After Woolwich attack, ‘snooper’s charter’ back on the agenda

The UK thought it was rid of the reviled 'snooper's charter' communications bill, which would make storing data on all Britains legal, but now political figures are suggested it be resurrected in light of the axe attack in Woolwich yesterday.

Lord Carlisle, formerly the independent reviewer of terror laws, said on BBC's Newsnight that it should offer a "pause for thought" about dropping the bill, the Metro reports.

"We must ensure that the police and the security services have for the future the tools they need which will enable them to prevent this kind of attack taking place," Carlisle said.

"I hope that this will give the government pause for thought about their abandonment for example of the communications data bill and possibly pause for thought about converting control orders into what are now called Tpims, with a diluted set of powers".

Lord Reid weighed in saying that mobile data stopped a 2006 airline attack. "2,500 people would probably have been blown out of the sky over the United Kingdom," he said.

The unpopular bill was thought to be blocked by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, and it was not mentioned in the Queen's speech.

Nick Pickles, at Big Brother Watch, told TechWeekEurope that Lord Reid's track record speaks for itself. Reid was, Pickles said, "one of those responsible for the knee-jerk decision to try and introduce powers for people to be detained for up to 90 days without trial by the last government, after the 7/7 attack".

"We face down terrorists by defending our values and traditions and acting proportionately, which is a balance current policy recognises," Pickles said.

In a blog post, Big Brother Watch offered agreement to former head of MI5 Lady Neville-Jones, who said efforts need to be made in tackling hateful rhetoric online and elsewhere.
Critics of the Snooper's Charter would argue that there is little evidence to support it as a preventative measure, and would also paint every citizen in the UK as a potential violent criminal.

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By A staff writer - TechEye - Latest technology headlines

Update: Bell, Virgin, TELUS and Rogers HTC One users receiving “system enhancement” firmware update

HTCOneReview-5
HTC One users on Bell and Virgin Mobile are reporting that an update is being pushed to their device. Now up to firmware version 1.29.666.17 (from 1.29.666.17.5) brings “system enhancements and bug fixes.”

We’re hearing that the finer details of the update brings a fix to the capacitive buttons sensitivity issues, plus the One is now more responsive. We’re looking into further specifics of the change log, but if you have the One on either network leave a comment below of what you’re experiencing. Check your One by hitting Settings > About > Software updates.

Update: Looks like this is available for TELUS and Rogers customers also.

Source: Bell
(Thanks Vincent & Snowshoer!)

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By John Brownlee - MobileSyrup.com

US fears irrational hackers

Cybersecurity researchers are getting more worried that focusing on "rational" attackers such as the Chinese might be a dangerous way to go, and the country needs to fear the irrational types more.

For years now the US national security experts have believed that "rational" super powers like China or Russia were their main adversaries.

But now there are growing concerns that extremist groups, rogue nations or hacker activists are infiltrating US systems to hunt for security gaps.

While they are not as clever as the rational times, they can bring in an element of surprise that is just as damaging.

For example HD Moore, chief research officer at the security firm Rapid7 discovered he could use the Internet to access the controls of some 30 pipeline sensors around the country that were not password protected.

While a rational opponent would not attack such a target unless they were at war, an irrational one would do it for the LOLz or to make a point.

A hacking expert who helps companies uncover network vulnerabilities, Moore said he found the sensors last month while analysing information in huge, publicly available databases of Internet-connected devices.

"We know that systems are exposed and vulnerable. We don't know what the impact would be if somebody actually tried to exploit them," he said.

Former US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he was worried the first destructive cyber-attack on US soil might resemble the Boston Marathon bombings in the sense that the suspects were unknown.

He told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit that these are going to be modest-scale, impact attacks from all kinds of folks - hactivists, and criminals which might take down critical infrastructure.

Iran and North Korea are also classed as irrationals because they do not really care about the impact their attacks have or being found out about them.

The Syrian Electronic Army is another. This is an activist group that has claimed responsibility for hacking the Twitter accounts of major Western media outlets.

The sort of attack they could carry out is like the one found by the Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, known as ICS-CERT. A flaw was found in equipment from Germany's TURCK, which is used by manufacturers and agriculture firms in the United States, Europe and Asia.

The agency said attackers with "low" hacking skills could exploit the flaw, letting them remotely halt industrial processes

Dale Peterson, CEO of industrial controls systems security firm Digital Bond, told Reuters that infrastructure control systems are highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks because designers did not take security into consideration when they developed the technology.

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By Nick Farrell - TechEye - Latest technology headlines

Mailbox expands to iPad weeks after being acquired by Dropbox

Mailbox, the email app for iPhone that made you wait in line for the privilege of using it, has expanded to iPad today.

Version 1.3 brings the same quick-tap-and-swipe functionality to Apple’s larger screen device and, as you would expect, it’s excellent. The left-side panel works as it always has: swipe to the right to archive; swipe to the left to do it later. It’s a great system for triage, but it may not be enough to unseat Google’s own iOS app, which has great iPad support.

Dropbox announced in March that it was purchasing Mailbox, and the amount was speculated to be between $50 and $100 million. This is the company’s first major release since the acquisition, and no longer asks new users to wait in a long waiting list to register.

If you’re looking for an alternative email to the built-in client, or if you don’t like Google’s own interpretation of Gmail on iOS, give Mailbox a try.

Download Mailbox for iPad.

Via: GigaOM

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By Killian Bell - MobileSyrup.com

LG licenses latest ARM IP

Electronics giant LG has signed with ARM to licence the ARM Cortex-A50 CPU as well as the next gen of the Mali GPU.

LG was already signed up for the previous Cortex processors and Mali GPUs for its SoCs, but this new agreement should further boost performance in 32 and 64 bit applications, beyond the Mali-T678 GPU, ARM boasted.

Senior veep at LG, Bo-ik Sohn, said having access to the full profile GPU compute compared with ARM's big.LITTLE will be a "key driver" to overall performance and capabilities.

This is ARM's highest performing intellectual property, executive veep at ARM's media processing division, Pete Hutton, said, and will enable LG "to expand the possibilities for end devices".

It has been rumoured that LG will return to the tablet market, which it left two years ago. The company has managed to improve its perform in smartphones, and signing an agreement for the ARM IP could help it extend its range into tablets again.

At the moment these are just whispers but licensing the latest iterations of ARM IP show that it is at least committed to more smart devices.

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By A staff writer - TechEye - Latest technology headlines

Nvidia sees disruptions in PC market as an opportunity

Nvidia seems to think that no crisis should ever go to waste, hence it believes it can capitalize on disruptions in the PC market and weather the storm with ease. We are of course talking about Tegra, Nvidia’s foray into the ARM SoC market, which was off to a slow start but it seems that it is here to stay.

When the going gets tough, AMD can fall back on its console design wins, whereas Nvidia had to be a bit more creative. Speaking at a Barclays event, meticulously transcribed by Seeking Alpha, Nvidia VP of investor relations Rob Csongor said the company has the ability to make “disciplined” investments for growth by leveraging its core R&D. In other words, the company can simply rehash GPU R&D to come up with competitive mobile SoC designs, at a fraction of the cost.

Csongor said Nvidia views disruptions in the PC market as opportunities and has strategies to “drive” the disruptions to achieve its own goals, which sounds a bit like the good old “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach.

“The net effect of all of this with mobile and cloud disrupting the PC, we believe this has created enormous opportunities for Nvidia. Essentially by 2015, we believe there will be over 3 billion HD devices in other words imagine any device that’s high definition becomes an opportunity for Nvidia to extend its GPU into,” he said.

Csongor went on to point out that Nvidia has spent over $6 billion in R&D for visual computing over the last decade.

“When we develop a Tegra processor to go and target the mobile market, we’re leveraging a lot of R&D investments that we’ve done in GPU,” he said.

While this is true, it should be noted that the first three generations of Tegra chips had rather disappointing graphics and were routinely outperformed by SoCs designed by Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and others. However, with the Tegra 4 Nvidia hope to turn things around, as it is supposed to feature the fastest GPU in the ARM universe. In addition, the Tegra 4i and future Tegra chips will also have LTE on board.

Csongor pointed out that Nvidia is rapidly expanding beyond its traditional PC market, with its first handheld console and other Tegra 4 devices, including car infotainment systems, hybrid tablets and high performance computers based on GPU-derived chips.

Original Post
By Nermin Hajdarbegovic - TechEye - Latest technology headlines

AMD announces new low power APUs

AMD has finally taken the wraps off its low-power APU line-up for 2013. Of course, avid readers probably know what AMD has cooked up with its Jaguar and Piledriver based chips, which now have proper names to go by, and they sound worse than the codenames.

Temash, the world’s first 28nm x86 SoC is designed for tablets and hybrids. Its market name is 2013 AMD Elite Mobility APU and it will come in dual- and quad-core configurations, with A4 and A6 branding respectively. It is based on the Jaguar core with HD 8000 series graphics and it should take care of the sub 13-inch mobile market. AMD claims up to 172 percent more CPU performance and 2012 percent more GPU performance over its predecessor.

Kabini is now known as 2013 AMD Mainstream APU and it is also based on the Jaguar core. It will also appear in dual- and quad-core flavours. Quad-cores will end up with A-series branding, while duals will be a part of the E-series. It should deliver 88 percent better graphics performance than the competition, along with 33 percent better gaming performance and 28 percent faster file compression.

AMD’s Elite Performance APU is in fact its biggest APU, better known as Richland. While it isn’t a huge improvement over the last generation like Jaguar-based parts, it can still deliver 12 percent better productivity performance and 20 to 40 percent better visuals. However, it is much better in terms of power efficiency and AMD claims up to 51 more efficiency over previous generation Trinity chips. Richland will be marketed in the A8 and A10 segment.

While there is not much to report on the technical front, since the specs have been out for ages, AMD’s decision to reshuffle its branding sounds like good news for the company. Many weren’t expecting Jaguar-based parts to end up with A4 and A6 branding, which means they will eat into a part of the market previously held by Trinity APUs. This is in line with AMD’s own roadmaps – it seems Jaguar is simply too good to be reserved for the low-end bargain bin like its predecessors.