An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Cyber-thieves are adopting ransomware in "alarming" numbers, say security researchers. There are now more than 120 separate families of ransomware, said experts studying the malicious software. Other researchers have seen a 3,500% increase in the criminal use of net infrastructure that helps run ransomware campaigns. The rise is driven by the money thieves make with ransomware and the increase in kits that help them snare victims. Ransomware was easy to use, low risk and offered a high reward, said Bart Parys, a security researcher who helps to maintain a list of the growing numbers of types of this kind of malware. Mr Parys and his colleagues have now logged 124 separate variants of ransomware. Some virulent strains, such as Locky and Cryptolocker, were controlled by individual gangs, he said, but others were being used by people buying the service from an underground market. A separate indicator of the growth of ransomware came from the amount of net infrastructure that gangs behind the malware had been seen using. The numbers of web domains used to host the information and payment systems had grown 35-fold, said Infoblox in its annual report which monitors these chunks of the net's infrastructure. A lot of ransomware reached victims via spear-phishing campaigns or booby-trapped adverts, he said, but other gangs used specialized "crypters" and "packers" that made files look benign. Others relied on inserting malware into working memory so it never reached the parts of a computer on which most security software keeps an eye. Ars Technica reports that drive-by attacks that install the TeslaCrypt crypto ransomware are now able to bypass Microsoft's EMET.

An anonymous reader writes: Tesla has responded to a recent report from a Model X owner claiming their vehicle suddenly accelerated at "maximum speed" by itself, jumped a curb and slammed into the side of a building while his wife was sitting behind the wheel. They said it analyzed vehicle logs, "which confirm that this Model X was operating correctly under manual control and was never in Autopilot or cruise control at the time of the incident or in the minutes before. Data shows that the vehicle was traveling at 6 mph when the accelerator pedal was abruptly increased to 100%. Consistent with the driver's action, the vehicle applied torque and accelerated as instructed. Safety is the top priority at Tesla and we engineer and build our cars with this foremost in mind. We are pleased that the driver is ok and ask our customers to exercise safe behavior when using our vehicles." When will people stop lying about Tesla's Autopilot mode crashing their cars? One Tesla owner recently filed a Lemon Law claim against the company over a high number of quality control issues.

An anonymous reader writes: Funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and built at the University of Texas at Austin, the Stampede 2 supercomputer looks to contend with the global supercomputer Top 5. With 18 petaflops of processing power, it aims to help any researcher with a problem requiring intense number crunching. For example, atomic and atmospheric science simulations would take years to work-out on a desktop PC but only days on a supercomputer. Texas Advanced Computing Center director Dan Stanzione said in a UT press release, "Stampede has been used for everything from determining earthquake risks to help set building codes for homes and commercial buildings, to computing the largest mathematical proof ever constructed." The Stampede 2 is about twice as powerful as the original Stampede, which was activated in March of 2013. Instead of the 22nm fabrication tech in the original Stampede, the Stampede 2 will feature 14nm Xeon Phi chips codenamed "Knights Landing" forming 72 cores compared the original system's 61 cores. With double the RAM, storage and data bandwidth, the Stampede 2 can shift up to 100 gigabits per second, and its DDR4 RAM can perform fast enough to work as a third-level cache as well as fulfill ordinary memory roles. In addition, it will feature 3D Xpoint non-volatile memory. It will be at least a year before the Stampede 2 is powered up since it just received funding.

A user shares a report that details General Electric's rethinking of the annual raise. Bloomberg reports: "GE executives are reviewing whether annual updates to compensation are the best response to the achievements and needs of employees. The company may also scrap the longstanding and much-imitated system of rating staff on a five-point scale. Decisions on both issues may come within the next several months, spokesperson Valerie Van den Keybus said by phone." "We uncovered an opportunity to improve the way we reward people for their contributions," GE's head of executive development, Janice Semper, said in an e-mailed response to questions. It will involve "being flexible and re-thinking how we define rewards, acknowledging that employees and managers are already thinking beyond annual compensation in this space." In response to this news, ErichTheRed writes: First it was "stack ranking," the process where GE fires the bottom-rated 20% of the workforce every year. Now, a new HR trend may be brewing at GE that is destined to be copied by MBAs everywhere if it takes hold. Personally, in terms of cargo-cult HR trends, I'd take Google's open office nightmare over this one. What do you think this would do to employment stability if widely enacted? I can definitely see banks rethinking 30 year mortgages, for example...

An anonymous reader writes: A team of researchers want to replace transistors with vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes are nothing new, however the ones in development at Caltech's Nanofabrication Group are a million times smaller than the ones in use 100 years ago. "Computer technologies seem to work in cycles," Alan Huang, a former electrical engineer for Bell Laboratories, told the New York Times. "Some of the same algorithms that were developed for the last generation can sometimes be used for the next generation." Dr. Axel Scherer, head of the Nanofabrication Group, said to the New York Times on Sunday, "Ten years ago, silicon transistors could meet all our demands. In the next decade, that will no longer be true." He argues silicon transistors can only take us so far. Vacuum tubes, for comparison, use tiny metal tubes that can control the flow of electricity. They're especially intriguing to researchers as they can provide a better solution to silicon transistors as they can consume less power and take-up a much smaller footprint. The report mentions they have the potential to bring an end to Moore's Law, even if silicon transistors show no signs of disappearing. For example, Lockheed Martin published new cooling methods in March that could help cool chips with tiny drops of water. With that said, Boeing has invested in researching vacuum tube chips. They may appear in the aviation industry before 2020, but it's unlikely we'll see Caltech's research appear in smartphones anytime soon.

An anonymous reader cites an article on USA Today: Selling a used, black-and-white printer through Craigslist seemed simple and straightforward to Doug Costello. It wasn't. What the 66-year-old Massachusetts man didn't know then is that he would spend the next 6 and a half years embroiled in a complicated and confusing legal dispute in Indiana over that printer, which, according to its buyer, was broken. He would find himself liable for about $30,000 in damages. He would pay a lawyer at least $12,000 in his battle to escape the legal mess. And it all started with a piece of hardware he sold online for about $40 in 2009. With shipping and other costs, the total was less than $75, according to court records.Gersh Zavodnik, the printer's buyer, has been described as "prolific, abusive litigant" who has brought dozens of lawsuits against individuals and businesses. He often asks for "astronomical" damages.

Ron Amadeo, reporting for Ars Technica (edited and condensed): Nest CEO Tony Fadell wasn't officially "fired" from Nest, but it certainly feels like it. In just the last few months, Nest has had to deal with reports of an "employee exodus," a string of public insults from Dropcam co-founder and departing Nest employee Greg Duffy, news that even Google supposedly didn't want to work with Nest on a joint project, and fallout from the company's decision to remotely disable Nest's deprecated Revolv devices. [...] It's hard to argue with the decision to "transition" Fadell away from Nest. When Google bought Nest in January 2014, the expectation was that a big infusion of Google's resources and money would supercharge Nest. Nest grew from 280 employees around the time of the Google acquisition to 1200 employees today. In Nest's first year as "a Google company," it used Google's resources to acquire webcam maker Dropcam for $555 million, and it paid an unknown amount for the smart home hub company Revolv. Duffy said Nest was given a "virtually unlimited budget" inside Alphabet. In return for all this investment, Nest delivered very little. Two-and-a-half years under Google/Alphabet, a quadrupling of the employee headcount, and half-a-billion dollars in acquisitions yielded minor yearly updates and a rebranded device. That's all.

An anonymous reader quotes this article about Siemens' army of autonomous spider robots -- each one the size of a microwave, communicating with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to create "a collaborative mind": It's expensive to build an automated factory, and even more pricey to repurpose one. German manufacturing giant Siemens wants that to change, and they've developed an army of robot spiders to make it happen. Utilizing what Siemens calls "mobile manufacturing", researchers in Princeton, New Jersey have built prototype spider-bots that work together to 3D print structures and parts in real time.
Siemens hopes to build even larger spider robots than can weld cars.

The top five PC sellers have big security holes in the third-party tools which updates their software. Now Softpedia follows up with a report that "The ASUS LiveUpdate software that comes pre-installed on all ASUS computers downloads critical BIOS and UEFI updates via plaintext HTTP and installs them without verifying the content's source or validity." An anonymous reader shares this report from developer Morgan Gangwere: "Content is delivered via ZIP archives over plain HTTP, extracted into a temporary directory and an executable run as a user in the "Administrators" NT group ("Highest Permissions" task scheduler).
Softpedia adds that "The attackers wouldn't even need to mess around modifying low-level firmware code because the update process would launch anything you throw at it. This includes spyware, backdoors, remote access trojans, and anything an attacker would wish."

A Swiss airport is testing a robot named Leo which can carry a passenger's luggage once they're approaching the terminal. Leo's baggage compartment opens when passengers press his 'Scan & Fly' touch interface, which can also print luggage tags and display a departure time and boarding gate, before delivering their luggage to a baggage handler. The airport's head of IT said the new robot "limits the number of bags in the airport terminal, helping us accommodate a growing number of passengers without compromising the airport experience inside the terminal." And the robot's developer says it proves that robotics "hold the key to more effective, secure and smarter baggage handling and is major step towards further automating bag handling in airports."

SlappingOysters writes: Sega has a number of fan favorite IP locked away in its vault, and one is about to be let out after a 27-year hiatus. Lizardcube has announced a remake of Wonder Boy 3: The Dragon's Trap for PC and consoles, which originally appeared on the Sega Master System in 1989. The game has a striking, modern visual style, but retains the classic story and gameplay. Lizardcube was founded by ex-developers of Media Molecule and Dreamworks, and the original game's creator, Ryuichi Nishizawa, is also on board. You can watch the reveal trailer here.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's Peggy Johnson said at the Converge conference (Warning: WSJ source paywalled) in Hong Kong this week that the company is not interested in manufacturing its own self-driving cars, but instead is interested in building software for cars. "We won't be building our own autonomous vehicle but we would like to enable autonomous vehicles and assisted driving as well," said Johnson, head of business development at Microsoft. "We in different ways enabled a variety of different partners and you'll see us continuing to do that." Microsoft is open to partners requesting an operating system for cars. The company has partnered with Harman to integrate Microsoft Office 365 into its infotainment systems, bringing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to cars for the first time. "You're sitting in the car for many, many minutes a day. Can that be part of your new office, can it be your new desk, a place where you actually get work done?" asked Johnson. "We believe it can." Two years ago, Microsoft unveiled their "Windows in the car" initiative to compete against Apple's CarPlay.

Trailrunner7 quotes a report from On The Wire: The Federal Trade Commission has sent comments to the Department of Commerce, outlining a list of concerns about the security and privacy of connected and embedded devices, saying that while many IoT devices have tangible benefits for consumers, "these devices also create new opportunities for unauthorized persons to exploit vulnerabilities." One of the key security problems that researchers have cited with IoT devices is the impracticality of updating them when vulnerabilities are discovered. Installing new firmware on light bulbs or refrigerators is not something most consumers are used to, and many manufacturers haven't contemplated those processes either. The FTC said the lack of available updates is a serious problem for consumers and businesses alike. "Although similar risks exist with traditional computers and computer networks, they may be heightened in the IoT, in part because many IoT chips are inexpensive and disposable, and many IoT devices are quickly replaceable with newer versions. As a result, businesses may not have an incentive to support software updates for the full useful life of these devices, potentially leaving consumers with vulnerable devices. Moreover, it may be difficult or impossible to apply updates to certain devices," the FTC comments say. In early May, the FTC issued a 10-page letter to eight leading players in the mobile communications arena requiring them to tell the agency how they issue security patches.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Tony Fadell is stepping down as head of Nest Labs, just over two tumultuous years after selling the smart-home gadget maker to Google. Fadell will leave Nest immediately and be replaced by Marwan Fawaz, former executive vice president of Motorola Mobility where he served as CEO of Motorola Home, Nest said in a statement. Fadell will still advise Alphabet Inc. and Larry Page, the Google co-founder and chief executive officer of the holding company. Nest took longer than expected to release new products and a smoke and carbon monoxide detector was recalled due to software problems. When the company did release an updated product, the Nest Cam security camera in June 2015, Fadell admitted it had been a "grueling" year. In recent months, Nest employees complained publicly about Fadell's management, while claiming the business had missed sales targets, botched upgrades and delayed future products. Fadell said, "I don't know of any regrets that I have. To do what we do at the level we do it, no one's done it before. So you're bound to make mistakes."

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Engadget: Visa is introducing a new ring at the Olympic Games in Rio that will let people pay for things by waving their hand -- no phone, wallet, or battery is needed. The ring, which has yet to be named, features a secure microchip from Gemalto, and an embedded antenna. It is crafted of black or white ceramic, as metal would interfere with the antenna. There will be 20 sizes available during its trial run where it will be available exclusively for employees and partners, as well as the 45 athletes sponsored by Visa. The athletes inspired the creation of the ring, as wallets and typical wearables can be an annoyance to them when they're constantly changing uniforms. The ring is even fit for Olympic swimmers, as it is water resistant up to 50 meters. It never needs to be charged since it draws a tiny amount of power from the payment terminal and transmits far less data than Apple Pay or Android Pay. As for security, the ring can be deactivated from a smartphone, and thanks to tokenization, sensitive data is replaced by a digital identifier that can be used to process payments, so thieves won't be able to use it. There has been some controversy surrounding the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Some doctors have warned that the games could spark a "full-blow public health disaster" with the spread of the Zika virus.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Google's self-driving cars are not only getting smarter by the day, but they're also getting a little bit more polite. According to the project's latest monthly report, the self-driving car team has recently been teaching the car's AI when and how to honk the horn and give the human drivers on the road a helpful heads up. In order to train its honking algorithm, the team tested a variety of honk-worthy situations, like a car backing out of a blind driveway or a car headed the wrong way down a one-way street. At first, the car would play a little honk sound inside the vehicle so engineers could record whether there was a legitimate need for a honk and provide teaching feedback. Once they felt the AI was ready, they let it blare its horn to the world. The report goes on to say Google has "sound-designed the self-driving car's 'hum' so pedestrians and cyclists around the car can hear it coming." The sound increases when the car speeds up, and decreases when the car slows down.

MojoKid quotes a report from HotHardware: If you head over to Apple's website, the Cupertino outfit will happily sell you a 27-inch Thunderbolt display for $999, at least until its inventory runs out. Word on the web is that it's nearly out of stock and Apple doesn't plan to replenish them. Instead, Apple will launch a new version of its Thunderbolt monitor, one that's been upgraded to a 5K resolution and has a discrete GPU stuffed inside. It's an interesting product actually, if you think about it. Depending on the task, it can take some serious graphics muscle to drive a 5K resolution display. It amounts to over 14.7 million pixels (5120x2880), compared to Apple's current generation Thunderbolt display which runs at 2560x1440, or less than 3.7 million pixels. Apple's thinking is likely that if it integrates a GPU capable of driving a 5K resolution into the display itself, it won't have to worry about trying to balance graphics performance with thin and light designs for its future Mac systems.

An anonymous reader writes: At Recode's annual Code Conference, Elon Musk explained how we are almost certainly living in a more advanced civilization's video game. He said: "The strongest argument for us being in a simulation probably is the following. Forty years ago we had pong. Like, two rectangles and a dot. That was what games were. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it's getting better every year. Soon we'll have virtual reality, augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by a thousand from what it is now. Then you just say, okay, let's imagine it's 10,000 years in the future, which is nothing on the evolutionary scale. So given that we're clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality, and those games could be played on any set-top box or on a PC or whatever, and there would probably be billions of such computers or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds that we're in base reality is one in billions. Tell me what's wrong with that argument. Is there a flaw in that argument?" You can watch Elon Musk's full interview on YouTube.

An anonymous reader writes: At its New York City event today, Samsung unveiled two new wearables: an updated Gear Fit 2 activity tracker and IconX wireless earbuds. The Fit 2 features a thinner design than its predecessor, a curvier 1.5" Super AMOLED display, built-in heart-rate monitor, GPS, 4GB of built-in storage, and auto multi-sport and sleep tracking. Samsung promises three to four days of use on a single charge, and they are offering it in two sizes to appeal to male and female users. It's priced at $179, with in-store availability on June 10th. The IconX is Samsung's first truly wireless Bluetooth earbuds, featuring a built-in heart-rate monitor, and the ability to track one's distance and speed. The earbuds feature 4GB of storage, similar to the Fit 2, and are priced at $199 with a Q3 release date. Samsung notes that fitness bands comprise more than 50 percent of the wrist-worn device market, which is a way for the company to justify releasing new devoted fitness devices in addition to smartwatches.

Joseph Cox, reporting for Motherboard: After details emerged of Stuxnet, arguably the world's first digital weapon, there were concerns that other hackers would copy its techniques. Now, researchers have disclosed a piece of industrial control systems (ICS) malware inspired heavily by Stuxnet. Although the copycat malware -- dubbed IRONGATE by cybersecurity company FireEye -- only works in a simulated environment it, like Stuxnet, replaces certain types of files, and was seemingly written to target a specific control system configuration. [...] IRONGATE works within a simulated Siemens environment called PLCSIM, used for testing programs before they are pushed out into the field. Like Stuxnet, IRONGATE replaces a Dynamic Link Library (DLL), a small collection of code that can be used by different programs at the same time, with a malicious one of its own. IRONGATE's DLL records five seconds of traffic from the Siemens' system to the user interface, and replays it over again, potentially tricking whoever is monitoring the system into thinking everything is fine, while the malware might manipulate something else in the background.Dark Reading's coverage on this is also worth a read.