General Gaming Article |
- Newegg Daily Deals: OCZ Arc 100 240GB SSD, Samsung 24-inch Monitor, and More!
- Dropbox Talks Security and Why Weak Passwords Suck
- EVGA Releases Dual BIOS GeForce GTX 980 Ti Classified
- Another Day, Another Windows 10 Technical Preview Build
- Fast Forward: Tiny Processors for the Internet of Things
| Newegg Daily Deals: OCZ Arc 100 240GB SSD, Samsung 24-inch Monitor, and More! Posted: 01 Jul 2015 11:41 AM PDT Top Deal: It seems like a distant memory when solid state drives were cost prohibitive. These days? There's really no excuse not run an SSD as your primary drive, not if you want the best performance. Isn't it time you retired that aging HDD? If you've come to that conclusion, then check out today's top deal for an 240GB OCZ Arc 100 SSD for $70 with free shipping (normally $100 - use coupon code: [EMCAVAK22]; additional $20 mail-in-rebate). This drive offers up to 480MB/s sequential read and 430MB/s sequential write performance, and at $50 (after rebate), you're looking at less than $0.21 per gigabyte! Other Deals: Samsung Black 24-inch 2ms 1080p LED Monitor for $140 with free shipping (normally $150 - use coupon code: [EMCAVAK23]) Seagate Hybrid Drives 1TB NCQ 2.5-inch Laptop SSHD for $72 with free shipping (normally $80 - use coupon code: [EMCAVAK26]) Western Digital WD Green 2TB IntelliPower 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive for $70 with free shipping (normally $80 - use coupon code: [ESCAVAK25]) MSI Z97A KRAIT Edition LGA 1150 Intel Z97 USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard for $120 with free shipping (normally $140 - use coupon code: [EMCATPA33]) |
| Dropbox Talks Security and Why Weak Passwords Suck Posted: 01 Jul 2015 10:57 AM PDT Reusing passwords is a bad idea It's not some kind of "technical wizardry" that causes Dropbox users to be hacked, but weaksauce passwords and poor security habits, like using the same password on multiple sites. That's the gist of what Dropbox security boss Patrick Helm had to say at a briefing, according to V3, which was in attendance. "On a daily basis it's very obvious that our customers and users are getting attacked, and the way they are being attacked isn't through technical wizardry," Helm said. "We don't see zero-day attacks targeting us. What we see is password testing because of password reuse." Helm says he's seen a pattern of hackers attacking websites, stealing encrypted passwords, and then using those passwords to infiltrate accounts on other sites. According to Helm, many encrypted passwords can be quickly decrypted and then bulk tested against websites and cloud services like Dropbox. The three-part solution Helm recommends should be old hat to Maximum PC readers. It involves:
"Quite frankly, if you do those three things you're in good shape as a consumer," Helm said. It's one thing to preach it, but another for users on a mass scale to put good security measures to use. To help with that, Dropbox is currently working on ways to encourage users to go through a security health check. |
| EVGA Releases Dual BIOS GeForce GTX 980 Ti Classified Posted: 01 Jul 2015 10:27 AM PDT Built for overclockers EVGA today announced its new GeForce GTX 980 Ti Classified graphics cards for "extreme overclockers." Part of the reason it's pitching its Classified part for the hardcore overclocking crowd is because it has two BIOSes, which allows you to experiment on one and switch to the other if things get wonky. The card also offers overclockers a 14+3 power phase design, dual 8-pin power inputs (versus 6-pin + 8-pin) for added power delivery, a pre-installed backplate to help dissipate more heat, memory MOSFET Cooling Plate (MMCP) to reduce MOSFET temps by up to 13 percent, optimized Straight Heat Pipes (SHP) that EVGA claims will reduce GPU temps by 5C versus the GTX 980 Ti's reference cooler, and swept fan blades that supposedly deliver more air flow with less power. EVGA gooses the GPU's base and boost clockspeeds to 1,190MHz and 1,291MHz, respectively, up from 1,000MHz and 1,075MHz on reference cards. That's a decent 190MHz bump to the base clock and 216MHz to boost. There should also be headroom to spare, as EVGA advertises "unmatched overclocking and performance," though there's never any guarantees with such things -- your mileage will vary, in other words. Like other GeForce GTX 980 Ti cards, EVGA's Classified model is a dual-slot solution with DVI, HDMI, and three DisplayPort connectors. EVGA lists the card at $700 MSRP. |
| Another Day, Another Windows 10 Technical Preview Build Posted: 01 Jul 2015 09:19 AM PDT Build 10159 hits Fast ring There were reports that Microsoft's Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10158 released on Monday might be the last public version for Insiders before the operating system's July 29 release date, but that isn't the case. A day later, Microsoft's Gabe Aul announced the release of Build 10159 to Fast ring Insiders. The way these releases work is Microsoft validates its builds in internal rings where they're used and tested by engineers. Once these builds pass testing, they're released to Windows Insiders, first to the Fast ring for early access and then later to the Slow ring once it's been deemed stable. So, why release two builds in two days? According to Aul, one reason is because Build 10159 includes over 300 bug fixes. And the second reason is because it introduces "one very interesting change." Aul didn't elaborate on what that change is, though reports around the web suggest it's a revised login screen with a new hero image for the OS. "We could have held off on it and picked a later build to give you some time with 10158 but we thought that you'd want to see that one change… Let us know if we chose correctly, or if Fast suddenly got *too* fast with 2 builds in 2 days," Aul added. Though both builds are Fast ring releases, Aul said about Build 10158 that there are no known "significant issues," just some minor ones. With Build 10159 including over 300 fixes, it's probably a pretty stable release, though we still wouldn't advise installing it on a mission critical system. |
| Fast Forward: Tiny Processors for the Internet of Things Posted: 01 Jul 2015 12:00 AM PDT This article was published in the February 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here. Slimming down for the Internet of ThingsOver the past months, I've described two of the world's most powerful microprocessors in this column. But chip makers aren't always thinking big. Some of the most surprising new designs are in the smallest processors—particularly for wearable devices and the Internet of Things (IoT). Smart watches and Google Glass are only the first examples of wearables. Expect many more, including physical implants. IoT devices include everything from smart thermostats and smoke alarms to industrial machinery and car navigation systems. Processors for these gadgets share three requirements: they must be small, consume very little power, and provide wireless connectivity. On-chip radios should solve bad battery life in wearables. The obvious solution would seem to be microcontrollers, which have been around for decades. On a single chip, MCUs integrate a CPU core, SRAM, nonvolatile memory (usually fl ash), and peripherals. Those peripherals typically include counters, timers, analog/digital converters, and digital/analog converters. Some even have USB or Ethernet controllers. Essentially, an MCU is a single-chip computer that can function without external DRAM. But MCUs lack one crucial feature—wireless connectivity. For that, they need external radio chips. And those additional chips consume more power and board space, which are scarce resources in wearables and IoT devices. Although some early gadgets use conventional MCUs, we need new processors that add wireless to their bag of tricks. They're coming. One example is Marvell's new 88M processor family. The fastest chip has a 200MHz ARM Cortex-M4F core. With 512KB of SRAM, it doesn't need external DRAM to run a small OS and simple software. More important, this chip has an 802.11n Wi-Fi radio. Two similar models add flash memory and replace the Wi-Fi with either a Bluetooth or Zigbee transceiver. Designers can build a working system by adding only an external crystal and antenna. Total cost for this combo: about $10. Marvell's tiny processor sips mere milliwatts of power, but it's still not small enough for some things. That's why French firm Cortus recently introduced a 32-bit CPU core with an abbreviated three-stage instruction pipeline. By contrast, Intel's Haswell processors have up to 19 stages. The Cortus APS23 is about the same size as ARM's smallest core, the Cortex-M0+, which has a two-stage pipeline. To beat that, a Slovenian company recently astonished a Silicon Valley conference by announcing a CPU core that has no pipeline at all. (This is like showing up at an automotive industry conference with a one-cylinder push-valve engine.) Beyond Semiconductor's new BA20 is almost a throwback to the '70s, except it's a real 32-bit processor. Stanford University, meanwhile, has prototyped an ant-sized processor that uses so little power it harvests what it needs by absorbing radio waves. Another challenge is shrinking the transceivers and antennas. An IoT processor may need radios for Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, Nevertheless, the race is on to build smaller, cheaper, more power-efficient IoT processors. Before they mature, we'll have to tolerate inconveniences, such as bulky smart watches that require daily charging. But remember, the first cell phones were as large as World War II walkie-talkies. Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for byte magazine and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report. |
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