The first report came Sunday from an Indian security researcher named Hemanth Joseph, who started investigating possible bypasses after being confronted with a locked iPad he acquired from eBay.

The activation lock gets enabled automatically when users turn on the Find My iPhone feature via iCloud. It links the device to their Apple IDs and prevents anyone else from accessing the device without entering the associated password.

One of the few things allowed from the activation lock screen is connecting the device to a Wi-Fi network, including manually configuring one. Hemanth had the idea of trying to crash the service that enforces the lock screen by entering very long strings of characters in the WPA2-Enterprise username and password fields.

The researcher claims that, after awhile, the screen froze, and he used the iPad smart cover sold by Apple to put the tablet to sleep and then reopen it. This is supposed to restore the state of the tablet from where it was left off, in this case, loading the WPA2 screen again with the long strings of characters filled in.

“After 20-25 seconds the Add Wifi Connection screen crashed to the iPad home screen, thereby bypassing the so-called Find My iPhone Activation Lock,” he said in a blog post.

Hemanth said he reported the issue to Apple on Nov. 4, and the company is investigating it. He tested the bypass on iOS 10.1, which was released on Oct. 24.

Last week, a researcher named Benjamin Kunz Mejri, from German outfit Vulnerability Lab, posted a video showing the same bypass, but on the newer iOS 10.1.1 version.

Kunz Mejri’s method is similar and also involves overflowing the Add Wi-Fi form fields with long strings of characters but also requires rotating the tablet’s screen in order to trigger the crash after the smart cover trick.

Apple has not yet confirmed that issue and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/researcher-prove-ios-activation-lock-can-be-bypassed.html

Google announced this week that it released an Android update to patch shedloads of vulnerabilities, but the advisory mentioned an information disclosure vulnerability in the Qualcomm tethering controller (CVE-2016-2060) that allows a malicious application to access user information.

FireEye said that this vulnerablity is “high severity,” but Google noted that it does not affect Nexus devices. The patch for the issue is not in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository but might make it in the  latest driver updates for affected devices.

The security outfit said that researchers informed Qualcomm about the vulnerability in January and the vendor developed a fix by early March, when it started reaching out to OEMs to let them know about the issue. Now it’s up to the device manufacturers to push out the patch to customers. So probably a long time then.

The flaw exists in an open source software package maintained by Qualcomm and is related to the Android network daemon (netd).

“The vulnerability was introduced when Qualcomm provided new APIs as part of the ‘network_manager’ system service, and subsequently the ‘netd’ daemon, that allow additional tethering capabilities, possibly among other things,” FireEye said.

The flaw has been confirmed to affect devices running Android 5.0 Lollipop and earlier, which currently account for roughly three-quarters of Android devices. Researchers noted that the affected Qualcomm software package is used in a variety of projects, including the popular CyanogenMod, and the vulnerable APIs appear to have been around since at least 2011.

The vulnerability can be exploited to escalate privileges to the built-in “radio” user, which has permissions that are normally not available to a third-party app. The most efficient way to exploit CVE-2016-2060 is via a malicious application that is granted the “ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE” permission.

Courtesy-Fud

IDC siad that for the first quarter of 2016, overall worldwide tablet shipments fell to 39.6 million, a 14.7 percent drop from the same period a year ago,  However the only part of the segment which did ok were tablets with keyboards – or as we used to call them, netbooks.

IDC said that the decline of ordinary tablets was partly due to traditional first-quarter slumps but also a complete lack of interest on the part of customers.

Traditional tablets accounted for 87.6 percent of all tablet shipments. But tablets that come with detachable keyboards increased of more than 4.9 million units last quarter. That was a gain of 120 percent from the same period last year and an all-time high for tablets with detachable keyboards.

Tablets are dying because more people are buying big-screened phones as an alternative. You remember Fablets? They were what Steve Jobs claimed would never work because they prefered smaller smartphones or bigger tablets. In fact he was talking rubbish and was trying to keep his keyboardless netbook idea going.

IDC said that the newer tablets don’t offer enough new features to entice people to upgrade. After all tablets were always looking for an app which made them useful, which never arrived.

To counteract the downturn, more manufacturers are turning to tablets with detachable keyboards that can thus serve as laptops – on otherwords returning to the netbooks that the Tablets were said to replace.

“With the PC industry in decline, the detachable market stands to benefit as consumers and enterprises seek to replace their aging PCs with detachables,” IDC senior research analyst Jitesh Ubrani said in a statement.

Apple saw its shipments and market share drop but remained in first place. Apple’s latest 9.7-inch iPad Pro and the new 256GB storage option for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro are “healthy additions” to the lineup, IDC said. Samsung also saw its shipments and market share decline. Though the Samsung Galaxy Tab lineup is still popular, its detachable TabPro S is dead in the water thanks to its $900 price tag.

Amazon has found success with its starting-at-$49 Fire, showing that consumers will still buy bargain-priced tablets. Missing from the list was Microsoft in spite of the popularity of its Surface Pro products, which start at $900.

IDC said:

“The Surface line is great. But it’s tough to drive volume in the first quarter. Prices of Surface products are fairly high, but Microsoft is in the top five list for tablets with detachable keyboards. The top five for tablets as a whole is a tougher nut to crack given the large slate volumes compared to detachables.”

Courtesy-Fud

PC manufacturers shipped 75.7 million machines in the fourth quarter compared with about 82.6 million a year earlier. Sales sank 3.1 per cent in the US to 16.9 million in the quarter.

Gartner forecasts a fall of  a  percent in 2016 with the potential of a soft recovery later in the year.

Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner said that the  fourth quarter of 2015 marked the fifth consecutive quarter of worldwide PC shipment decline. Holiday sales did not boost the overall PC shipments, hinting at changes to consumers’ PC purchase behavior.

Lenovo retained its leadership of the PC market with 20 percent of the global market in the fourth quarter. Its shipments dropped 4.2 percent. HP was the  No. 2 global PC maker, increased its market share slightly to almost 19 percent. The company maintained its top position in the U.S., with 27 percent of the market, despite a decline of 8.4 percent in fourth-quarter shipments. Del increased its global market share to 13.5 percent from 13.1 percent and ranked third.

IDC released similar figures saying that it was all the fault of the strong US dollar hampered overseas sales. It thinks that the decline in PC sales may slow in 2016, with IDC projecting a fall of 3.1 percent compared with 10 percent drop in 2015. Greater commercial adoption of Microsoft Windows 10 operating system may help stabilize sales.

Courtesy-Fud

The chip is designed for in-car navigation and infotainment systems running QNX, Linux, and Android.  It has wireless capabilities and can connected to your phone.  The LTE version will link to the Internet.

They can manage multiple displays to run the screen in your dashboard  and an infotainment screen in the back seat. It also offers support for high-resolution 4K displays for when some company inevitably decides to cram a high-res, high-density screen into one of its cars.

The 820A chips are close cousins ofthe the Snapdragon 820 SoCs that will start shipping in phones later this year and use Qualcomm’s custom-made 64-bit Kryo CPU cores, an Adreno 530 GPU, a  Hexagon 680 DSP all cooked up with a 14nm manufacturing process. They will also use the Snapdragon X12 LTE which can manage 600Mbps down and  150Mbps up when the wind is behind it and it is going downhill. There are all the usual 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other features.

Qualcomm said that it used a “modular approach” in designing the chip, which  means that the cars infotainment system can be upgraded with hardware and software updates, thereby enabling vehicles to be easily upgraded with the latest technology.

Car makers could theoretically swap out the chip or the entire package without needing to worry about software changes. Qualcomm specifically mentions upgrading LTE connectivity over the lifetime of the car to keep up with the capabilities of cellular networks.

Qualcomm says the 820A family will begin sampling in Q1 of 2016.

Courtesy-Fud

The next generation SoC from Qualcomm, let’s call it Snapdragon 8×0, will use ARM Cortex cores. Our industry sources are confident that company’s leadership has put a great deal of pressure on Qualcomm QTI to reduce the cost of R&D and custom CPU core costs an arm and a leg. Using Cortex Cores is cheaper than developing a custom ARM based CPU such as Kyro.

Creating a custom ARM based CPU core is intensive too and Qualcom still has to build a Modem, GPU, DSP, camera ISP, Video processing unit as well connectivity inside of the SoC to provide the differentiating factor to the competition. It just appears that the Core itself probably does not need looking at.

But the move will hardly help Qualcomm compete in hostile and aggressive mobile SoC manufacturers’ competition.

Apple and Samsung have their own CPU cores. Huawei uses Cortex architecture but has its own SoCs for the 100 million phones it sold this year. These are businesses that are either very hard or impossible for Qualcomm QTI SoCs to get. Every Samsung SoC manufactured and sold in Samsung phones is one less for Qualcomm.

MediaTek might be the winner in this case, as MediaTek makes rather unique processors that are designed to compete well against those who use close-to-reference Cortex ARM solutions. MediaTek is the only deca core in three cluster architecture but we still have to see it in action before we pronounce anyone winner or loser.

Qualcomm will have to focus on its strengths of its late 2016 successor to Snapdragon 810. The strengths of Qualcomm lay in superior modem performance and a great Adreno GPU. However they will lose an advantage of a custom core that might bring a bigger difference from the competition.

This is certainly not something we expected but it is happening.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/is-qualcomm-dropping-kryo.html

But after years of fantastic growth in smartphone sales, the pace of growth is slowing overall, including for the two smartphone giants. Market research firm IDC recently said that 2016 will be the first year that overall smartphone growth will slow to below 10%.

There is even talk among analysts that the latest models don’t have enough compelling new features to lure customers to a competitor’s device. Others say smartphone buyer’s fatigue has set in.

Buyer’s fatigue is a concern in the U.S. and other developed countries where the smartphone market is viewed as a “replacement” market because the market is already saturated: Nearly everyone already owns a smartphone. A focus on emerging countries by Apple and Samsung still requires them to find low-cost alternatives to compete with the likes of Huawei and others.

“Consumers are fatigued about new phone features that they can’t easily relate to any improvement in their personal use cases,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moore Insights & Strategy. “Samsung has been one of the worst offenders of this in the last few years. If consumers can’t relate, then they need to be educated.”

Most recently, reports that Samsung would add a pressure-sensitive displayand high-speed charging port to its Galaxy S7 phone drew a few yawns. That’s because Apple added the pressure-sensitive display to the iPhone 6S last summer, and a new USB Type-C fast charging port is already available in LG and Huawei smartphones.

While it is to Samsung’s advantage to keep up with Apple and others rivals, analysts disagree over whether these latest improvements will provoke an iPhone user to switch to a Galaxy.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/smartphone-buyer-fatigue-seen-hampering-growth.html

The lab was used by Qualcomm to develop Interferometric Modulator Display and Apple Insider claims it is now being used to develop thinner, lighter, brighter and more energy-efficient screens.

The lab employs at least 50 engineers and has recruited talent from display maker AU Optronics and Qualcomm. Outside the lab there is no signage or much to indicate that the Fruity Cargo Cult has assumed control.

Government records show that the building is registered to Apple Taiwan, and a staff in the building were observed wearing Apple ID badges.

Bloomberg thinks Apple wants to “reduce reliance on the technology developed by suppliers such as Samsung, LG, Sharp and Japan and instead “develop the production processes in-house and outsource to smaller manufacturers such as Taiwan’s AU Optronics or Innolux.

Apple currently uses LCD screens in its Macs and iOS devices and an OLED display for Apple Watch and the new lab was where Qualcomm tried to develop to develop its own Mirasol displays.

Mirasol use a different technology to backlit LCDs or OLED. It uses an array of microscopic mirror-like elements that can reflect light of a specific colour. It does not need a backlight and only uses energy when being switched on or off, like E-Ink.

The downside to IMOD has historically been that it reproduces flat, unsaturated colours, a problem that may be possible to fix. Qualcomm introduced a Toq smartwatch with an IMOD screen, but the device flopped.

Qualcomm took a $142 million charge on its Mirasol display business and a year ago there were rumours Qualcomm was selling off its Longtan Mirasol panel plant to TSMC.

What appears to have happened is that Jobs Mob might have bought more than just the facility, and instead has some interest in using Mirasol IMOD technology which could offer an advanced technological breakthrough in enabling a new class of low-power displays for use in phones, tablets or wearables.

Courtesy-Fud

While large tablets like the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and its expensive Apple knock-off the Apple iPad Pro, IDC thinks that tablet shipments will continue to decline this quarter.

But IDC also predicts a change in trends, with the market transitioning from standalone tablets over to detachable hybrids.

Users are demanding that tablets actually do something and the boundaries between laptops and tablets with keyboards are starting to blur.  Once just keyboardless netbooks, tablets are becoming netbooks with touchscreens.

IDC predicts that hybrids will be the tablets of the future and that this segment will grow by as much as 75 per cent in 2016 compared to this year.

These devices will be used more and more for productivity purposes more than just consumption. This productivity trend also has an impact on which tablets sizes and platforms will dominate the market.

Tablets are useless for this and these will start to die out. Sizes between 9 and 13 inches are almost perfect, while 13 to 16 inches, though unwieldy, will also more than double its share, IDC said.

IDC predicts Windows will snatch a bigger market share by 2019, almost 20 per cent. These growths will come at the expense of Android, however, who will continue to see a decline in its market share in the next few years.

Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/will-declining-tablet-sales-hurt-android.html

Coming in three incredible versions, Fedora 23 Cloud, Fedora 23 Server and Fedora 23 Workstation, this new edition picks up where the old one left off and runs with it.

The biggest news for fans is the use of compiler flags to help improve security. These are designed to help protect Fedora 23 beta binaries against memory corruption vulnerabilities, buffer overflows and similar issues.

This is the latest iteration of Red Hat’s Linux-based operating system that likes to think of itself as the leading-edge open source operating system across all use cases. It’s hard to believe, but absolutely true.

The dazzling array of updates starts with Red Hat Fedora Server Beta, which offers a new role through the rolekit service in the form of a cache server for web applications, with the underlying functionality delivered by memcached.

Also new is the fact that rolekit can now be triggered by anaconda kickstart to determine what function should be started with the next reboot, and I think we can all agree that’s been a long time coming.

Cockpit also sees some big changes, including a basic cluster dashboard for Kubernetes, Support for SSH key authentication and support for configuring user accounts with their authorised keys and compatibility with multipath disks.

Meanwhile in Fedora 23 Workstation Beta, the fun keeps coming with a preview of GNOME 3.18. Changes to the software application will allow it to offer firmware updates and access to Libreoffice 5. Improvements have also been made to Wayland, with the ultimate aim being to make it the default graphic server in a future release.

Sadly, that’s where the thrillride ends as Cloud Beta contains very little new of note – but we are warned to stay tuned for news of Fedora 23 Atomic Host, said to be coming soon. We’re literally on the edge of our seats and will bring you the news as soon as we get it.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/red-hat-releases-fedora-23-to-address-security-issues.html