This week smartwatch maker Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky blamed VCs for not giving him all the money he needs and laid off a quarter of its workforce.

Only a few years ago, Pebble was the darling of the crowdfunding crowd, having raised over $30 million on Kickstarter. This was when Apple was rumoured to be making one and the Tame Apple Press was claiming they were going to be the next big thing,

When Migicovsky confirmed the layoffs. He implied that VCs are now less keen on funding the dream.

Now Apple, which was said to be the market leader of smartwatches, has dropped the price of the Apple Watch by $50. It is probably not going to upgrade the next one with any serious bells and whistles. It looks like the only people who bought one were Apple’s hard core of fanboys who buy everything that Jobs’ Mob makes regardless of whether they need it.

The IDC sees wearable devices reaching 110 million by the end of 2016 which should be 38.2 percent growth. But it seems that this is not enough.

Fitbit was initially championed as an industry leader but this year saw its stock has been battered in 2016. It appears that Smartwatches haven’t set the market alight. Pebble’s rivals are Apple, Samsung, Motorola, LG and others. It also does not have any other businesses to fall back on.

Courtesy-Fud

The bulk of the visits to DAP websites originate in the U.S.

So far Windows 10 has recorded 20.2% of visits in March by Windows PCs, smartphones and tablets. That was a one-percentage point increase from February and more than two percentage points above January’s.

Although Microsoft irregularly trumpets the number of devices running Windows 10 — the last time was nearly three months ago — data from DAP and metrics vendors like Net Applications and StatCounter are the only publicly available sources for monitoring Windows 10 adoption.

But these external measurements are rough at best.

A case in point: Because overall traffic to DAP websites plummets on weekends — total visits by Windows devices on Saturday and Sunday are typically less than half that of a weekday — Windows 10 may be unrepresented, as more Windows PCs used during the work week are business machines, which predominantly run the corporate standard, Windows 7.

Microsoft has just over four months left to boost Windows 10 adoption by pushing the free upgrade to eligible Windows 7 and 8.1 devices. That deal is set to expire July 29, on the one-year anniversary of Windows 10′s launch.

Windows 10 adoption growth has slowed each month this year. At the pace of past three months, Windows 10 should account for approximately 26% of DAP’s traffic by the end of July. (Other data sources have repeatedly portrayed global adoption of Windows 10 at lower rates than in the U.S.)

Will that match whatever goal Microsoft set when it decided to give away upgrades? Microsoft’s not saying, and even if it did, there would be no way to verify any claim.

Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/windows-10-passes-20-user-share-mark.html 

According to Intel the drivers provide beta support for the Vulkan 1.0 API for 6th Generation Intel Core and related processors.

Vulkan 1.0 was introduced last month by industry consortium Khronos Group and is supposed to replace the OpenGL, which was first introduced in 1991 by Silicon Graphics. Vulkan is supposed to exploit powerful GPUs and multicore CPUs, but it is still a long way behind Direct X 12 – at least in its beta condition.

With Intel’s drivers developers will be able to exploit features on Intel GPUs, like the Iris Pro, that are integrated in chips alongside CPUs. Intel’s rival AMD has already released Vulkan drivers for Radeon graphics processors.

Vulkan 1.0 APIs will also work with Linux-based PCs like Steam Machines. Intel has made available open-source Vulkan drivers for Linux PCs running on chips code-named Broadwell and Skylake.

Courtesy-Fud

A slide has tipped up showing a screen capture of an installer screen for this operating system supposedly going by the “NLINUX” codename at NVIDIA.

Not much to go on, but it does appear that Nvidia is looking at creating a distribution for gamers similar to that operated by Valve.

It is hard to see what Nvidia would get out of it. Nvidia also has its SHIELD TV that’s powered by Tegra hardware and offers a variety of games over their cloud/streaming “GeForce NOW” service.

So why would Nvidia need a full-blown Linux distribution? The only place it could use one is on the desktop, but that would just mean bringing another Linux distribution into a crowded market with little return for its efforts.

Nvidia already has control of the Linux gaming systems and its cards do better on Linux than AMDs so an “optimized” Linux OS is not going to sell them more graphics cards for Linux gamers. It would have to add something which is better than Steam, or Ubuntu and what could that be?

Courtesy-Fud

The embedded Web server in the Cisco Cable Modem with Digital Voice models DPC2203 and EPC2203 contains a buffer overflow vulnerability that can be exploited remotely without authentication.  Apparently all you need to do is send a crafted HTTP requests to the Web server and you could see some arbitrary code execution.

Cisco said that its customers should contact their service providers to ensure that the software version installed on their devices includes the patch for this issue.

The Web-based administration interfaces of the Cisco DPC3941 Wireless Residential Gateway with Digital Voice and Cisco DPC3939B Wireless Residential Voice Gateway are affected by a vulnerability that could lead to information disclosure. An unauthenticated, remote attacker could exploit the flaw by sending a specially crafted HTTP request to an affected device in order to obtain sensitive information from it.

The Cisco Model DPQ3925 8×4 DOCSIS 3.0 Wireless Residential Gateway with EDVA is affected by a separate vulnerability, also triggered by malicious HTTP requests, that could lead to a denial-of-service attack.

Hackers have been hitting modems, routers and other gateway devices, hard lately – especially those distributed by ISPs to their customers. By compromising such devices, attackers can snoop on, hijack or disrupt network traffic or can attack other devices inside local networks.

Courtesy-Fud

This one is called Triada and it targets Android devices with Windows-style malware swagger. Anyone running Android 4.4.4 and earlier is in trouble, according to Kaspersky, as they face an opponent created by “very professional cyber criminals” that can allow for in-app purchase theft and all the problems that come with privilege escalation.

And guess what? Android users dangle themselves in the way of the Triada threat when they download things from untrusted sources. Does no one listen to anything these days? Does it even matter? Kaspersky said in a blog post that the likely apps can “sometimes” make their way onto the official Android store.

There is something different about this attack. Kaspersky reports on a lot of these things, but Triada exploits Zygote, and that is a first.

“A distinguishing feature of this malware is the use of Zygote, the parent of the application process on an Android device that contains system libraries and frameworks used by every application installed on the device. In other words, it’s a demon whose purpose is to launch Android applications,” Kaspersky explained.

“This is the first time technology like this has been seen in the wild. Prior to this, a trojan using Zygote was known only as a proof-of-concept. The stealth capabilities of this malware are very advanced.

“After getting into the user’s device Triada implements in nearly every working process and continues to exist in the short-term memory. This makes it almost impossible to detect and delete using anti-malware solutions.”

The security firm added that the complexity of Triada’s functionality proves that professional cyber criminals with a deep understanding of the targeted mobile platform are behind the creation of this malware.

Kaspersky reckons that it is nigh on impossible to rid a device of the malware, and suggested that you might as well nuke your phone and start again.

Courtesy-TheInq

The advert, which was spotted by the Motley Fool has since been taken down, said the company’s 10-nanometer chip manufacturing technology would begin mass production “approximately two years” from the posting date.

Intel has said that the advert was wrong and confirmed that its “first 10-nanometer product is planned for the second half of 2017.”

It is not expected that Intel will roll out server chips in 2017. At the moment the plan appears to be introducing its second-generation 14-nanometer server chip family in early to mid-2017. But instead Intel will be trying to get its process ramped at high yields experimenting on the PC market so that 10-nanometer server processors will be ready for the first half of 2018.

This follows Intel’s traditional pattern of a having a few parts released as it experiments with the new tech. This is what happened in the first year of Intel’s 14-nanometer availability.

Courtesy-Fud

The move is expected to have wide-ranging implications for large technology companies looking to get their brand names into every consumer’s living room. For example, under the new rules, Google, Amazon and Apple would now be allowed to create entertainment room devices that blend Internet and cable programming in a way the television industry has until now resisted. Next-generation media players, including the Chromecast, Fire TV and Apple TV, would now be granted permission to line the backs of their devices with coaxial inputs and internal “smart access card” equivalents integrated right into device firmware with a simple subscription activation process.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, Senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut investigated the cable set-top box market last summer and found that the cable industry generates roughly $19.1 billion in annual revenue from cable box rentals alone.

Meanwhile, the cost of cable set-top boxes has risen 185 percent since 1995, while the cost of PCs, televisions and smartphones has dropped by 90 percent. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler admits that these economies of scale don’t need to remain so unbalanced any longer.

The FCC says its focus will be primarily on improving day-to-day television experience. In the past, the burdensome requirements of long-term contracts tethered to clunky, unsightly cable and satellite boxes has been a major source of customer complaints.

Wheeler has also said that access to specific video content shouldn’t be frustrating to the average consumer in an age where we are constantly surrounded by a breadth of information to sift through. “Improved search functions [can] lead consumers to a variety of video content that is buried behind guides or available on video services you can’t access with your set-top box today,” Wheeler says.

The FCC is expected to vote on the proposal on Thursday, February 18th. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s full statement on the commission’s new proposal can be found here.

Courtesy-Fud

The social network continues to see surging interest in video. During one day last quarter, its users watched a combined 100 million hours of video. Roughly 500 million users watch at least some video each day.

That’s a lot of video and a lot of viewers, and Facebook wants to capitalize on it.

“We are exploring a dedicated place on Facebook for when they just want to watch videos,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday during a conference call to discuss Facebook’s quarterly financial results.

But he was tight-lipped on how the video might actually be presented.

Asked if a stand-alone video app is in the cards, he mentioned the success of Messenger and a Facebook app for managing Pages. “I do think there are additional opportunities for this and we’ll continue looking at them,” he said.

Facebook wants to encourage more video viewing because it keeps users on the site longer, helping it to sell more ads.

“Marketers also really love video and it’s a compelling way to reach consumers,” COO Sheryl Sandberg said during the call.

Zuckerberg has been watching the growth of video for osme time. At a town hall meeting in November 2014, he predicted, ”In five years, most of [Facebook] will be video.”

And it’s likely that most of that video will be consumed over mobile networks.

Among Facebook’s heaviest users — the billion people who access it on a daily basis — 90 percent use a mobile device, either solely or in addition to their PC.

It’s financial results for the fourth quarter were strong. Revenue was $5.8 billion, up 52 percent from the same period in 2014, while net profit more than doubled to $1.6 billion.

http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/facebook-exploring-a-dedicated-video-service.html