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Microsoft issues emergency Windows 10 patch for leaked vulnerability
Microsoft has released an unscheduled patch for a security bug that it accidentally disclosed during the release of its March 2020 patch several days ago. While difficult to exploit, the vulnerability is "critical" because it could allow malicious code to automatically spread from one machine to another. By releasing the fix now, Microsoft aims to avoid a chain reaction scenario that played out with the WannaCry and NotPetya viruses in 2017.
Amazon's smart shelves will re-order office supplies automatically
Amazon's Dash buttons were a boon for the forgetful and time-pressed when they launched in 2015. The nifty little device let you re-order household items the moment you realized you'd run out, at the simple touch of, well... a button. But while they were discontinued earlier this year, their concept will continue to live on in the Amazon Dash Smart Shelf, a weight-sensing, WiFi-enabled smart scale designed to take the hassle out of office supply management for small businesses.
The PIS2 is a portable PS2 years in the making
The PlayStation 2 has been in the grave for over a decade, but that hasn't kept gamers from tinkering with Sony's iconic console. Reddit user darkwingmod has been working on and off for several years to perfect his vision of a portable PS2, the PIS2. The build features genuine PS2 hardware augmented with a Raspberry Pi 2, which loads game files over an ethernet-connected SMB server; no emulation is involved. Darkwingmod says that the games run close to full speed and FMVs play smoothly.
Microsoft patches Windows XP to fight 'WannaCrypt' attacks (updated)
Microsoft officially ended its support for most Windows XP computers back in 2014, but today it's delivering one more public patch for the 16-year-old OS. As described in a post on its Windows Security blog, it's taking this "highly unusual" step after customers worldwide including England's National Health Service suffered a hit from "WannaCrypt" ransomware. Microsoft patched all of its currently supported systems to fix the flaw back in March, but now there's an update available for unsupported systems too, including Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003, which you can grab here (note: if that link isn't working then there are direct download links available in the Security blog post). Of course, for home users, if you're still running one of those old operating systems then yes, you should patch immediately -- and follow up with an upgrade to something current. If you're running a vulnerable system and can't install the patch for some reason, Microsoft has two pieces of advice: Disable SMBv1 with the steps documented at Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 2696547 and as recommended previously. Consider adding a rule on your router or firewall to block incoming SMB traffic on port 445 Update: Microsoft legal chief Brad Smith has written a blog post that both calls for more help from customers (read: update more often) and chastises intelligence agencies for hoarding security exploits. They don't understand the risk to the public if the exploits leak, Smith says -- it's as if someone stole a batch of Tomahawk missiles. We wouldn't count on the NSA or other agencies heeding the call, but Microsoft clearly wants to make its frustrations heard.
'WannaCry' ransomware attack spreads worldwide (update)
England's healthcare system came under a withering cyberattack Friday morning, with "at least 25" hospitals across the country falling prey to ransomware that locked doctors and employees out of critical systems and networks. It's now clear that this is not a (relatively) isolated attack but rather a single front in a massive digital assault. Update 2 (5/13): In response to infections like the ones that crippled parts of the NHS system, Microsoft is releasing a patch for unsupported systems including Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003.
Microsoft says it already patched 'Shadow Brokers' NSA leaks
Yesterday, the mysterious "Shadow Brokers" posted some hacking tools for Windows that were allegedly stolen from the NSA. All of them were at least a few years old, but exploited flaws in several versions of the operating system to move across networks and infect systems. early Saturday morning, Microsoft has responded with a blog post, saying it has evaluated all of the exploits listed. Its response to the release is surprisingly simple: most of them have already been fixed.
'Shadow Brokers' dump of NSA tools includes new Windows exploits (updated)
Earlier this year "The Shadow Brokers" -- an entity claiming to have stolen hacking tools from the NSA then offering them for sale -- seemed to pack up shop, but the group has continued on. Today, it made a new post that contained a number of working exploits for Windows machines running everything from XP up to at least Windows 8. As far as Windows 10, it appears that the stolen data is from 2013 and predates the latest OS. As such, it isn't immediately apparent if it's vulnerable, but early results indicate at least some of the tools aren't working on it. Update (4/15): Microsoft responded early Saturday morning, saying that for the seven flaws leaked that affect supported systems -- they've all already been patched. Of course, the story gets a bit more interesting from there, since it appears that four of them were only patched just last month, suggesting someone informed the company about the security issues before TSB could leak them.
Did Mavericks kill your SMB network drive access? Here's a fix
Among the issues some people have had with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, one of the biggest gotchas was a loss of access to SMB network shares -- the connection many NAS devices (Network attached storage), Windows PCs or Linux servers use to provide file sharing. In my case, I got the double foul. My NAS tried to mount forever and failed; same with a Windows 8 PC on my network. The cause appears to be changes made in the networking stack made by Apple. Apple's SMB2 implementation doesn't work with a lot of SMB2 devices -- even networked drives from Windows machines. [SMB2 is actually used by Mavericks for Mac-to-Mac connectivity, unlike older versions of OS X where AFP was the default. –Ed.] One easy fix involves changing a little bit of text in your server connection URL. Here's how it works: In the Finder, choose the "Go" menu and select "Connect to Server..." (command-K). Type "cifs://yourservername" and hit Return; the server should mount. CIFS (Common Internet File System) is just another name for the SMB protocol, but using it in the server URL forces the Finder to use the older (not broken) SMB1 implementation, rather than the buggy SMB2. It worked for me with both my NAS and my Windows PC, so there's a good chance it will work for you. Apple's Support Boards are filled with users pulling their hair out over this one, so we hope the tip is of use to you. Thanks to Cammodude for the solution here; he also posts a Terminal tip (at your own risk) for permanently forcing Finder to use SMB1 instead of SMB2.
Apple details OS X Mavericks' energy-saving skills, friendlier network sharing
While we learned many things about OS X Mavericks' feature set at WWDC, there were a few important details hiding in the woodwork. Apple has just revealed a few of them through a new overview of the platform. Among them is a potentially huge step forward in the Mac's willingness to play with others: Apple has switched its default network file sharing system from the ages-old Apple File Protocol to the more universal SMB2. The move gives OS X the same approach to sharing as more recent versions of Windows, helping it slot into the corporate world and mixed-platform households. AFP and the original SMB are sticking around, but they'll now kick in only when needed. The crew in Cupertino has also filled in many of the blanks surrounding Mavericks' vaunted performance and power optimizations. Battery-saving tricks like App Nap and timer coalescing mostly involve heavy task rescheduling and throttling. Memory compression, meanwhile, relies on an old yet largely untapped algorithm to avoid hard drive access. A deeper dive into the new OS X release is available at the source, although it's not for the faint-hearted -- the overview's developer focus doesn't exactly make for casual reading.
ioSafe takes to Indiegogo to raise funds for the N2, its new disaster-proof NAS
ioSafe makes hard-drives so sturdy that it can reduce fire, electricity and Terrence O'Brien to tears at the mere thought of them. Now, it's producing a new disaster-proof NAS, but as a small business, needs a cash injection from consumers to make it happen. As such, it's taking to Indiegogo to raise funds for the ioSafe N2, a private cloud Synology-powered NAS that'll keep up to 8TB of data protected from the elements. On the outside, a steel body that'll take a building collapsing onto it protects a chemically bound fireproof insulation and water / heat barrier will stop your discs flooding or melting, depending on the catastrophe. The company's planning to have the units shipping by January next year, when the 23lb box will set you back $600 without discs -- and if you're hard enough, you can find PR after the break.
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E430 and E530 go on sale, starting at $459
Lenovo announced a slew of notebooks back at CES in January, so you'll be forgiven if the ThinkPad Edge E430 and E530 don't ring a bell. Those names are about to hit closer to home, though, because both models are finally on sale in the US and Asia with a base price of $459. To jog your memory, the 14-inch Edge E430 and 15-inch E530 run Intel Core i3-2350M Sandy Bridge CPUs clocked at 2.3GHz and feature 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drives, Intel HD Graphics and a 1366 x 768 displays. Of course, Lenovo lets you customize the processor, storage space and more on its website. Click through to the source links below for the full configuration options.
iPad embraced by small businesses; use quadruples in one year
While we've been hearing a lot about enterprise use of Apple's iPad, there hasn't been much attention paid to the millions of small businesses that are using the tablet. The Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal reported on a new national study that shows that small business use of the iPad has nearly quadrupled from 9 percent in 2010 to 34 percent in 2011. The study by the parent company of The Business Journals indicates that the iPad is now the fastest growing technology in the SMB (small and medium businesses) business sector. The poll also notes that about 75 percent of small business owners were "very or somewhat familiar" with the iPad. Godfrey Phillips, vice president of research at The Business Journals, says that "Our research has shown that for small business owners, productivity and efficiency, which used to be the central benefits of technology, are now declining in importance compared to accessibility. "The iPad, as well as smartphones and cloud computing, are all part of this new trend and are experiencing significant growth as a result of that need." One of the more fascinating results of the study looked at the demographics of iPad users in the small business community. They're highly educated, with 72 percent having a college education. Annual household incomes averaged about US$176,000 for the respondents, and their companies are well-established -- on average, they've existed for 28 years and have annual sales of about $9.2 million. The full study will be made available on March 31.
Lenovo announces ThinkPad Edge S430 with Thunderbolt, six other small business laptops
In addition to rolling out a ThinkPad X1 running Android and a buttoned-up Ultrabook, Lenovo announced a handful of mainstream laptops aimed at the small business set. Starting at the high end, the 14-inch Edge S430 (pictured) looks the part of a traditional ThinkPad (nay, IBM box), though Lenovo's sprinkled in metal accents and whittled the chassis to a reasonably narrow .8 inches (20.3mm). As the cream of this crop, it packs Dolby Home Theatre sound, optional NVIDIA Optimus graphics, up to 1TB in storage and Thunderbolt (!), making this the first Windows PC to make use of that standard. Moving on down the line, the 14-inch Edge E430 and 15-inch E530 give you a choice of Intel Core processors and AMD Fusion APUs. These, too, can be configured with discrete graphics and 1TB hard drives, though being the less-premium systems they are, you can get them in more playful colors like red and cobalt blue. If you crave a little more portability, Lenovo's also offering smaller versions, the 11-inch E130 and the 13-inch E330. Only have $400 to spend? The budget B480 and B580 bring Fusion and Core CPUs, USB 3.0 and 1TB hard drives, at the high end. The S430 will start at $749 when it hits select markets in June, but the rest will arrive in April, with the ThinkPad Edge models going for $549-plus and the B-series laptops fetching $399 and up. Though the 11- and 13-inch Edge laptops and the B-series notebooks will only be offered in certain markets the 14-inch E430 and 15-inch E530 are slated to ship worldwide. More info in the press release, just past the break.
Study finds small, medium businesses considering iPads
The iPad is popular, so popular that analysts have blamed the tablet for declining consumer netbook and notebook sales. While consumers may be buying tablets in lieu of PCs, small to medium businesses are not. A pair of recent surveys from the NPD group suggest businesses will continue to buy PCs along with tablets in 2012. As reported by AppleInsider, a recent tablet survey from NPD's quarterly SMB Technology Monitor shows that 73% of businesses with less than 1,000 employees plan to buy tablets for their employees. Almost all of these tablets will be from Apple as the word "tablet" is synonymous with iPad says Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. Most companies plan to spend about $21,000 on new tablet purchases in the upcoming year. At the same time, these small to medium businesses will continue to buy PCs for their workforce. Less than 20 percent of companies with 999 employees or less plan to reduce spending on PCs. The remaining 80 percent will spend the same or more on PCs in 2012 than they did in 2011. On average, both small and medium-sized businesses will replace 10 to 15 percent of their PCs in the upcoming year. These surveys suggest 2012 will be a terrific year for corporate employees at small to medium-sized businesses. Some of you will be getting new office PCs, and many of you will be handed an iPad for your business use. [Via AppleInsider and the NPD Group]
Apple addresses Lion server issues with new technotes
If you run Lion server and have problems with podcast streaming or want to view local volumes on your server, you'll want to read two new technotes on Apple's support site. Spotted by MacNN, they will tell you how to setup https to serve up podcasts and how you can tweak your settings to view a mounted local volume or a shared folder via SMB. One article (Technote TS4126) addresses podcast streaming and SSL certificates, a problem which arose in OS X server 10.7.2. Unlike earlier versions, this version of Lion server streams podcasts using a secure https connection. In this issue, users visiting your Lion server cannot view podcast thumbnails. When they try to playback content, the thumbnail is missing and only a blank window appears. To fix this issue, server administrators can either purchase a signed security certificate from an established Certificate Authority or use a self-signed certificate. If the admin chooses the self-signed route, users attempting to view a podcast will be presented with a warning about an untrusted certificate. Once the user accepts this certificate as coming from a trusted source, they can gain access to the podcast content. The other technote HT5028 has two command-line tweaks for server administrators. The first will let admins view any volumes mounted locally on the server and the second will let them access shared folders over SMB. Once entered, admins will have to reboot the server to make these changes stick.
Dell announces Vostro V131 with USB 3.0, Core i3 and i5 CPUs and a chiclet keyboard
There's a fine debate going on as we speak about Dell's back-to-school consumer laptops, but personally, we've always had a soft spot for Dell's small business-focused Vostro line. The outfit's just announced a new addition to the lineup, the 13.3-inch V131, and while it doesn't look that different from the last-gen V130, it offers all the spec bumps you'd expect from a laptop announced in mid-2011. With this generation, you get Sandy Bridge Core i3 and i5 processor options, two USB 3.0 ports and a user-replaceable six-cell battery that promises up to 9.5 hours of juice. If you wanted, you could add up to a 320GB 7200RPM hard drive, which we suspect might not be enough storage space for some folks. The resolution, meanwhile, is 1366 x 768 -- typical for budget notebooks. Like we said, the design isn't anything ground-breaking, but Dell did move to a chiclet layout for the keyboard, which you can configure with backlighting if you're so inclined. We're not going to lie: that $499 starting price at the source link seems tempting, given the good-looking mag-alloy chassis and those twin USB 3.0 sockets, though you'll have to pay an extra hundred bucks to step up from the base dual-core Celeron processor. Fancy schmancy product shots below, and full PR after the break. %Gallery-130445%
Record for lowest-scoring Super Mario Bros. run broken
You guys are still doing speed-runs? Psh, speed-runs are so 2005. These days, it's all about low-score runs; baffling attempts at calculated badness, wherein highly-skilled gamers do everything they can to do as little as possible. No one does better at doing poorly than YouTube power-gamer NotEntirelySure, who recently completed the lowest-scoring no-death game of Super Mario Bros. ever, finishing the entire game with a trifling 600 points. As a spectator sport, we think the low-score run has potential, although we're still not sure why our "average-score" runs never took off with the precision gaming community. [Thanks Gishman!]
FPM: First-person Mario
More than a Mario Half-Life or Left 4 Dead mod, this is what happens when the original Super Mario Bros. goes full-on modern FPS.
Data Robotics launches Drobo for Business line, new 12-bay SAN option
Data Robotics has certainly flexed its biz muscle before, but this is nothing short of a full-out assault on the boardroom. Or at least the boardroom's IT closet. The outfit's new Drobo for Business line is being revealed today, with three pieces of hardware making up the initial line. The new trio is primarily aimed at small businesses, but even average consumers in need of some serious at-home storage may find something worth investigating. Though the system designs are obviously built for use in rack-mount arrangements, you'll still find the same BeyondRAID setup that existing Drobo users have grown familiar with. At least initially, the company will be offering an 8-bay file sharing Drobo with remote backup, an 8-bay SAN (iSCSI-attached) Drobo and a 12-bay SAN (also iSCSI-attached) with expanded redundancy features, support for thin provisioning and deprovisioning and new data-aware tiering technology. Those who buy in will also be treated to a bolstered level of DroboCare business support, a refreshed management interface tailor to the needs of SMB, new functionality / redundancy and boosted performance from top to bottom. The former two are available now -- with pricing to start at just north of $2,000 ($8,500 on the 12-bay) -- while the latter can be reserved as we speak for a Q2 delivery. %Gallery-115761%
Lenovo X201 Tablet, W701 and new L series revealed by ThinkPad roadmap slide (updated)
Our crack team over at Engadget Chinese has managed to snag the above roadmap slide for Lenovo's mobile computer division. We've seen earlier versions of the same slide -- when the Edge and T410 / T510 were freshly added -- but the very latest iteration contains a sprinkling of even newer machines. Most intriguing will be the L400 and L500, which are set to replace the former "corporate mainstream" mainstay R series, which incites the more hopeful among us to believe that perhaps a new chassis design is on the cards too. No less notable are the new X201 models, though we might surmise by the mild numerical change that they'll just be upgraded to low-voltage Arrandale CPUs and left well enough alone. For more info on the likely specs of the W701, you should check out our breakdown of its FCC appearance right here. Update: In light of the X201 discovery, we've combed through our CES 2010 imagery and found a photo of an X200 with a touchpad, which was a curious thing to see when Lenovo has never sold such a creation. Our suspicion is that the X200 on display was in fact an early showing of the touchpad-enabled X201 that is soon to come. Browse past the break for the evidence.
