Sunday 9 April 2017

Computer hack sets off 156 emergency sirens across US city



A computer hack set off all the emergency sirens in Dallas for about 90 minutes overnight in one of the largest known breaches of a siren warning system, officials in the Texas city said on Saturday.

Dallas' 156 sirens, normally used to warn of tornadoes and other dangerous weather, were triggered at 11:42 p.m. CDT on Friday. The wailing did not end until 1:17 a.m. CDT on Saturday when engineers manually shut down the sirens' radio system and repeaters, city Emergency Management Director Rocky Vaz said.


"At this point, we can tell you with a good deal of confidence that this was somebody outside of our system that got in there and activated our sirens," he told reporters.


The breach in the city of 1.6 million people was believed to have originated in the area, city spokeswoman Sana Syed said in an emailed statement.


Vaz cited industry experts as saying the hack was among the largest ever to affect emergency sirens, with most breaches triggering one or two. "This is a very, very rare event," he said.



Engineers are working to restart the system and should have it restored by late on Sunday, he said. Until the sirens are running, Dallas will rely on local media, emergency 911 phone calls, and a federal radio alert system, Vaz said.




The hack is being investigated by system engineers and the Federal Communications Commission has been contacted, but police have not been involved, he said.

The sirens went through 15 cycles of a 90-second activation before they were shut down, he said.



The wailing sirens triggered a firestorm of speculation and reaction on Twitter, with Garrett S. Bacak at @theinsidiousone tweeting, "Go home dallas, you're drunk."

Facebook to soon offer free version of its Slack-killer Workplace

 
NEW YORK: In a tough challenge to team collaboration tool Slack, Facebook has announced to offer a version of Workplace for free.



Workplace, Facebook's messaging service for businesses, is one of the many products used by businesses to chat and share files within their select groups.


According to a report in Fortune, the new free version announced by Facebook this week joins a previously announced paid version that premiered in 2016.

         "The free standard version will offer one-to-one and group voice and video calling, streaming video, and chat for people with Apple iOS or Android devices as well as those on desktop PCs," the report noted.



The social networking giant has been trying to venture more into business sphere. Facebook, for example, recently rolled out a feature that allows posting job notices -- something that competes with Microsoft's LinkedIn.



However, it is not clear yet when the free version will be available, but Facebook has said it would be available "soon" and hoped Workplace would connect everyone including people who only use mobile devices.

Monday 18 June 2012

Top 10 Rank Of Computers In The World

IBM’s Sequoia Crowned King of Supercomputers

The Sequoia supercomputer built by IBM is now considered the most powerful supercomputer on earth, according to rankings released today. 



The Sequoia supercomputer a system built by IBM for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California, is the now the most powerful supercomputer on earth, according to rankings released today. It led the top500.org list, which ranks the worlds supercomputers according to a standard software benchmark, delivering 16.32 petaflops (a thousand trillion [<?] floating point operations per second) using 1 572 864 processor cores. It marks the first time since November 2009 that a U.S. supercomputer has topped the charts.
The IBM machine made use of the company’s BlueGene/Q computing system, which features 18-core processors based on the PowerPC architecture. Overall, IBM systems had a good showing, accounting for 47.5 percent of the computing power in the top 500 list, easily outpacing it’s next nearest competitor Hewlett Packard.
Sequoia’s nearest competitor, Fujitsu’s K computer, has topped the charts during 2011. It managed 10.51 petaflops using 705 024 cores. It was followed by a U.S. system—the Mira supercomputer, another IBM machine, that pulled 8.1 petaflops with 786 432 cores.
European computers had a good showing, with two German machines and the first Italian top 10 system on the list, as well as France grabbing the number 9 spot with it’s homebrew Bull supercomputer.
Meanwhile, China’s Tianhe-1A took number five, and the Nebulae system, in Shenzhen, came in at number 10.

Sequoia - BlueGene/Q, Power BQC 16C 1.60 GHz, Custom

Site:
System URL:
Manufacturer:
IBM
Cores:
1572864
Power:
7890.00 kW
Memory:
1572864 GB
Interconnect:
Custom
Operating System:
Linux

Configurations




List
Rank
System
Vendor
Total Cores
Rmax (TFlops)
Rpeak (TFlops)
Power (kW)
06/2012
1
BlueGene/Q, Power BQC 16C 1.60 GHz, Custom
IBM
1572864
16324.8
20132.7
7890.00
11/2011
17
BlueGene/Q, Power BQC 16C 1.60 GHz, Custom
IBM
65536
690.2
838.9
340.50

Wednesday 6 June 2012

The next version of the Internet begins rolling out today

What if the Internet ran out of room? In fact, it's already happening.

Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, and a founding father of the Internet, discusses the next version of the Internet, IPv6, and why we need it.

The problem is that the current Internet addressing system, IPv4, only has room for about 4 billion addresses -- not nearly enough for the world's people, let alone the devices that are online today and those that will be in the future: computers, phones, TVs, watches, fridges, cars, and so on. More than 4 billion devices already share addresses. As IPv4 runs out of free addresses, everyone will need to share.



When is the transition happening?
At Google we believe IPv6 is essential to the continued health and growth of the Internet and that by allowing all devices to talk to each other directly, IPv6 enables new innovative services. Replacing the Internet's plumbing will take some time, but the transition has begun. World IPv6 Launch on June 6, 2012, marks the start of a coordinated rollout by major websites and Internet service and equipment providers.



Frequently asked questions:

Q :- What are IPv4 and IPv6?
Ans :- IPv4 is the current version of the Internet Protocol, the identification system the Internet uses to send information between devices. This system assigns a series of four numbers (each ranging from 0 to 255) to each device. IPv4 only allows for about 4 billion addresses and the Internet needs more room than that. IPv6 is the new version of the Internet Protocol and expands the number of available addresses to a virtually limitless amount–340 trillion trillion trillion addresses.

Q :- Why is IPv6 important?
Ans :- The Internet is running out of IPv4 addresses. Transitioning to IPv6 enables the Internet to continue to grow and enables new, innovative services to be developed because more devices can connect to the Internet.

Q :- What is an IP address?
Ans :- Just like a phone number helps you communicate with another phone, an IP address (short for Internet Protocol address) is provided to your computer so it can communicate with websites, Internet services, and other devices. IP addresses are numbers that are displayed as strings of letters or numbers, such as 192.0.2.1 (for IPv4) and 2001:db8::1234:ace:6006:1e (for IPv6).

Q :- What is World IPv6 Launch?
Ans :- World IPv6 Launch on June 6, 2012, organized by the Internet Society, is the day participating major websites and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) permanently enable IPv6 and begin the transition from IPv4.

Q :- Will I notice anything different? Do I need to do anything to prepare?
Ans :- You don't need to prepare anything for IPv6; your applications and devices will work just as they did before. This change is to make sure you can keep using the Internet in the future just as you do today.

Q :- How long will this transition take?
Ans :- The complete transition to IPv4 to IPv6 will take time as every website and Internet Service Provider must make the switch. In the meantime, both systems will work together until IPv4 is no longer needed.

Q :- Will you be turning off IPv4?
Ans :- No, IPv4 services will continue to operate as usual.

Q :- Do I already have IPv6?
Ans :- You may be using IPv6 already, visit ipv6test.google.com to find out. Many devices you use already support IPv6; however, the websites you visit and your Internet Service Provider must first enable IPv6 before you can use it.

Q :- I don’t have IPv6 yet. How can I get it?
Ans :- Many major websites and Internet Service Providers now support IPv6, but there are still many more who need to switch. If you'd like to use IPv6, contact your Internet Service Provider asking them to provide you with IPv6 Internet access. You may also need to enable IPv6 on your home router or upgrade to a home router that supports IPv6. For a list of home router manufacturers that support IPv6, start here.

Q :- Was there ever an IPv5?
Ans :- Version 5 was reserved for the Internet Stream Protocol developed prior to IPv6–it was never widely deployed and will not be used publicly.

Sunday 3 June 2012

Inside the Samsung Galaxy S III: Quad-core drives galaxial screen

The Samsung Galaxy S III is a big phone with a burly chip to match.
Samsung Galaxy S III
Samsung Galaxy S III
The Samsung's Galaxy S III's vast 4.8-inch screen sits atop a quad-core processor and Sony camera, among other goodies exposed in detail via a chipworks teardown.
Before we dive into the specs, let's be clear. For a phone, it's big. Big enough to be brushing up against 5-inch mini tablets.
"I'd say it does verge on being unnecessarily large, but thankfully it isn't as ludicrously big as the Samsung Galaxy Note with its 5.3-inch screen," said CNET"s Jessica Dolcourt in her review of the phone.
And note this is the global version of the phone, not the LTE version that has yet to arrive in the U.S. The LTE-based U.S. version could opt for a dual-core Qualcomm chip that integrates the LTE function. We'll have to wait and see, though.
Samsung Galaxy S III main circuit board. The Samsung Exynos 4412 quad-core A9 processor is in orange; Samsung NAND flash in yellow.
Samsung Galaxy S III main circuit board. The Samsung Exynos 4412 quad-core A9 processor is in orange; Samsung NAND flash in yellow.

Nitty-gritty specs: 
·        Processor: Samsung Exynos 4412 quad-core A9 processor with 1GB DDR2 memory. The quad-core Samsung chip was only announced in April. So, this is the first chance for Samsung to strut its quad-core stuff. Owing to its 32-nanometer tech, the Exynos 4 Quad has "two times the processing capability over the 45-[nanometer] process based Exynos...Dual while consuming 20 percent less power," Samsung said in April.
·        Camera: the 8MP camera sensor is a Sony back-illuminated sensor (BSI) unit. Essentially the same camera found in the iPhone 4S. "Folks can finally compare Apples to Androids when it comes to picture quality," said iFixit, which provided commentary to the chipworks teardown. And the other camera? At 1.9MP, it "should vastly outperform the VGA unit on the iPhone 4S," according to iFixit.
·        Battery: The 2100 mAh battery is big when compared with the iPhone 4S' 1420 mAh and Galaxy Nexus' 1750 mAh units. The battery incorporates the Near Field Communications (NFC) module used in "S Beam." 
·        Glass: One of the first phones to tap Corning Gorilla Glass 2. Corning says it is up to 20 percent thinner, enabling slimmer devices and better touch responsiveness and brighter images but with the same "damage resistance" as before. 
·        Display: iFixit makes a good point. At a resolution of 1280x720 the display packs almost as many pixels into a 4.8-inch screen as some laptops have in a 13-inch screen.
·        Other silicon highlights: Samsung NAND flash; Intel Wireless PMB9811X Gold Baseband processor; Murata WiFi Module; Broadcom BCM47511 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver. 

Friday 25 May 2012

Is it a problem if Windows 8 boots too quickly?


Microsoft's forthcoming operating system boots so quickly that you will miss those familiar prompts.




Windows 8 screen with "Use a device" option that allows boot on an alternative drive.


Really fast boot times on Windows 8 hardly sounds like a problem. But it is Here's why.
Startup can be so fast that you whiz by familiar sign posts that prompt for input, wrote Chris Clark, a program manager in the Windows User Experience team, today in a Building Windows 8 blog post.
"When you turn on a Windows 8 PC, there's no longer [enough time] to detect keystrokes like F2 or F8, much less time to read a message such as 'Press F2 for Setup'," Clark said.
On a solid-state drive-equipped ultrabook, for example, Windows 8 can boot in less than seven seconds. Microsoft demonstrated the fast boot last year. (And, by the way, sub-10-second boots is one reason most ultrabooks today come with SSDs.)

"We have SSD-based UEFI systems where the 'F8 window' is always less than 200 milliseconds. No matter how fast your fingers are, there is no way to reliably catch a 200 millisecond event," according to Clark. (See the FAQ explaining the difference between a BIOS and UEFI. Suffice to say, on newer PCs, including those shipping with Windows 8, UEFI is used instead of the more antiquated BIOS.)
Microsoft's solution, in short, kills the F8 key prompt -- or any other hard key prompts.
For example, when booting to an alternative USB drive or network, Windows 8 UEFI-based devices will get a screen (see image above) with a "Use a device" button alongside other boot options.
And what about older systems, you ask? "Legacy hardware that was made before Windows 8 will not have these new UEFI-provided menu features," Clark wrote. "The firmware on these devices will continue to support...messages such as 'Press F2 for Setup'...There is still time for keystrokes like this to work...on these legacy devices," according to Clark.

Windows 8 &#39;Advanced options&#39; screen.

Windows 8 'Advanced options' screen.

Windows Startup Settings: a unified boot options menu.


Windows Startup Settings: a unified boot options menu.

In the image directly above, Microsoft has added Windows Startup Settings. These include items such as "disable driver signing" and "debugging mode," as well as Safe Mode and several other options.