How to stop Apple automatic macOS 10.13 Sierra update on your Macbook

Microsoft has been doing the same thing to its Windows 7 and 8 users by aggressively pushing Windows 10 installation since its launch, which caused a massive outcry.

Following in Microsoft's footsteps, Apple has started "pre-downloading" the latest version of its desktop operating system, macOS 10.12 Sierra, in the background, if you are still running OS X El Capitan.

If you have automatic downloads enabled on your Mac, a large file of around 5GB will mysteriously be downloaded to your computer in the background, using your Internet bandwidth for unrequested files.
Apple justifies this move by saying that the automatic download would make it easier for users to get the newest operating system, encouraging them to update their Macs.

The good news, however, is that the update will not install automatically without your permission.

Once downloaded automatically in the background, users who are running OS X El Capitan version 10.11.5 or later will receive a notification that says macOS Sierra is ready to be installed.

All you need to do is just click the Install button to get started with the update.
Thankfully, the automatic update feature is smart enough that it will only be downloaded on Mac computers that have an adequate amount of storage space and meet the specs for macOS Sierra.
So the Sierra installer will be deleted if the host Mac computer starts running low on storage.

"Apple is also being smart about the download. If your computer is low on space, macOS Sierra will not download," The Loop reports. "In addition, if it has downloaded and your computer starts to get low on space, the download will be automatically deleted."

If you're not ready to upgrade to the latest macOS or want to download it later, you can simply delete the Sierra installer manually to keep from being prompted to do the install.

To delete the Sierra installer, go to Finder → Applications and then look for an application called 'Install macOS Sierra' and move the application to Trash, and Empty the Trash for leaving no trace of the Sierra.

Your Mac could prompt you for your Mac login password to complete the above action.

But if you don't want a bulky 5GB update to be downloaded to your computer for first before you kick off the installation, you can disable automatic downloads from the App Store to avoid the unwanted download.

To disable the feature, you can head on to System Preferences → App Store → Automatically check for updates and then uncheck "Download newly available updates in the background."

That's it.

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You Can Get Hacked Just by Opening a 'JPEG 2000' file format

Researchers have disclosed a critical zero-day vulnerability in the JPEG 2000 image file format parser implemented in OpenJPEG library, which could allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code on the affected systems.

Discovered by security researchers at Cisco Talos group, the zero-day flaw, assigned as TALOS-2016-0193/CVE-2016-8332. 

The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS score of 7.5, categorizing it as a high-severity bug.

What is OpenJPEG?
OpenJPEG is an open-source JPEG 2000 (JP2codec. Written in C language, the software was developed for coding and encoding JPEG2000 images, a format that is often used for tasks like embedding image files within PDF documents through popular software including PdFium, Poppler, and MuPDF.

The JPEG 2000 file format is commonly used for embedding images inside PDF documents. This particular vulnerability could allow an out-of-bound heap write to occur, resulting in heap corruption and lead to arbitrary code execution. Talos has disclosed this vulnerability responsibily to the library maintainers to ensure a patch is available.

Hackers can exploit the security vulnerability by tricking the victim into opening a specially crafted, malicious JPEG2000 image or a PDF document containing that malicious file in an email.

The hacker could even upload the malicious JPEG2000 image file to a file hosting service, like Dropbox or Google Drive, and then send that link to the victim.

Once downloaded to the system, it would create a way for hackers to remotely execute malicious code on the affected system.

The flaw was caused "due to an error while parsing mcc records in the jpeg2000 file,...resulting in an erroneous read and write of adjacent heap area memory," Cisco explained in its advisory.

"Careful manipulation of heap layout and can lead to further heap metadata process memory corruption ultimately leading to code execution under attacker control."

The researchers successfully tested the JPEG 2000 image exploit on the OpenJPEG openjp2 version 2.1.1. The flaw was discovered by Aleksandar Nikolic from the Cisco Talos Security team.
The team reported the zero-day flaw to OpenJPEG developers in late July, and the company patched the flaw last week with the release of version 2.1.2.
source: TALOS, THN

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Everything Google Announced at Its "Made By Google" Event

Google unveiled its plan for consumer hardware earlier today, showing off Pixel phones, the Google Home hub, Google WiFi router, Chromecast Ultra and Daydream VR headset, plus its Assistant AI ready to tie everything together. 

Assistant is capable of can be strangely difficult right now. That's because Google currently has three different ways to use the Google Assistant. Google says it’s the same Assistant in each place, but it can (and can’t) do different things depending on where you use it.

• Google Assistant on Google Home (the new speaker)
• Google Assistant on Pixel (the new phones)
• Google Assistant on Allo (the new-ish chat app)

Google Assistant has the same goal in each location — get you information and perform basic tasks. But it accomplishes that goal in different ways. And in some limited instances, can only accomplish certain tasks on certain devices. 

The Google Assistant is, at its core, just a new way to make Google searches, but in a conversation with an AI that knows a lot about you. It's sort of like a mashup of Siri and a chatbot: you can ask it questions aloud or by typing, and it'll try to pull in whatever you're looking for, be it the solution to a math problem, directions to a store, or instructions on getting something done.

Google unveiled two brand new phones, the Pixel and Pixel XL. 
The Pixel line of phones look like they’ll be replacing the Nexus phones as the “pure Android” experience from here on out. Unlike previous Nexus phones, which were made in partnership with third-party hardware manufacturers, these phones are entirely Google-branded (even though HTC still seems to be involved with the production, according to FCC filings).

The Pixel will be the first phone to include the Google Assistant (which we’ll discuss in a bit). The company spent a great deal of time touting how it made the “hardware and software together” which implies that it won’t be a simple software rollout to add Google Assistant to older phones.

With the standard Pixel and its smaller, 5-inch, 1080p AMOLED display -- it would've been nice to get a Quad HD screen in here, but text was plenty crisp and colors were sufficiently bright in Google's too-dim demo area. (Don't worry: the Pixel XL's 5.5-inch AMOLED screen brings the Quad HD heat.) Everything feels nice and fluid too, though that's to be expected from pair of smartphones with quad-core Snapdragon 821 chipsets and 4GB of RAM. All told, the Pixels have more than enough horsepower to keep even the pickiest phone buffs pleased. Beyond pure computational power, I'm looking forward to seeing how the Pixel and Pixel XL's batteries hold up -- their capacities are 2,770mAh and 3,450mAh, respectively.

 Very nice Camera with a DXOMARK at 89

The Pixel phones will also include unlimited photo and video backup through Google Photos. It even saves them at full resolution. That’s a pretty big deal when your phone is recording at 4K and very stable video recording  for shaky hands. Normally, Google limits you to 16 megapixels and 1080p video, otherwise your uploads count against your Google Drive quota. 

 Built in Google Duo Messenger.

Fast Charging up to 7 hours of battery life  in 15 minutes
 

They’re also the first phones to support Daydream VR (again, we’ll come back to that). 

Google Home Launches November 4th, Will Cost $129
It will cost $129, launch November 4th, and you can pre-order it now. This is Google’s answer to the Amazon’s Echo, the little speaker that sits in your living room, kitchen, or bedroom and passively listens for voice commands. However, Google wants to take its speaker to the next level with Google Assistant.

Google Home can also control devices in your home. For example, you can ask it to play a video from YouTube or Netflix on your Chromecast. Google will automatically find the video you ask for, connect to your Google Cast-enabled device, and start playing the video. Google will also work with smart home providers like Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings, and Nest (which Google’s parent company Alphabet also owns) to control more devices in the future.

The Chromecast Ultra Brings Simple, Cheap Streaming to Your 4K TV for $69
The Chromecast might be one of Google’s more clever ideas in recent years. Now, if you have a 4K TV, the Chromecast has your back. For $69, you can get the new Chromecast Ultra, which supports 4K video. Google says it made the device faster, but let’s be real. The only reason you’re getting this device is if you need 4K. Otherwise, just get the regular Chromecast for half the price.

Daydream Is Google’s VR Platform, Coming First to the Pixel Phones
Daydream is Google’s next foray into virtual reality. The company announced the Daydream View VR headset. It’s very similar to Samsung’s Gear VR, just with a bit more polish. The headset comes in a selection of colored fabrics (red, gray, and white), comes with a simple controller, and retails for $79. Simply drop your phone into the headset to get an Oculus-like VR experience.

The control has motion detector Google claim it so precise that you can actually draw with it..

 The Daydream is made of especial fabric is like soft clothing , and there is Facemask you can remove and washable too! that's great for a hygiene everyone wearing it not so cool if stinky.

Google demoed several new experiences to give you an idea of what Daydream can do. The company showed a Harry Potter game, where players can pretend to be wizards, which might be the best use of VR yet. Google also announced VR-capable apps for YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and more so you can watch 360 videos, or just watch movies in a virtual home theater. 

Google will also have a VR version of Street View that includes "tours" of 150 global landmarks, like the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids in Egypt, along with the ability to see any location in 360-degree VR.

Google WiFi Makes It Easy to Extend Your Network, Has Parental Controls, More
Google’s continuing its effort to get into the home networking game with the Google WiFi router. For $129, the device bears a striking similarity to the OnHub router the company released last year. It will let you control it remotely, selectively block certain devices from the network (to give your kids an internet time-out, for example), and reset your router.

The most head-turning feature, however, is that Google wants to make it dead simple to expand your network for large houses. Just add another Google WiFi device to your home and it will extend your network. Of course, if you’re savvy you can accomplish the same thing with any old router, but if you’d rather spend the money to let Google do it for you, the company offers a three-pack of its routers (yes, really) for $300. 

 source :  The Verge, Gizmodo, Engadget, Wired

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Mystery Of The "So-Called Alien Megastructure Star" Deepens

Last fall, a little-known star called KIC 8462852 became our planetary obsession when astronomers said that its erratic flickering could be the result of an alien megastructure. Further observation of Tabby’s Star yielded no signs of aliens, but the sudden dips in luminosity continue to defy explanation. Now, things just got a bit weirder.

Galaxy’s weirdest star, KIC 8462852, is even weirder than previously thought, showing changes never observed before in a star like this.

To quickly recap, last year it was announced that the object experienced dramatic and rapid changes in brightness, which led to the wild speculation that the object was surrounded by an alien megastructure. New observations have shown that there are no aliens around it but the mystery has deepened further still, as historical data suggests that the star has inexplicably dimmed by 14 percent in just over a century.

Researchers Josh Simon and Ben Montet, using observations by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, discovered that KIC 8462852 faded slowly and then suddenly during the four years it was studied.

“Our highly accurate measurements over four years demonstrate that the star really is getting fainter with time,” said Montet, from Caltech, in a statement. "It is unprecedented for this type of star to slowly fade for years, and we don’t see anything else like it in the Kepler data.”

A pre-print of the research was released in August, and is now published in the Astrophysical Journal. In it, the scientists compared KIC 8462852 to 500 similar stars also observed by Kepler. Although they saw a small fraction getting fainter with time, none had dimming episodes as intense.

KIC 8462852, which is also known as Tabby’s star, faded about 1 percent in the first three years of the study, before suddenly dropping another 2 percent more. It then remained stable for the final six months.


By carefully examining all the full-frame images collected during Kepler’s observational campaign, Montet and Simon discovered something astonishing: Not only did the star’s light output occasionally dip by up to 20 percent, its total stellar flux diminished continuously over the course of four years.

“This star was already completely unique because of its sporadic dimming episodes. But now we see that it has other features that are just as strange, both slowly dimming for almost three years and then suddenly getting fainter much more rapidly,” Simon, from the Carnegie Institute of Science, continued.

The six months of dimming in 2012 could be explained by the breakup of a planet or comets, but the apparent long term fading must be something else. And we still don’t know what caused a dramatic change in brightness reported last year.

“It’s a big challenge to come up with a good explanation for a star doing three different things that have never been seen before,” Montet added. “But these observations will provide an important clue to solving the mystery of KIC 8462852.”

source: iopscience.iop.org

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ASUS K20: Stylish and Elegant Multimedia PC for the Modern Home

Stylish and Space-Saving Multimedia PC

ASUS K20 will be a great add-on to any modern home from its brushed metal finished front panel to its elegant gold power bar. A well-crafted PC that can handle ultra-demanding tasks or multimedia needs, it is powered with the latest Intel® Pentium® processors, letting you multitask significantly faster and more efficient.  

To handle graphic intensive applications, the K20CD models are paired with discrete NVIDIA® or AMD graphics* providing 4K/UHD display support – giving you the freedom to take your home entertainment to the next level.

Equipped with the ASUS SonicMaster audio, K20 delivers surround sound for realistic gaming and movies. In addition, ASUS AudioWizard provides five selectable audio settings for music, movies, games, voice recording, and speech to cater to your media preferences. An easy-to-use interface puts everything at a mouse click, you can even choose how it looks and feels.

The K20 operates on 23dB at idle so you can make sure you don’t get disturbed while studying or working. It’s monstrous in performance, but works quietly as a mouse. 

Fast, all-around connectivity

K20 is the first small form factor desktop PC to feature SuperSpeed USB 3.1. SATA 6Gbit/s ports offering blazingly fast data transfer speeds, letting you save large files or quickly load games in a jiffy. SuperSpeed USB 3.0 transfers data up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0, and the latest USB 3.1 standard increases the data transfer up to 2 times faster than USB 3.0. You can hook it up to an HDTV through its HDMI output ports to supersize one’s entertainment.

With wireless transfer rates up to 433Mbit/s with compatible routers, 802.11ac Wi-Fi is around 8 times faster than 802.11g and around three times faster than 802.11n, making the K20 Series capable of streaming Full HD video without the inconvenience of network cables.

K20 comes loaded with Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 and 500GB storage expandable to up to 3TB. And when you need additional space for your multimedia archive, K20 comes with a 100GB free ASUS WebStorage.

Its 10-liter chassis takes up very little space so finding a spot in your home won’t a big problem.

Get your hands on the most recommended Windows desktop brand though its distributor, MSI-ECS. Call (02) 688-3501/3512 for further details or email inquiry@msi-ecs.com.ph and make the ASUS K20CE a significant addition to your modern home.

- MSI-ECS will also be holding its annual warehouse sale on the 16th of the month so stay tune.

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STUDENT'S IPHONE EXPLODES IN HIS BACK POCKET, CATCHES FIRE DURING CLASS

After Samsung Galaxy Note 7 devices recent explosion spree. Making similar headlines, last week, we saw an incident where an iPhone 7 Plus was burnt to ashes before it reached its owner.

Now, Darin Hlavaty, a college student in Burlington County, NJ has faced the fury of an iPhone 6 Plus which exploded in his back pocket. The student claims that the blast created a hole in his pocket.

As a result of the explosion, the student caught fire during the class. According to media reports (ABC) , he was reaching into his back pocket for a pen during his morning physical science class when he noticed some smoke rising from his jeans.

Darin says that as he touched the “sparking” device, it was “super hot”. So, he threw it on the ground and kicked because it was on fire. His classmate Rebecca Bookbinder, who was sitting nearby, said that it happened so fast and soon they realized that the phone combusted in the middle of class.

Talking to ABC, Darin said:

“Right as class was starting, my phone started smoking in my pocket. It was a fire. I felt this crazy, hot burning in my leg.”

According to college authorities, when public authorities arrived at the incident, the fire was already out. But, they could still smell the smoke. After the incident, the students were moved to another classroom.

Darin says that he had the phone for about six months. There was just a simple crack on the device, but that couldn’t be any possible reason for the explosion.

“If you were on a phone call, had been sitting on your bed near a stack of papers, it could do a lot more damage than just burning a hole in your pocket. He’s very fortunate,” Rebecca added.


source: 6ABC

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Anyone can now download the leaked database of 68,680,741 Dropbox accounts for Free!

In August, Motherboard reported that hackers had stolen over 60 million account details for online storage platform Dropbox. The details were from a previously disclosed breach, but the true scale of the hack had not been previously revealed. 

Motherboard recently discovered that a researcher has just uploaded the full dump of hacked Dropbox database online.

Thomas White, known online as The Cthulhu, uploaded Monday the full Dropbox data dump onto his website in a move, as he claims, to help security researchers examine the data breach.

So, anyone can now download the leaked database of 68,680,741 Dropbox accounts, containing email addresses and hashed passwords, totally for FREE.

"The ... dump was allegedly taken from Dropbox sometime in 2012 following a breach," White writes on his website. "I have assisted [in keeping] this breach public for those who are struggling to find a reliable source for research."

White is the same person who previously dumped accounts from massive data breaches in large enterprises, including extramarital affairs site Ashley Madison, social networking site Myspace, and more.

The good news is that out of 68 Million, around 32 Million passwords are secured using strong hashing function BCrypt, which makes it difficult for hackers to obtain many of users' actual passwords.
The rest of the account passwords are hashed with the SHA-1 hashing algorithm and also believed to have used a Salt – a random string added to the hashing process to further strengthen passwords to make it harder for hackers to crack them.

Moreover, the company previously ensured its affected customers that there is no evidence of any malicious access of their accounts, saying "Based on our threat monitoring and the way we secure passwords, we do not believe that any accounts have been improperly accessed."

Dropbox is one of many "Mega-Breaches" revealed this summer, when hundreds of millions of account credentials from years-old data breaches on famous social network sites, including LinkedIn, MySpace, VK.com and Tumblr, were exposed online. 

In September, a data dealer was selling the Dropbox dump on the dark web for around $1200.

Dropbox is requiring its users to reset their passwords if they have remained unchanged.

source: Montherboard

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NASA's New RASSOR robot destined to mine Martian soil

NASA recently released a video of its latest Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot prototype going through its paces in a test facility. "RASSOR uses counterrotating bucket drums on opposing arms to provide near-zero horizontal and minimal vertical net reaction force so that excavation is not reliant on the traction or weight of the mobility system to provide a reaction force to counteract the excavation force in low-gravity environments," NASA writes.

This should make excavation on alien planets easier because the device can work without needing high amounts of traction to stay in place while performing its task. It looks like flipping over and becoming inoperable shouldn't be an issue either, based on the proven design. Popular Mechanics suggests that a whole slew of these will be sent ahead of any Martian colonists as a way of prepping the landing pad, so to speak.



source: NASA 

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MIT's 3D-printed skin shock-absorbing robots are safer and more precise

MIT's CSAIL has developed bouncing robots whose 3D-printed soft skins act as shock absorbers. The technique revolves around printing a "programmable viscoelastic material" where every aspect of the skin (which includes solids, liquids and a rubber-like substance called TangoBlack+) is tuned to the right level of elasticity. The robot can give way where it needs to, but remain solid otherwise. As a result, it can bounce around without taking damage, and land four times more precisely than it would with an inflexible surface.




Moreover, the material is very practical. It's cheap and easy to find, and the 3D printing eliminates problems with customization. You only need a single print job to create the skin instead of a complicated, time-consuming engineering process.



The invention should primarily help with the durability and safety of robots, of course. You could see robot helpers that work alongside humans without fear of injury, and rescue robots that won't easily break if they fall. They would be more precise, as well, as an unexpected collision wouldn't throw them off. However, the material could be useful for all kinds of products. CSAIL envisions phones, helmets, and other impact-prone devices that would be that much better at surviving horrible blows.

source: MIT

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Researchers use the human body to transfer wireless secure passwords

A Princeton report back in January revealed that some smart home devices unwittingly broadcast location information while others didn't encrypt their data streams at all. Sending a password or secret code over airborne radio waves like WiFi or Bluetooth means anyone can eavesdrop, making those transmissions vulnerable to hackers who can attempt to break the encrypted code. To get around the uncertainty of pushing information over the air, some scientists have posited using the body as a conduit. Instead of using its magnetic field, as previous researchers have, engineers from the University of Washington have pioneered a way to send wireless signals from a touchpad or screen held in one hand to a smart device in physical contact with the other.

As described in their research paper, the method operates simply, like conducting static electricity. Data is still wireless but confined to the human body, riding the low-frequency electromagnetic transmissions generated by a device's fingerprint sensor or touchpad, traveling through the body to whatever smart device the user touches. While this has obvious applications for smart home or car door locks, it could also send information securely to wearables or even coordinate networks of body sensors.

Their process employs a sequence of finger scans to encode and transmit data. Performing a finger scan correlates to a 1-bit of digital data and not performing the scan correlates to a 0-bit.

The technology could also be useful for secure key transmissions to medical devices such as glucose monitors or insulin pumps, which seek to confirm someone’s identity before sending or sharing data.

While the scientists were able to repurpose touch interfaces to send data at bit rates of 50 bits per second on laptop touchpads and 25 bits per second with fingerprint sensors, that's just fast enough to send a simple password or numerical code from body to receiver in a few seconds. They could achieve much higher speeds, and thus transmit more complex data, if the input manufacturers gave them more access to their software. 

This represents only a first step, the researchers say. Data can be transmitted through the body even faster if fingerprint sensor manufacturers provide more access to their software.

The research was funded by the Intel Science and Technology Center for Pervasive Computing, a Google faculty award and the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact the research team at onbody@cs.washington.edu.


source: University of Washington

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Nokia D1C Spotted on Geekbench browser powered by Android Nougat with 3GB RAM

An unannounced Nokia smartphone running Android 7.0 Nougat dubbed Nokia D1C has made multiple appearances on the Geekbench browser.

According to the benchmark site, Nokia D1C uses Snapdragon 430 chip featuring an octa-core processor with each core running at clock speeds up to 1.4GHz. The Snapdragon processor is paired with 3GB RAM.

The phone ran through Geekbench several times with scores ranging from 656 to 667 in single-core, whereas scores for multi-core performance ranged from 3,120 to 3,229.

Qualcomm's mid-tier Snapdragon 430 processor featuring high-end performance was launched in September last year with its commercial availability slated for 2016 second quarter. Xiaomi's Redmi 3S, which is a variant of Redmi 3, launched in June uses the Snapdragon 430. The processor is paired with Adreno 505 graphics unit.

Reports about Nokia's Android smartphone first emerged a few months ago, stating the company was planning to re-enter the global smartphone market with two new smartphones running the Android Nougat operating system. The handsets are expected towards the end of 2016 or might be pushed to a later date sometime in the first quarter of next year, depending on testing and development.

Two more Nokia mid-range phones codenamed Nokia 5320 and RM-1490 were spotted at Geekbench. These two models were running the slightly older version of Android 4.4 KitKat.

source: Geekbench browser  

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