Monthly Archives: July 2018

Latest Windows 10 update now deemed good enough for business users

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Corporate users should now be unafraid to roll out the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, aka Version 1803, to their fleets, according to Microsoft.

Over the course of Windows 10’s life, the precise terminology that Microsoft uses to denote this has changed. Originally, there was a split between the “Current Build”—the latest stable update with the latest monthly patch—and the “Current Build for Business.” This latter label was used to denote the version that Microsoft felt was sufficiently tested and stabilized as to be suitable to roll out to conservative corporate fleets. While the Current Build would be updated to each new major update as soon as it was released, the Current Build for Business typically lagged by a few months.

The terminology has now changed a bit; what was once “Current Build” is now “Semi-Annual Channel (targeted),” and “Current Build for Business” is now “Semi-Annual Channel.” But the effect is the same: as of yesterday’s patch, which brings Windows 10’s build number up to 17134.165, Version 1803 is now blessed with the Semi-Annual Channel label.

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Source: Ars Technica – Latest Windows 10 update now deemed good enough for business users

Elon Musk says he will fund fixing Flint’s foul water

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Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

For around four years now, the water supply to the city of Flint, Michigan, has been contaminated with lead. Now, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has promised to help. Replying to a request on Twitter, Musk pledged to fund remediation work to houses with contaminated water supplies.

For some time now, people on Twitter and elsewhere have been calling on Musk to turn his attention to this domestic scandal; those calls having escalated in response to his high-profile interest in the rescue of 12 children and their soccer coach from a cave network in Thailand. As is usually the case with plans that are barely an hour old, the details are thin as of now. But Musk—tweeting from China—told people in Flint to reply to his tweet with test results showing contamination above the recommended limits, at which point he would arrange having a water filter fitted for them. (We should note that it’s actually the EPA, not the FDA, that sets limits on environmental pollution exposure.)

In replies to other Twitter users, Musk mooted the idea of a “barnstorming weekend” installing water filters across Flint and noted that many houses in the area do actually have safe water now despite perceptions otherwise. While this isn’t a flashy solution that uses offcuts from rockets, it also has the potential to make a lasting positive impact on the lives of citizens of Flint, particularly its children who can suffer from developmental delays if exposed to environmental lead.

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Source: Ars Technica – Elon Musk says he will fund fixing Flint’s foul water

iBASE Lists C246 Motherboards for Intel Xeon E CPUs

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iBASE has published specifications of its upcoming MB995VF-C246 motherboard aimed at entry-level/embedded servers and workstations that will support Intel’s upcoming (but not yet announced) Xeon E processors. The mainboard generally resembles platforms for desktops, but due to positioning it boasts with enhanced durability, reliability, as well as legacy I/O capabilities.


The iBASE MB995VF-C246 motherboard is based on Intel’s as-yet unannounced C246 PCH and therefore supports Xeon E processors. The mainboard relies on design originally developed for the MB995VF based on the Intel Q370 PCH, and according to the listing will also support 8th Gen Core i3/i5/i7 as well as Pentium CPUs for business desktops. Given its positioning, the motherboard fully supports iAMT 11 remote management, TPM 2.0, vPro, and iSMART features.



The MB995VF-C246 motherboard from iBASE is outfitted with a multi-phase VRM for CPU that is based on solid-state coils designed to sustain prolonged workloads. The platform carries four DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 64 GB of DDR4-2667 memory (either ECC or non-ECC), one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot for graphics cards, a PCIe 3.0 x4 for high-end SSDs, a PCIe 3.0 x1 for various add-on boards, one mini PCIe, as well as three PCI slots. Moving on to storage options. The MB995VF-C246 has six SATA ports, and one M.2-2280. The platform can support up to six SATA SSDs/HDDs as well as two PCIe/NVMe drives of different capacity.


When it comes to networking connectivity, the motherboard has two GbE controllers, and an M.2-2230 slot for a Wi-Fi card. As for general I/O, the MB995VF-C246 has four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, five USB 3.1 Gen 1 headers, a USB 2.0 via a pin-header (internal port), a DVI-D output, a DisplayPort 1.2, an HDMI 2.0a, four RS232 ports, two RS232/422/485 connectors, and a 7.1-channel audio.



The iBASE MB995VF-C246 is positioned for embedded computing, which is why it has PCI slots (often used for outdated add-in cards) as well as various legacy ports. Meanwhile, presence of up-to-date slots and ports indicates that one can easily build a contemporary server or workstation using this motherboard.


iBASE guarantees a 15-year lifetime for its MB995VF motherboards, so people looking to build an embedded system based on these platforms can be assured that they will be able to procure these mainboards in the years to come. The new mainboards are expected to become available shortly.


















iBASE’s Motherboard for Intel’s Xeon E CPUs
  MB995VF-C246
Supported CPUs LGA1151 v2 CPUs

Xeon E

8th Gen Core i3/i5/i7
PCH Intel C246 + Fintek F81966D-I controller
Graphics Intel UHD Graphics from CPU

PCIe 3.0 x16 slot
Display Outputs 1 × DisplayPort 1.2

1 × DVI-D

1 × HDMI 2.0a
Memory 2 × DDR4 DIMM

Up to 64 GB of DDR4-2667

ECC or non-ECC
Slots for Add-In-Cards 1 × PCIe 3.0 x4

1 × PCIe 3.0 x1

1 × miniPCIe

3 × PCI 32-bit/33 MHz
Ethernet LAN 1: Intel I219LM GbE PHY

LAN 2: Intel I210AT GbE PHY
Storage 6 × SATA 6 Gbps

1 × M.2 (PCIe 3.0 x4 or SATA)
Audio Realtek ALC888S-VD2-GR

7.1-channel audio
USB 4 × USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A

5 × USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A

1 × USB 2.0 Type-A
Serial Ports 4 × RS232

2 × RS232/422/485
Wi-Fi M.2-2230 slot
Operating Temperature 0°C~60°C (32°F~140°F)
Form-Factor ATX (305 mm × 244 mm | 12″ × 9.6″)

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Source: AnandTech – iBASE Lists C246 Motherboards for Intel Xeon E CPUs

RIP Tata Nano, the World's Cheapest Car

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From a report: Well, you guys, pour one out for the Tata Nano. The world’s cheapest car is all but dead. According to Bloomberg, Tata Motors built one single Nano in June 2018. During the same month in 2017, Tata produced 275. As a final nail in the coffin, Tata told Bloomberg the car “cannot continue beyond 2019.” The Tata Nano entered the Indian market in 2008 priced from just 100,000 rupees, or about $1,500. The price increased over time, and according to Tata Motors’ website, an entry-level Nano starts at 236,447 rupees today, or $3,435 based on current exchange rates. Right from the get-go, the Nano was plagued with production issues, not to mention poor safety and dismal crash test results. The cars were also known to catch fire, which, uh, isn’t good.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – RIP Tata Nano, the World’s Cheapest Car

Hominins lived in China 2.1 million years ago

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Source: Ars Technica – Hominins lived in China 2.1 million years ago

Novartis Becomes the Latest Pharma Company to Give Up on Antibiotics Research

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Much like climate change, the growing emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial superbugs is a ticking time bomb that threatens our very way of life. It’s also a very expensive problem to tackle, and Big Pharma has struggled to find any promising solutions. On Wednesday, yet another major pharmaceutical—the…

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Source: Gizmodo – Novartis Becomes the Latest Pharma Company to Give Up on Antibiotics Research

The Wait Is over: Faux Marble Darth Vader And Stormtrooper Head Bookends

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star-wars-bookends-1.jpg

Because someone out there needs them, these are the $85 faux marble Darth Vader and Stormtrooper head bookends available for preorder from Gentle Giant. $85 gets you a single 6.5-inch tall bookend, which is actually made of handpainted polystone. The bookends are set at 90-degrees though, so you can have the face staring at you regardless of which side of your books its placed on. Still, for $85 I would expect at least a set of two, or, if I am only getting one, for it to be real marble. How much does real marble cost anyways? I have no clue, because I’ve never had to pay for anything in my life because I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. *spitting out* See? “That’s a beer bottle top.” I’m so poor, please buy me a six-pack.

Keep going for a few more shots.

Source: Geekologie – The Wait Is over: Faux Marble Darth Vader And Stormtrooper Head Bookends

Battling Fake Accounts, Twitter To Slash Millions of Followers

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Twitter will begin removing tens of millions of suspicious accounts from users’ followers on Thursday, signaling a major new effort to restore trust on the popular but embattled platform. From a report: The reform takes aim at a pervasive form of social media fraud. Many users have inflated their followers on Twitter or other services with automated or fake accounts, buying the appearance of social influence to bolster their political activism, business endeavors or entertainment careers. Twitter’s decision will have an immediate impact: Beginning on Thursday, many users, including those who have bought fake followers and any others who are followed by suspicious accounts, will see their follower numbers fall. While Twitter declined to provide an exact number of affected users, the company said it would strip tens of millions of questionable accounts from users’ followers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Battling Fake Accounts, Twitter To Slash Millions of Followers

Meet The Controller Mechanic Who Repairs Smash Pros' Hardware On The Fly

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In a poorly-lit corner of a former Polish wedding venue in Brooklyn, New York, Giovanni “ShinG” Nieves took a screwdriver to a GameCube controller as a crowd of customers waited. Nieves, in a red bomber jacket and a fade haircut, was reverse-engineering a Super Smash Bros. 4 competitor’s controller at a tournament…

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Source: Gizmodo – Meet The Controller Mechanic Who Repairs Smash Pros’ Hardware On The Fly

US Military Documents Were Posted Onto the Dark Web With a $200 Asking Price

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US military documents were posted onto the dark web and the hacker was only asking for $150 – $200 according to representatives from Recorded Future’s Insikt Group. Included in the documents was information on the MQ-9 Reaper drone, M1 Abrams maintenance manual, crew survival course, improvised explosive device (IED) mitigation tactics, and a tank platoon training course. The hacker was able to infiltrate the military network by using the Shodan search engine to scan the internet for a known weakness in Netgear routers caused by not changing the default FTP password.

By deftly guessing the login name “admin” and the password “password” the hacker boasted of watching live video feeds from border cameras, planes and drones flying over the Gulf of Mexico when he was bored. At least this guy was more into posting screenshots of the videos that he was able to view than actually doing damage to the US military computer system. Next time we might not be so lucky.



In early 2016, several security researchers publicly announced that Netgear routers with remote data access capabilities were susceptible to malicious attacks if the default FTP authentication credentials were not updated. Despite it being two years since the vulnerability was first acknowledged, the problem remains widespread. During our recent research, Recorded Future identified more than 4,000 routers susceptible to the attack.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – US Military Documents Were Posted Onto the Dark Web With a 0 Asking Price

Can Vaping Really Help You Quit Smoking?

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Vaping is almost certainly less harmful to your health than smoking cigarettes, since it doesn’t contain bits of burned-up tobacco leaf (the cancer-causing “tar” in cigarettes). But if that fact leads smokers to start vaping, but then they don’t quit smoking, what good was the vaping?

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Source: LifeHacker – Can Vaping Really Help You Quit Smoking?

How to Get the Best Deals on Amazon Prime Day

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Amazon Prime Day is a full day (plus several hours!) of special discounts on items you can purchase online or at Whole Foods.  Prime Day this year will take place on July 16, starting at 3 p.m. eastern time, and will last for 36 hours. To be eligible for most (but not all) of the deals, you have to be an Amazon Prime…

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Source: LifeHacker – How to Get the Best Deals on Amazon Prime Day

FCC Blames Fake-Comment Flood on System It Recently Spent Millions Modernizing

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Between 2013 and 2015, the FCC reportedly spent close to $3 million overhauling its comment system. But after being flooded with millions of fake comments during a docket to overturn net neutrality last summer, the agency is now planning another total makeover.

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Source: Gizmodo – FCC Blames Fake-Comment Flood on System It Recently Spent Millions Modernizing

Ajit Pai finally gets around to fighting fraud in FCC comment system

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Palto)

The Federal Communications Commission is planning to overhaul its public comments system to deter fraud and abuse, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a letter to lawmakers last week.

The FCC may institute a CAPTCHA system as part of a redesign that will “institute appropriate safeguards against abusive conduct,” Pai told Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Pat Toomey (R-Penn.).

“[T]he FCC is planning to rebuild and re-engineer ECFS [Electronic Comment Filing System] and has submitted a request to reprogram the funds necessary to undertake this project,” Pai wrote. “This reprogramming request is pending before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, and we hope they will enable us to make important improvements by approving it soon.”

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Source: Ars Technica – Ajit Pai finally gets around to fighting fraud in FCC comment system

Yet More Evidence that Viruses May Cause Alzheimer's Disease

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For decades, the idea that a bacteria or virus could help cause Alzheimer’s disease was dismissed as a fringe theory. But not so much anymore. On Wednesday, a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School reported in the journal Neuron the latest bit of evidence suggesting herpesviruses can spark the cascade of…

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Source: Gizmodo – Yet More Evidence that Viruses May Cause Alzheimer’s Disease