out that anybody can walk through.

When you're relying on code delivered by somebody else, a service online or box that you don't control, chances are good that it's not acting in your interest, because it's trying to sell you. There's a good chance that it's already owned or compromised by other people. We don't have a good way of dealing with trust and managing it right now. And all sorts of people will be using that code.​

The other issue, which erupted in the media over the past day with the FREAK attack, is that many machines come pre-installed with backdoors. These are baked in by government request, to make it easier for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to track adversaries. But unfortunately, backdoors are also security vulnerabilities that anyone can take advantage of. Says Saitta:

I think one thing that is really important to understand is that if you built a monitoring system into a network like a cell network, or into a crypto system, anybody can get in there. You've built a vulnerability into the system, and sure, you can control access a little. But at the end of the day, a backdoor is a backdoor, and anybody can walk through it.​

3. Even the very best software has security vulnerabilities

Many of us imagine that sufficiently good software and networks can be completely safe. Because of this attitude, many users get angry when the machines or services they use turn out to be vulnerable to attack. After all, if we can design a safe car, why not a safe phone? Isn't it just a matter of getting the tech and science right?

But Parisa Tabriz told me via email that you can't look at information security that way. Tabriz is the engineer who heads Google's Chrome security team, and she believes that information security is more like medicine — a bit of art and science — rather than pure science. That's because our technology was built by humans, and is being exploited by humans with very unscientific motivations. She writes:

I think information security is a lot like medicine — it's both an art and science. Maybe this is because humans have explicitly built technology and the internet. We assume we should be able to built them perfectly, but the complexity of what we've built and now hope to secure almost seems impossible. Securing it would require us to have zero bugs, and that means that the economics are not on the side of the defenders. The defenders have to make sure there are zero bugs in all software they use or write (typically many millions of lines of code if you consider the operating system too), whereas the attacker only has to find one bug.

There will always be bugs in software. Some subset of those bugs will have security impact. The challenge is figuring out which ones to spend resources on fixing, and a lot of that is based on presumed threat models that probably would benefit from more insight into people's motivations, like crime, monitoring, etc.​

RAND Corporation computer security researcher Lillian Ablon emailed me to say that there is simply no such thing as a completely secure system. The goal for defenders is to make attacks expensive, rather than impossible:

With enough resources, there is always a way for an attacker to get in. You may be familiar with the phrase "it's a matter of when, not if," in relation to a company getting hacked/breached. Instead, the goal of computer security is to make it expensive for the attackers (in money, time, resources, research, etc.).​

4. Every website and app should use HTTPS

You've heard every rumor there is to hear about HTTPS. It's slow. It's only for websites that need to be ultra-secure. It doesn't really work. All wrong. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Peter Eckersley is a technologist who has been researching the use of HTTPS for several years, and working on the EFF's HTTPS Everywhere project. He says that there's a dangerous misconception that many websites and apps don't need HTTPS. He emailed to expand on that:

Another serious misconception is website operators, such as newspapers or advertising networks, thinking "because we don't process credit card payments, our site doesn't need to be HTTPS, or our app doesn't need to use HTTPS". All sites on the Web need to be HTTPS, because without HTTPS it's easy for hackers, eavesdroppers, or government surveillance programs to see exactly what people are reading on your site; what data your app is processing; or even to modify or alter that data in malicious ways.​

Eckersley has no corporate affiliations (EFF is a nonprofit), and thus no potential conflict of interest when it comes to promoting HTTPS. He's just interested in user safety.

5. The cloud is not safe — it just creates new security problems

Everything is cloud these days. You keep your email there, along with your photos, your IMs, your medical records, your bank documents, and even your sex life. And it's actually safer there than you might think. But it creates new security problems you might not have thought about. Security engineer Leigh Honeywell works for a large cloud computing company, and emailed me to explain how the cloud really works. She suggests that you begin thinking about it using a familiar physical metaphor:

Your house is your house, and you know exactly what the security precautions you've taken against intruders are - and what the tradeoffs are. Do you have a deadbolt? An alarm system? Are there bars on the windows, or did you decide against those because they would interfere with your decor?

Or do you live in an apartment building where some of those things are managed for you? Maybe there's a front desk security person, or a key-card access per floor. I once lived in a building where you had to use your card to access individual floors on the elevator! It was pretty annoying, but it was definitely more secure. The security guard will get to know the movement patterns of the residents, will potentially (though not always, of course!) recognize intruders. They have more data than any individual homeowner.​

Putting your data in the cloud is sort of like living in that secure apartment building. Except weirder. Honeywell continued:

Cloud services are able to correlate data across their customers, not just look at the ways an individual is being targeted. You may not [control access to the place where] your data is being stored, but there's someone at the front desk of that building 24/7, and they're watching the logs and usage patterns as well. It's a bit like herd immunity. A lot of stuff jumps out at [a defender] immediately: here's a single IP address logging into a bunch of different accounts, in a completely different country than any of those accounts have been logged into from ever before. Oh, and each of those accounts received a particular file yesterday — maybe that file was malicious, and all of those accounts just got broken into?

But if it's a more targeted attack, the signs will be more subtle. When you're trying to defend a cloud system, you're looking for needles in haystacks, because you just have so much data to handle. There's lots of hype about "big data" and machine learning right now, but we're just starting to scratch the surface of finding attackers' subtle footprints. A skilled attacker will know how to move quietly and not set off the pattern detection systems you put in place.​

In other words, some automated attack methods become blatantly obvious in a cloud system. But it also becomes easier to hide. Honeywell says that users need to consider the threats they're seriously worried about when choosing between a cloud service and a home server:

Cloud services are much more complex systems than, say, a hard drive plugged into your computer, or an email server running in your closet. There are more places that things can go wrong, more moving parts. But there are more people maintaining them too. The question folks should ask themselves is: would I be doing a better job running this myself, or letting someone with more time, money, and expertise do it? Who do you think of when you think about being hacked — is it the NSA, random gamer a**holes, an abusive ex-partner? I ran my own email server for many years, and eventually switched to a hosted service. I know folks who work on Gmail and Outlook.com and they do a vastly better job at running email servers than I ever did. There's also the time tradeoff — running an email server is miserable work! But for some people it's worth it, though, because NSA surveillance really is something they have worry about.​

6. Software updates are crucial for your protection

There are few things more annoying in life than the little pop-up that reminds you that updates are required. Often you have to plug your device in, and the updates can take a really long time. But they are often the only thing that stands between you and being owned up by a bad guy. Cisco's O'Donnell said:

Those software update messages are [not] there just to annoy you: The frequency of software updates is driven less by new software features and more because of some very obscure software flaw that an attacker can exploit to gain control of your system. These software patches fix issues that were publicly identified and likely used in attacks in the wild. You wouldn't go for days without cleaning and bandaging a festering wound on your arm, would you? Don't do that to your computer.​

7. Hackers are not criminals

Despite decades of evidence to the contrary, most people think of hackers as the evil adversaries who want nothing more than to steal their digital goods. But hackers can wear white hats as well as black ones — and the white hats break into systems in order to get there before the bad guys do. Once the vulnerabilities have been identified by hackers, they can be patched. Google Chrome's Tabriz says simply:

Also, hackers are not criminals. Just because someone knows how to break something, doesn't mean they will use that knowledge to hurt people. A lot of hackers make things more secure.​

O'Donnell emphasizes that we need hackers because software alone can't protect you. Yes, antivirus programs are a good start. But in the end you need security experts like hackers to defend against adversaries who are, after all, human beings:

Security is less about building walls and more about enabling security guards. Defensive tools alone can't stop a dedicated, well resourced attacker. If someone wants in bad enough, they will buy every security tool the target may have and test their attacks against their simulated version of the target's network. Combatting this requires not just good tools but good people who know how to use the tools.​

RAND's Ablon adds that malicious hackers are rarely the threat they are cracked up to be. Instead, the threat may come from people you don't suspect — and their motivations may be far more complicated than mere theft:

A lot of the time an internal employee or insider is just as big of a threat, and could bring a business to its knees – intentionally or inadvertently. Furthermore, there are distinct types of external cyber threat actors (cybercriminals, state-sponsored, hacktivists) with different motivations and capabilities. For example, the cybercriminals who hacked into Target and Anthem had very different motivations, capabilities, etc. than those of the state-sponsored actors who hacked into Sony Pictures Entertainment.​

8. Cyberattacks and cyberterrorism are exceedingly rare

As many of the experts I talked to said, your biggest threat is somebody breaking into your accounts because you have a crappy password. But that doesn't stop people from freaking out with fear over "cyberattacks" that are deadly. Ablon says that these kinds of attacks are incredibly unlikely:

Yes, there are ways to hack into a vehicle from anywhere in the world; yes, life-critical medical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps often have IP addresses or are enabled with Bluetooth – but often these types of attacks require close access, and exploits that are fairly sophisticated requiring time to develop and implement. That said, we shouldn't be ignoring the millions of connected devices (Internet of Things) that increase our attack surface.​

Basically, many people fear cyberattacks for the same reason they fear serial killers. They are the scariest possible threat. But they are also the least likely.

As for cyberterrorism, Ablon writes simply, "Cyberterrorism (to date) does not exist ... what is attributed to cyberterrorism today, is more akin to hacktivism, e.g., gaining access to CENTCOM's Twitter feed and posting ISIS propaganda."

9. Darknet and Deepweb are not the same thing

Ablon writes that one of the main problems she has with media coverage of cybercrime is the misuse of the terms "Darknet" and "Deepweb."

She explains what the terms really mean:

The Deepweb refers to part of the Internet, specifically the world wide web (so anything that starts www) that isn't indexed by search engines, so can't be accessed by Google. The Darknet refers to non-"www" networks, where users may need separate software to access them. For example, Silk Road and many illicit markets are hosted on [Darknet] networks like I2P and Tor.​

So get a password vault, use two-factor auth, visit only sites that use HTTPS, and stop worrying about super intricate cyber attacks from the Darknet. And remember, hackers are here to protect you — most of the time, anyway.

http://gizmodo.com/9-facts-about-computer-security-that-experts-wish-you-k-1686817774

Knowing is half the battle!

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

business/tech news, I don't suppose it'd hurt to sprinkle some important video game news here and there here.

sony recently announced 20 million Ps4s sold.
for those of you not in the know, the Ps4 is outpacing the Ps2, which is the best selling console of all time, at close to 160 million.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

New Error Correction Takes Us a Step Closer to Quantum Computing

Quantum computing could make complex calculations trivial in the future, but right now it's fraught with problems. Consider one of them solved, though, in the shape of a new quantum error correction technique.

One of the many problems exhibited by the breed of future computers is that they exist in the delicate and fuzzy word quantum world, using not bits but qubits—quantum bits. Each of these qubits can represent a 0, a 1, or—crucially—something in between, providing the ability to dramatically bump up computation speeds.

But as Schroedinger was keen to point out, quantum systems need to be isolated from the rest of world in order to work: interactions with the external world cause the system to decohere, collapsing down and taking a binary state, just like a normal, slow computer. The internal workings of a quantum computer also introduce decoherence effects, too—which in turn brings errors. As a result, scientists have to decide on a tolerable error rate and design for that. The problem is that to achieve an error rate small enough to benefit from the quantum computer, you need an awful lot of qubits, which are expensive to manufacture.

Now, though, a group of researchers led by John Martinis—who now works at Google but used to based at the University of California, Santa Barbara—has developed a chip which can detect at least one kind of quantum error introduced during calculations. The system, explained in a new Nature paper, links together nine qubits so that they can each monitor one another for "bit flips", where a qubit assumes a state it isn't meant to because of decoherence—with a qubit flipping from 1 to 0, say. PhysOrg describes nicely how it works:

It uses parity information—the measurement of change from the original data (if any)—as opposed to the duplication of the original information that is part of the process of error detection in classical computing. That way, the actual original information that is being preserved in the qubits remains unobserved... in something akin to a Sudoku puzzle, the parity values of data qubits in a qubit array are taken by adjacent measurement qubits, which essentially assess the information in the data qubits by measuring around them.​

That means that the device can acquire enough information about the information in the qubits without directly observing them—which would itself lock the qubit into a single state, destroying the super-fast computational ability.

The new technique can accurately detect bit flips, and also stop them propagating through a calculation—which means they don't contaminate an ongoing computational process. It's an important development, effectively removing one of the biggest error headaches that currently faces quantum computing. Indeed, Technology Review reports that "experts in the field say it is an important step toward a fully functional quantum computer."

There are still plenty more problems to solve, of course. But for now, we're at least one step closer to the quantum computer we lust for.

http://www.technologyreview.com/new...e-quantum-computing-components-more-reliable/

It's amazing how fast the tech for quantum computers is coming. Just to see how far we have come with computers in my 31 years is truly inspiring

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

business/tech news, I don't suppose it'd hurt to sprinkle some important video game news here and there here.

sony recently announced 20 million Ps4s sold.
for those of you not in the know, the Ps4 is outpacing the Ps2, which is the best selling console of all time, at close to 160 million.

Ya I'm bringing this thread back. I did ask a mod to change the title to just Technology since that is what I'm going to focus on from here on out with it. That's mostly what I have put in the thread anyway but I think some people don't read it since it says business first. But feel free to post anything tech related in here bro

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Ya I'm bringing this thread back. I did ask a mod to change the title to just Technology since that is what I'm going to focus on from here on out with it. That's mostly what I have put in the thread anyway but I think some people don't read it since it says business first. But feel free to post anything tech related in here bro

I will man this thread actually belongs in the tech & support forums, but that section is too dead for this thread to get any traction there

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Haha yup, exactly why I put it here in the community forum

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

so a lot of you probably heard on christmas that the Ps4 and xbone weren't working. well, it turns out that phil spencer, head of the xbox division at mS is working with sony and nintendo to combat ddos attacks, which was the type of "hack" that rendered the Ps4s and xbones dysfunctional. dunno why nintendo's in on it, they don't really have anything to worry about, haha

http://www.vg247.com/2015/03/06/microsoft-working-with-sony-and-nintendo-to-combat-ddos-attacks/

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Ya that sucked. What kind of monsters want to rob the joy of a young kid playing their new system online?

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Ya that sucked. What kind of monsters want to rob the joy of a young kid playing their new system online?

a squad with lizards as their mascot

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Valve vs. Sony: Who's Got The Better VR Experience?

Ladies and gentlemen, we've got two front-runners in the virtual reality race. Sony's Project Morpheus and the HTC Vive are the best VR we've ever seen. Both let you actually reach out and grab objects, unlike the Oculus Rift. But which of these two technological marvels is the most promising?

Before today, we couldn't begin to answer that question. I saw Sony's latest Morpheus prototype in San Francisco, and my counterpart Carlos Rebato saw Valve's Vive demo in Spain. Our experiences were an ocean apart.

But today, I tried the Vive too. Now I've seen both.

Sony's Project Morpheus is still the most comfortable VR experience I've ever tried. It still blows my mind that Sony managed to figure out a way to balance the headset so the display just floats in front of your head. The Vive still uses the typical ski goggles approach of strapping front-heavy displays to your noggin with elastic bands.

And honestly, I also really prefer the Sony's lenses, which gave me a slightly wider field of view and felt more... transparent. With the Vive, I occasionally felt like I was looking through goggles instead of just using my eyes.

But Sony's weakness is that Morpheus is limited by existing hardware: the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Camera.

The PS4 is powerful, sure, but the virtual environments it creates don't have anywhere near the detail that Valve is pumping out with a single Nvidia GTX 980 graphics card inside a beefy gaming PC. In Valve's Aperture Science demo, an incredible experience that sticks you right into the technologically advanced world of the hit video game Portal, you can get right up close to objects that are so lifelike that my brain forgot they didn't exist.

See this picture? The text on this holographic display is actually readable. Total mind trip. It also probably doesn't hurt that the Vive's twin screens offer 1080 x 1200 for each eye, compared to the single 1080p RGB OLED panel that Sony uses in the Morpheus.

And while the PlayStation Camera can only track motion that happens in front of it, leading to relatively stationary, arcade-like experiences like shooting at enemies from behind a desk, you can actually walk around in Valve's virtual reality thanks to a pair of laser emitters that cover your walls, floor, and ceiling in dots of invisible light that the Vive headset and controllers can see with their tiny embedded cameras.

You don't have to worry about running into walls or bumping into objects: once you specify the size and shape of your room, you'll see a virtual grid pop up whenever you get too close to a wall. I reached out and touched it again and again, and the wall was always exactly where I expected it to be. With the controllers, the tracking is so perfect that you can "see" the actual device you're holding. When Valve's Joe Ludwig first handed me the wands, I didn't need to feel around blindly and imagine where they would be in the real world. I saw them right in front of me, and I grabbed them. Done.

And then, it hit me just how smart these controllers are. Not only do they track your hands in 3D space with insane precision, they have buttons on the sides that depress when you grip them firmly, triggers under your index fingers, and touchpads under your thumbs that can tell exactly where they are. Unlike the PlayStation Move, which only has the index-finger-trigger, these controllers could let you grip objects way more like you grip them in the real world. They don't really resist your grip, mind you, no haptic sensation, but it still feels less disembodied than Sony's solution.

None of this is to say that Valve and HTC's collaboration is ready for market. The demo I saw was still a little hacky, requiring my to wear an elastic belt covered in cables to hook up the two controllers. Valve says the final controllers will be wireless, but it's kind of awkward right now. And even then, the headset won't be wireless: both the Morpheus and the Vive have to be physically tethered to their respective computers, and it's way more of an issue with the Vive: I came very close to tripping over the cord a couple times as I walked around.

When I confronted HTC about the issue, they wouldn't or couldn't say if they had any solution, only that they were committed to providing the best possible solution for their customers. Valve also couldn't tell me how they'll compensate for other objects in the room—like a couch. I'm optimistic they'll figure something out. Because now it's Valve and HTC's Vive—not the Sony Project Morpheus—that's the best VR experience I've ever tried.

Honestly, at this point I would throw money at any company that has a headset with games as good as the demos I've tried inside either headset. They're both damn good. But at this point it seems more likely that Valve will get my hard-earned dollars.

Plus, HTC says the Vive will actually arrive this year. The Morpheus isn't due till 2016.

http://gizmodo.com/valve-vs-sony-whos-got-the-better-vr-experience-1689727283

I'm def getting the Morpheus because i have a ps4 and don't have a lot of space to move around in but the Vive sounds freaking amazing!

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

oculus rift has been receiving way more press than project morpheus.

and I hear they both have their ups and downs.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Steam Machines Are Back

When I heard Valve wanted to take over the living room, I didn't believe it. When the rumors came true, I didn't think it could be done. When Valve failed to deliver Steam Machines last fall, I felt vindicated. Now, a year later, it's happening. I've tried them. I'm about to eat my words.

I may have been wrong, but my early skepticism was justified. The idea was ridiculous—how was a digital game store going to get into the hardware business, outclass Sony and Microsoft, make Windows usable on television and make Linux a viable PC gaming platform? But they did it. My gosh they did it.

The Right Controller

The Steam Controller was always the one part of Valve's living room plans that I actually believed in—or at least wanted to. The gamepad as we know it today is stagnant, unchanging. With minor exceptions (a touchpad on the PS4, perhaps, or better triggers on the Xbox One) it's a black hole where innovation goes to die. Valve's early prototypes threw out all conventions—replacing analog sticks with weird haptic touchpads, promising a touchscreen in favor of face buttons. It was kind of awful, but it was also new, different and fresh. Check it out:

Old and Busted:

New Hotness:

It's so much better now. The final Steam Controller kept the weird touchpads (which let it emulate a surprisingly precise mouse), but also added a proper joystick, traditional face buttons and a lot of refinement. The "learning curve" I used as an excuse for the original prototype's awkwardness is severely diminished. Within mere minutes of using it, I was deftly using its touchups to guide The Talos Principle's robotic protagonist through corridors. I dodged flak cannons in Unreal Tournament. I was comfortably performing precise motions I just couldn't get right on the earlier prototypes. It's quieter, too. I can still hear the engine humming which drives the Steam Controller's haptic feedback (a light ticking sensation that follows your thumbs across the touchpad), but it's no longer so loud that it's distracting.

It's not just the refined touch surfaces that sold me on the controller though—it's the entire design. This is the third Steam Controller design I've held, and it's by far the most comfortable. My fingers instinctively fall on the rear "grip" buttons hidden around the gamepad's back, and toggling the shoulder, menu and face buttons feel natural. The new analog stick is a godsend too, injecting all of the new weirdness with just enough familiarity to make everything easy.

The Steam Controller's battery compartment has eject buttons to pop out AAs. They also double as actuators for the gamepad's rear "grip" buttons. It's kind of awesome.

There is still a learning curve, of course—the touchpads are uniquely alien compared to other game controllers—but they're no longer daunting or insurmountable. It reminds me of the first time I tried using a mouse to control a first-person shooter on the PC: it's more sensitive than I expected and I'm worried I'll lose control. I didn't back then. I don't think I will when the Steam Controller comes out, either.

Valve's Steam Controller is a huge part of its living room effort. Every Steam Machine comes with a Steam Controller. And it's very good. It's weird, too, but it has to be—there would be no point to building another dual-stick gamepad. We already have dozens of those. Steam Machines can fail up and down for all I care, but I'm still getting a Steam Controller when it launches in November. It costs $50, connects with a 2.4GHz dongle that supports two at once, and each controller can remember multiple dongles to make for easy pairing. Worth it.

The Right Interface and Hardware

Before Valve could build a PC game console, it had to figure out how to help a Windows PC make sense on a TV. Enter Steam Big Picture Mode. It's the oldest component of Valve's play for the living room, and it's been around for years now. Today it's a different way to navigate Steam on Windows machines, but tomorrow it'll be the entire user interface for SteamOS. It's always been pretty good.

[YT]c_iuBxhEPHU[/YT]

Now it's getting better. The video above is a complete look at how Big Picture Mode and SteamOS work on an Alienware Alpha as of last month (we got a little tired of waiting and made our own Steam Machine). Today, Valve showed me a more advanced version of the interface. It's largely the same but with improved community features, more compatible SteamOS games (more on that in a moment) and a customizable control menu to make sure that funky gamepad works with everything in your library.

New features like Steam Broadcasting mode are poised to help Valve compete with Twitch for streaming your gameplay exploits, and a new, pretty awesome touch-typing interface eliminates the need to keep a keyboard at your couch. Between that and the ability to swipe through webpages like a tablet with the Steam Controller's left touchpad—while still having the right touchpad as your mouse cursor—it could make for one of the best TV web browsing experiences as well. The only obvious thing that's MIA—for now—is the ability to power on and turn off a Steam Machine from your couch.

The interface is the same on every Steam Machine coming out in November—a list of machines that pretty much mirror's Valve's original partner announcements from CES 2014. More important than that, however, is the streaming device Valve built themselves: the Steam Link.

The Link is a micro-PC that does nothing but Stream games from an existing gaming PC to your TV—wirelessly over your local wifi network, or through an Ethernet connection. It's affordable, and it's the device none of Valve's hardware partners were making. It's what makes the Steam Machine living room experience possible for gamers who already have high-end PCs and don't want a new machine. It's the essential piece of the living room puzzle that nobody else was making, and I wish it was already out: earlier this year I ran 50 feet of HDMI cable to hook my gaming PC up to my TV. It would have been cheaper, easier and maybe better (network willing) to buy a Steam Link.

(Valve says the Link has 802.11ac MIMO with four antennas, but still recommends plugging in an Ethernet cable for the best experience.)

This combination of devices, streaming and interface makes PC gaming feel at home in the living room. It makes it feel way more like a game console.

The Right Games

I used to laugh at my die-hard Linux friends that claimed to be gamers. They always seemed to be fooling themselves, championing rare games with native compatibility or using complicated "compatibility layers" to force Windows games to run on the open-source OS. I can't laugh at them anymore.

SteamOS looks like a normal game console, and its interface is just like the one I use on Windows—but in reality it's a lightweight Linux distribution. No games, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Valve has been championing Linux for years now, and it's finally paying off. Not only are there already a lot of great SteamOS games available on the company's store, but plenty more are coming—and some of them are really high profile. Buying a Steam Machine instead of an Xbox One won't keep you from playing Batman: Arkham Knight the same day it hits Windows. You'll still be able to play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Shadow of Mordor, Payday 2 and dozens of other AAA games are coming.

Better still are all the PC-exclusive games that console gamers won't get. Fancy a game of Wasteland 2? You can have it—and that weird new Steam Controller might even make it playable. Are there fewer games on Linux? Yes. But that's changing.

So They're Back

All the Steam machines launching this November, including Alienware's Alpha, machines from Origin PC, Gigabyte and Falcon Northwest

I was wrong. Steam Machines didn't die in the fall of 2014, they just went into hibernation. In November, they'll be here, and they'll have a hell of a lot to offer. What they'll offer sounds like a damn good experience, despite my early reservations. Valve and its hardware partners have actually created a PC gaming living room product that I might be able to recommend to my unwashed console peasant friends. And me? I get a really nice gamepad. It's an exciting time for me. Suddenly, November seems far, far away.

http://gizmodo.com/steam-machines-are-back-1689701265

This just may be the tipping point that gets me into PC gaming along with the Vive it looks like a force to be reckoned with

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

RTU did a video on shield, could have potential

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

5 Ludicrous Controllers That Help You Touch the Virtual World

Virtual Reality is a really neat idea but it's also problematic. The Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung Galaxy Gear VR all let us see new, virtual worlds but none of them let us touch it. How do you physically feel what's not really there? Maybe with one of these crazy controllers.

There are dozens of them in a dark corner of the Game Developer Conference exposition floor, an area reserved for start ups with oddball innovations and big dreams. Here you'll find a ton of haptic feedback gadgets—controllers that take commands from your touch but also sorta touch you back. If someone can get it right, this could be the key to making virtual reality more real. None of the stuff I saw nailed it, but we're on the right, weird track.

Miraisens 4D Space Navigator

Force. Pressure. Tactile feeling. That is what the Miraisens 4D Space navigator promises, and then mostly fails to deliver on. The Navigator is an odd shaped, wired nub that's designed to be held in an uncomfortable three-finger grip. It vibrates as you move it around in a virtual space, ideally sort of like if you were rubbing something over a rough surface. But mostly it just feels like it's vibrating a lot.

To its credit, it's not just an isolated motor. Somehow, the Navigator's vibration features is capable of vibrating in a specific direction. One of the company's demos asked me to lift rocks or resist the gravitational forces of a black hole, and the little triangle definitely felt heavier for a moment thanks to its buzzing. I'm not sure what use that is, but it totally worked a little.

The Realm System

This one looks more like a piece of exercise equipment than a game controller, but it's actually kind of clever. In the Realm System, you secure a fitness belt around the your waist and then tether's your arms to your body with two short, stretchable cables that limit your movement. You can still extend your arms out all the way, but it takes extra effort—and the resistance can give you the illusion that the actions you're performing in game are a little more real.

Motion capture cameras and accelerometers in the grips at the end of the tether measure how much effort it takes to perform a particular action, translating that to simulated force in virtual reality. It's a good idea—and certainly good work in some games—but wearing the contraption does seem like a little bit of a hassle.

CyberTouch feedback glove

Here's the perfect example of what not to do: Stick a bunch of large, ugly force-feedback motors on a gardening glove. CyberTouch's harsh, out of place vibrations definitely let me know when I was supposed to be "touching" something, but to be honest, it felt more awkward than having no tactile feedback at all. Powerglove 2.

Tactical Haptics Reactive Grip

Gloves, vibrating triangles and resistance-based fitness belts may all be a wash, but the Tactical Haptics Reactive Grip almost feels real. Sometimes. The Grip is sort of like a wireless, motion-tracking joystick with a moving grip. Pick up something heavy in game? The controller's handle will gently pull down on the inside of your palm to emulate the friction of weight. It actually works, but only if you hold the controller just right. If you hold it too tight, it kind of hurts. Too loose? Then it's just a jiggling, awkward mess. A neat idea though for sure.

Striker VR

No, that VR doesn't stand for virtual reality, it stands for virtual recoil. Striker VR is a purpose-built force feedback system, design specifically to allow first-person virtual reality shooters to kick back with the appropriate amount of gun recoil. It works by using a special "linear engine" to throw the weight of a metal rod around the interior of the gun, creating backwards or forward momentum as necessary.

This itself is a neat idea—if a bit limited to just one genre—but the company's GDC staff was more interested in the bigger picture. Sure, they want people to look to their technology to create better FPS experiences, but they also want to work with companies like Tactical Feedback to create even more immersive VR gaming accessories. It's the right attitude: no single haptic feedback technology is going to be enough to make virtual reality feel real. Even if that means this whole controller thing could get out of hand fast. Who wants a closet full of 980213812098312 unique controllers, right?

http://gizmodo.com/5-ludicrous-controllers-that-help-you-touch-the-virtual-1689562796

VR tech is so exciting. I can't even imagine how far it will come in the next 10 years

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

RTU did a video on shield, could have potential

I had not heard of that one yet, very cool

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

I had not heard of that one yet, very cool

more info on that

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

IMAX's New Laser Projectors Make Me Wish I Lived In a Movie Theater

Surround sound and 4K TVs are great for watching movies at home, but there's still nothing like sitting in front of a gigantic screen in an IMAX theater. I recently got an exclusive first look at the company's next-generation digital laser projectors, and I walked away from the experience wanting to see every single movie remastered and projected using the new technology.

What the company has developed for the future will change the movie theater experience for decades: the gigantic images the company is known for are now bright and sharp enough to reveal every last detail that filmmakers and cinematographers worked hard to capture. Colors are so bright and intense that they now add even more realism to computer-generated images. And contrast is so distinct that when watching footage from the International Space Station you feel as if you're actually staring into the blackness of space.

It's like the first time you have an In-N-Out Burger, and then realize you can never step foot in a McDonald's ever again.

The problem with digital projectors

Digital projectors that rival the brightness and quality of traditional film projectors have been used in movie theaters around the world for quite a few years now. You'll be hard-pressed to find a brand new theater that doesn't have digital projectors installed in every auditorium. They're easier to maintain, simpler to calibrate, and distributing a movie on a hard drive is much cheaper than shipping a heavy set of film reels.

To the general movie-going public, digital projectors produce crisper images compared to what they saw coming from prints on film. There's no more dirt and debris randomly popping up on screen, and that subtly shaking image—a result of Gate Weave as the film physically moves through the projector—is no more. But while digital projectors improved the theater-going experience for most audiences, there were still some compromises with switching to the new technology.

The giant digital projectors used in movie theaters today all work basically the same way. White light from an extremely bright (and hot) xenon bulb passes through a prism, like you see in the photo above, and is split into the three primary colors. On the sides of this prism are three chips covered in thousands of individually-controlled tiny mirrors that redirect the now-separated red, green, and blue light through a lens and then onto the screen in various combinations and intensities. That's a gross over-simplification of how the process works, but that's essentially how a modern digital projector is able to produce millions of colors on screen.

There are lots of subtle problems with that approach, though. As brighter and darker images are being generated, the components surrounding that prism are constantly heating and cooling. Modern projectors are designed to maintain a constant temperature for all of those parts, but it's impossible to do it perfectly when one side of each of those mirrored-chips is pressed right up against that glass prism.

As a result, those components repeatedly expand and contract during the course of a movie which subtly pushes those chips in and out of alignment. And that produces visual artifacts on-screen, like a loss of clarity and sharpness. It also takes its toll on the hardware over time, slowly degrading the image quality as a projector is continuously showing movie after movie, day after day.

This technology also can't reproduce the extreme level of contrast that film is able to capture, and a film projector is able to display. Which means a lot of directors and filmmakers simply aren't happy with how a movie they've spent months and months mastering ends up looking in a modern theater. Digital projectors might have many advantages over film, but there's still a tremendous amount of room to improve the technology. And that's exactly what IMAX has done.

How IMAX made them so much better

As a company, IMAX has always been about making the movie-going experience as immersive as possible for the audience. That's why it built a gigantic 120-foot wide screen in a movie theater in Sydney, and why it managed to convince filmmakers to wrangle massive cameras capturing images to giant 15-perf 70-millimeter film. Seeing an IMAX film is a completely different experience to seeing a movie in a regular theater, and to continue to improve that experience, the company realized that digital projectors needed some major upgrades.

And the key to IMAX's next generation digital projection technology is lasers.

Laser-based projectors aren't exactly a new thing, though. They've actually been around for quite a few years. But what sets IMAX's new projector technology apart is how those lasers are being used. That problematic prism setup? That's gone.

You don't actually need a prism to split white light into the three primary colors because you can already get lasers in red, blue, and green. So what this magical box does (IMAX wasn't interested in giving away the secrets of how all of the new proprietary technology it spent millions of dollars developing worked) is redirect the light from a trio of lasers onto a screen in precise mixes and intensities to reproduce more colors than the human eye can discern.

That's at the heart of what makes IMAX's new digital projectors such a leap ahead of existing technologies, but it's only a part of a larger system that's designed to produce an image with never before seen levels of detail, sharpness, contrast, and brightness.

The Cineplex Scotiabank IMAX theater in downtown Toronto is the first public theater in the world to be upgraded with the company's new laser projector technology, and during my behind-the-scenes tour of the projection booth another one of the system's not-so-secret features was revealed: every theater will actually have two of these laser projectors working in tandem.

It's not for redundancy, though. The two projectors actually work together to achieve absolutely stunning levels of brightness and contrast. When an image with both bright and dark areas is projected using the digital technology in place in theaters now, the brighter areas of the frame always end up washing out the details in the darker areas. With IMAX's new projection technology there's a stunning amount of detail preserved in the darker areas of an image, even if other parts of the frame appear brighter than the sun.

The side-by-side dual projector setup also helps improve sharpness and reduce the jagged aliasing artifacts often seen along curved edges in digital images. On a 50-inch 4K TV it's all but impossible for your eyes to see any digital artifacts, but when a 4K image is projected on a 120-foot wide screen, they suddenly become easy to spot. And artifacts like that can distract audience members from the experience.

So to help that 4K image look as clean and sharp as possible on a giant screen, as part of the IMAX mastering process two nearly identical images are produced that are projected on top of each other at the same time. But while those two images look identical, they're actually not. They're both slightly shifted, imperceptibly, to produce extra in-between details at the sub-pixel level when overlaid on top of each other.

People often refer to film as having an unlimited resolution because there are no individual pixels to quantify. And that was one of IMAX's goals with its new projector technology. At a technical level each projector is producing a 4K image, but working together they help produce an image that's nearly impossible for the human eye to discern the individual pixels.

On top of all that, IMAX's quality control systems means that the theater experience a movie-goer in Sydney has, will be exactly the same experience as someone in Toronto has. Sensors in the actual projectors keep track of everything from temperature to humidity, and all of that data is monitored remotely from IMAX's HQ. So if an individual component in one of the projectors reports an abnormally high spike in temperature, the company will know that a failure could be imminent and will dispatch a technician to replace the part before it actually fails.

There are also cameras constantly pointed at the screen to monitor image quality and ensure the system is always properly calibrated for optimal visuals. And in addition to the vast improvements made to what's seen on-screen, IMAX is also introducing an upgraded 12-channel surround sound system with additional side and ceiling speakers that will be constantly monitored by microphones placed around the space to ensure that the company's incredibly powerful sound system is working properly.

IMAX has always focused on providing a movie-going experience like no other, and this new projection system and the technologies behind it allows the company to take things one step further. And not only with a better image on screen, but with the ability to ensure that every single IMAX theater in the world is working exactly as they've been designed to.

Brighter images, intense colors, and incredible detail that will leave you in awe

I can remember the first time I saw a movie in a theater with a brand new digital projector. While the rock-steady image was bright, crisp, and extremely colorful, I walked away being impressed with the new setup, but ultimately wanting more. And the demo that IMAX gave me of its new laser projector delivered exactly the 'more' I had been looking for many years ago.

IMAX believes that the brightness and contrast levels from its new laser projection system will outperform even traditional film projectors. And having seen both regular and IMAX films over the past 15 years in the very same theater I saw these demos, the difference is night and day. Brightness is a big issue in a theater with a screen that can be as large as 120-feet wide, and IMAX claims its new laser projectors are about 60 percent brighter than its previous-generation xenon-bulb based technology.

But a brighter image is only half the equation. TV makers like to boast about the obscene contrast ratios achieved by their latest models, but even the most expensive flat-screen TV you can buy for your home theater can't even begin to compare with what IMAX has managed to achieve with its new projector system.

As immersive as seeing Christopher Nolan's Interstellar in IMAX was last year, seeing the film remastered for these new laser projectors is an entirely different experience. You see details that were simply washed out by the old projector technology, and combined with the crispness and brightness of the image it's probably as close as you'll ever get to seeing what an astronaut sees while they're in orbit. IMAX has even gone so far as to upgrade the lighting in its theaters, redirecting bulbs away from the screen to help maximize and coax every last bit of contrast from its new projectors.

It's unfortunate that the recent rise and fall of artificially adding depth to almost every single 2D blockbuster has turned audiences off of 3D movies. Because IMAX has been doing 3D properly for decades now, and its new laser projector technology promises to vastly improve that experience as well.

When a projector is tasked with displaying twice as many images as it was designed to—a different frame for the left and right eye—there's a significant drop in overall brightness. And the movie-going experience simply isn't as magical when the screen is dark and colors are muted. During the demo IMAX showed me the trailer for How to Train Your Dragon 2, first a 2K version in a normal-sized theater with a standard xenon digital projector, and then a version remastered for its new laser projectors in its larger theater.

The difference in brightness was reason alone to give 3D a second chance, but what really stood out from that demo was the intensity of the colors—specifically in a dark scene in a cave full of fire-breathing dragons. Not only was I able to see details in the dark areas that were all but invisible in the other theater, but suddenly the fire in the dragons' mouths looked more real and intense. It had more layers, more nuances, and though it was just a CG simulation, it made the fire appear far more believable. It's almost impossible to convey the difference in words, you really need to experience it with your own eyes, but it's like wiping the layer of dust that's accumulated on the screen your grandparent's old CRT TV, and suddenly seeing the bright colorful picture hidden beneath.

Over the years movie theaters have used endless gimmicks to help fill seats, but that's not what IMAX is about. It's not a gimmick, but a genuinely better and more engaging way to watch movies. And this new technology, which is all but invisible to audiences, simply serves to make the IMAX experience even more mesmerizing.

Once all of IMAX's theaters around the world have been upgraded with its new laser projection technology, the question will no longer be, "should we see this movie in IMAX?" The question will be, "why would you even want to see a film if there isn't an IMAX version available?"

http://gizmodo.com/imaxs-new-laser-projectors-make-me-wish-i-lived-in-a-mo-1689480610

Wow, who would have thought the IMAX experience could get even more awesome

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

IMAX theaters display movies in 4K?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

It's actually better than 4k now with the new set up

 

[KevanG]

Steam Machines Are Back

This just may be the tipping point that gets me into PC gaming along with the Vive it looks like a force to be reckoned with

This is the thing I've been waiting for. I've been holding off getting a PS4/XB1 because I really want to get something like a Steam Machine. I want something I can play hundreds of games on without having to pay $50+ per game and have sales that actually are good as opposed to the 25% off ten year old games *coughMicrosoftcough*.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

It's actually better than 4k now with the new set up

So was IMAX at one point doing 1080p, long before it was widely adopted in households?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

That I am not sure of

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This Is What Lockheed's New Laser Can Do

Lockheed Martin recently tested its new Advanced Test High Energy Asset (ATHENA) laser—not to be confused with the Navy's laser—on the Ford F-150 pictured above. The weapons system hit the truck's running engine from a mile away. The engine doesn't run any more.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/press-releases/2015/march/ssc-space-athena-laser.html

Now if we can just get them attached to sharks we will be in business

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

A Scent-Blasting Face Mask: Because Virtual Reality Isn't Weird Enough

When you're hacking your way through a sweltering jungle in virtual reality, wouldn't you like to feel as disgustingly hot and humid as your video game character? To smell that distinctive jungle scent? No? Then you'd sure as hell better not pay $250 for the Feelreal this summer.

The Feelreal is just the latest in a long line of devices that attempt to make cinematic experiences more immersive by torturing you just a little bit. Remember Smell-O-Vision? Or the 3rd Space Vest? Yeah.

In this case, the Feelreal is a big, chunky, heavy accessory you strap onto the bottom of your virtual reality headset. It can blow hot air at your face. It can blow cold air at your face. Hell, it can blow mist at your face. And yes, it can fill your nostrils with one of up to seven stored scents, ranging from "Ocean" to "Metal". It can also rock your face with a built-in vibrator.

At least the Feelreel's lips won't try to cram anything down your throat. That's just the built-in Bluetooth microphone.

[YT]-OuZ2b1auUg[/YT]

I kid a lot, but I actually kind of enjoyed the experience. There's nothing quite like the feeling of a fresh breeze on a hot day, and I got a little bit of that from the Feelreal. But there's no way game developers are going to support this niche Kickstarter device, and no way I'm going to dangle this giant contraption off the front of my skull.

http://gizmodo.com/a-scent-blasting-face-mask-because-virtual-reality-isn-1689900156

Okay then, seriously can't even imagine how crazy VR tech will be in 20 years or so

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Feds Just Charged 3 Spammers With the Biggest Data Breach in History

The only thing that sucks more than spam are the greedy people who send it to you. That's why the Department of Justice charging three spam kingpins responsible for one of the largest data breaches in history is so exciting. Finally, Feds are taking down the spam kingpins—or at least trying.

A small army of U.S. attorneys and special agents just announced the charges. The indictments name two Vietnamese citizens and one Canadian who ran a years-long scheme to collect email addresses, spam them with links to websites, and then collect revenue from those websites. "These men… are accused of carrying out the largest data breach of names and email addresses in the history of the Internet," Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in a statement. "The defendants allegedly made millions of dollars by stealing over a billion email addresses from email service providers."

That's a lot of email addresses. Feds went on to explain how the spam kingpins targeted most of the major email providers in the United States which means that your Gmail address could've been one of the stolen ones. The suspected spammers are Vietnamese citizens Giang Hoang Vu and Viet Quoc Nguyen, who carried out the biggest data breach in United States history between 2009 and 2011. Canadian citizen David-Manuel Santos Da Silva ran a website called Marketbay.com and allegedly helped the Vietnamese duo launder the money earned from spamming.

The good news is that Da Silva and Vu have been arrested. Vu has already pleaded guilty to computer fraud charges. One suspect, 28-year-old Viet Quoc Nguyen, remains a fugitive. And spamming is still a problem—a dangerous one, too.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-defendants-charged-one-largest-reported-data-breaches-us-history

About time they started cracking down on those jerks