Samsung unveils high-performance 800GB SZ985 Z-SSD


Solid state drives are all the rage nowadays, and it is not hard to see why. Not only are they much faster than traditional mechanical hard drives, but they consume much less electricity too. While power consumption might not be a big deal for home users, it can really add up in the enterprise where many drives are in use. In other words, a reduction in energy use can really benefit data centers and other business uses.
Today, Samsung unveils a new high-performance SSD aimed at the enterprise. The "SZ985 Z-SSD," as it is called, uses special Z-NAND memory. The drive is designed for The Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, supercomputing, and more. With that said, there is no reason enthusiasts can’t use it on their PCs.
Trump administration wants to nationalize 5G, but the FCC is not impressed


Leaked documents show that the Trump administration is considering plans to nationalize the 5G network. In the documents, seen by Axios, a senior National Security Council official says that a centralized, government-controlled 5G network is needed to offer security against China.
But while the government may believe it makes sense for it to be in control of the future mobile network, the idea has attracted vocal opposition. Among the opponents is FCC chairman Ajit Pai.
Security warning: Lenovo Fingerprint Manager Pro has a hardcoded password backdoor


If you have a ThinkPad, ThinkCentre or ThinkStation system, Lenovo has an important security patch for you to install. And you should install it right now.
Reporting vulnerability CVE-2017-3762, the computer manufacturer says that it discovered a weak algorithm used to encode fingerprint data could be bypassed with a hardcoded password. The problem affects the Lenovo Fingerprint Manager Pro utility for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.
Moving to 'intelligent operations' will help businesses thrive


Organizations that can harness the combination of innovative talent, diverse data, and applied intelligence will be best placed to use data-driven insights to improve business outcomes and enhance the customer experience, according to new research.
The study conducted by HfS Research for professional services company Accenture shows that 80 percent of those surveyed are concerned with disruption and competitive threats, especially from new digital-savvy entrants.
iPhone X sales reportedly below expectations


Smartphone buyers are not all that impressed with the iPhone X. According to a new report released by Nikkei, Apple saw "slower-than-expected" sales in major markets like US, Europe and China during the holiday season.
Nikkei claims that, as a result, Apple has decided to halve the production target for its flagship smartphone in the first quarter of 2018 from 40 million units to 20 million units.
New solution delivers universal threat intelligence


Threat intelligence is becoming an essential part of protecting systems. But this information often comes from many different sources, making it hard to see the big picture and limiting flexibility and effectiveness.
To address this issue, Recorded Future is launching a new product providing centralization, collaboration, and customization of intelligence. Called Fusion, it's powered by machine learning and allows users to centralize and customize proprietary and internal threat data with external threat intelligence.
Linus Torvalds announces Linux kernel 4.15 with a focus on Spectre and Meltdown


After a long wait, the much-anticipated Linux kernel 4.15 is finally here. While these kernel releases are always important, this one is particularly noteworthy. Why? Because it largely focuses on Spectre and Meltdown mitigation. With that said, it is not only about those vulnerabilities, of course.
Linus Torvalds, the inventor of Linux, has been quite critical of Intel’s patches of the aforementioned vulnerabilities, and Microsoft seemingly agrees -- the Windows-maker has disabled one of Intel’s shoddy "fixes" with an emergency update. With kernel 4.15, Torvalds is quick to say that the work on Spectre and Meltdown is far from finished.
Strava says military users should opt out of heatmap feature to avoid revealing secret army base locations


Military personal who used the fitness app Strava have unwittingly contributed to revealing the location of secret army bases around the world. Strava published a "heatmap" of global user activity in November, and from this data visualization the location of secret military bases was accidentally exposed.
The company argues that the information had already been made public by users who chose to share their location data. It goes on to suggest that military users might want to consider opting out of the heatmap feature of the iOS and Android app.
Ahead of GDPR laws, Facebook publishes privacy principles and promises to educate users


Facebook has published its privacy principles for the first time, ahead of the European Union's general data protection regulation (GDPR) which comes into force on May 25 -- although the company is pitching it as being part of Data Privacy Day.
On top of this, the social network has also detailed plans to use videos to educate its users about privacy. The videos will explain how to control who has access to personal data, as well as how to manage the data Facebook uses to control the ads it shows users.
Why consumers love shopping online


While the majority of shopping is still done offline, it's the internet retailers that are growing at a three times faster rate.
Online retail portal Shopping.fm has produced an infographic comparing the online and brick and mortar shopping worlds. It looks at what people buy where and what factors drive their decision to shop online.
Microsoft issues emergency Windows update to disable Intel's shoddy Spectre variant 2 mitigation


The computer industry is in utter chaos right now. Despite a slight increase in PC sales for Q4 2018, the market is still extremely unhealthy. Not to mention, pretty much all existing hardware is fundamentally flawed thanks to both Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. At least major companies such as Intel, AMD, and Microsoft are working together to mitigate these risks, right? Wrong. These patches have proven to be problematic -- for instance, some AMD computers were rendered unbootable. Ugh, what a failure.
To make matters even worse, Intel's Spectre variant 2 mitigation is causing instability (random reboots) on some Windows computers. Microsoft has apparently had enough of Intel's shoddy patches, and as a result, it has issued an emergency update to disable the Spectre variant 2 mitigation on Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.
Watch the Grammys live on your Roku


Tonight is the annual music extravaganza known as the Grammys. It's a long-standing awards show and many prominent artists are up for receiving one of the coveted trophies, most notably Jay Z who is nominated for eight of them.
Artists set to perform include Lady Gaga, Pink, Elton John, Miley Cyrus, Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar and Little Big Town. There will also be a tribute to the victims of the shooting in the Las Vegas nightclub last year.
Trump was almost ten times more popular with Russian Twitter bots than Clinton


In the run-up to the 2016 US election, Russian bots shared Donald Trump's tweets 470,000 times -- nearly ten times those of Hillary Clinton.
The figures come courtesy of Twitter, who shared the data with Congress for a review into Russian influence on the election. In the period September 1 to November 15, 2016, Russian bots accounted for more than four percent of Trump's retweets.
OnePlus denies sending clipboard data to China


Phone-maker OnePlus has had a tough time of things in the press recently with claims about users' clipboard data being mined, and the problems following a credit card breach. A second suggestion that the company was sending clipboard data back to China surfaced recently, but the company has been quick to deny any wrongdoing.
Suspicions were raised when a OnePlus user noticed a file called badwords.txt which includes a list of words such as "chairman," "private message" and "address."
Hackers hijack YouTube ads with Coinhive to mine Monero cryptocurrency


The clandestine mining of cryptocurrency is something that we have seen in various forms over the last year or so, in website code and Android apps. A new discovery by security firm Trend Micro shows that hackers have found a way to inject Coinhive mining code into ads that appear on YouTube.
The crypto-jacking technique means that hackers have been able to profit by using other people's CPU time to mine the Monero cryptocurrency while they watch videos. Trend Micro reports that there has been a huge increase in Coinhive web miner detections in recent days, with hackers abusing Google's DoubleClick to distribute the code through big sites including YouTube.
Recent Headlines
BetaNews, your source for breaking tech news, reviews, and in-depth reporting since 1998.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.