The content below is taken from the original ( Microsoft devises new way of making you feel old: Windows NT is 25), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Windows NT has hit an important milestone. Its launch is now closer to the first Moon landing than it is to today.…
The content below is taken from the original ( PSA: Drone flight restrictions are in force in the UK from today), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Consumers using drones in the UK have new safety restrictions they must obey starting from today, with a change to the law prohibiting drones from being flown above 400ft or within 1km of an airport boundary.
Anyone caught flouting the new restrictions could be charged with recklessly or negligently acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft or a person in an aircraft — which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine, or both.
The safety restrictions were announced by the government in May, and have been brought in via an amendment the 2016 Air Navigation Order.
They’re a stop-gap because the government has also been working on a full drone bill — which was originally slated for Spring but has been delayed.
However the height and airport flight restrictions for drones were pushed forward, given the clear safety risks — after a year-on-year increase in reports of drone incidents involving aircraft.
The Civil Aviation Authorityhas today published research to coincide with the new laws, saying it’s found widespread support among the public for safety regulations for drones.
Commenting in a statement, the regulator’s assistant director Jonathan Nicholson said: “Drones are here to stay, not only as a recreational pastime, but as a vital tool in many industries — from agriculture to blue-light services — so increasing public trust through safe drone flying is crucial.”
“As recreational drone use becomes increasingly widespread across the UK it is heartening to see that awareness of the Dronecode has also continued to rise — a clear sign that most drone users take their responsibility seriously and are a credit to the community,” he added, referring to the (informal) set of rules developed by the body to promote safe use of consumer drones — ahead of the government legislating.
Additional measures the government has confirmed it will legislate for — announced last summer— include a requirement for owners of drones weighing 250 grams or more to register with the CAA, and for drone pilots to take an online safety test. The CAA says these additional requirements will be enforced from November 30, 2019 — with more information on the registration scheme set to follow next year.
For now, though, UK drone owners just need to make sure they’re not flying too high or too close to airports.
Earlier this month it emerged the government is considering age restrictions on drone usetoo. Though it remains to be seen whether or not those proposals will make it into the future drone bill.
The content below is taken from the original ( Chinese “hackers” are sending malware via snail mail), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
In what amounts to one of the simplest but most baffling forms of social engineering, hackers from China have taken to sending CDs full of malware to state officials, leading the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a government security outfit, to release a warning detailing the scam.
The trick is simple: a package arrives with a Chinese postmark containing a rambling message and a small CD. The CD, in turn, contains a set of Word files that include script-based malware. These scripts run when the victims access them on their computers, presumably resulting in compromised systems.
“The MS-ISAC said preliminary analysis of the CDs indicate they contain Mandarin language Microsoft Word (.doc) files, some of which include malicious Visual Basic scripts,” wrote security researcher Brian Krebs. “So far, State Archives, State Historical Societies, and a State Department of Cultural Affairs have all received letters addressed specifically to them, the MS-ISAC says. It’s not clear if anyone at these agencies was tricked into actually inserting the CD into a government computer.”
While it should be obvious that you shouldn’t stick unrequested storage media into your computer, clearly this scam seemed feasible enough for someone to spend a little cash to make and ship these little CD-ROMs. CD ROMs. Now they just have to target victims who still use CD readers.
The content below is taken from the original ( AWS Config best practices), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
AWS Config is a service that maintains a configuration history of your AWS resources and evaluates the configuration against best practices and your internal policies. You can use this information for operational troubleshooting, audit, and compliance use cases. In this blog post, I share best practices on how to use AWS Config as a tool for enabling governance across your enterprise.
1. Enable AWS Config in all accounts and Regions.
This is an industry best practice recommended by the Center for Internet Security (CIS). By using AWS Config you can audit the configuration of your AWS resources and ensure that they comply with configuration best practices. You can use AWS CloudFormation StackSets to enable AWS Config in multiple accounts and Regions using a common CloudFormation template.
2. Record configuration changes to ALL resource types.
When you are setting up AWS Config, select “All resources” for the resource types that need to be recorded in AWS Config. This ensures that you have a comprehensive configuration audit in place because AWS Config supports more than 60 different resource types in AWS. New resource types would automatically be recorded via this setting.
3. Record global resources (such as IAM resources) only in one Region.
This ensures that you don’t get redundant copies of IAM configuration Items in every Region. It also controls your costs.
4. Ensure that you have a secure Amazon S3 bucket to collect the configuration history and snapshot files.
Your Amazon S3 bucket receives configuration history and configuration snapshot files, which contain details for the resources that AWS Config records. This S3 bucket should not be publicly readable or writeable. Follow S3 security best practices and turn on the two Config Rules that identify buckets that are publicly accessible.
5. Specify an Amazon S3 bucket from another (central IT) account for centralized management of history files and snapshots.
This is especially valuable in an enterprise scenario where a central IT/InfoSec account needs to collect data from multiple accounts.
6. Specify an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic from another (central IT) account for centralized management of configuration and compliance notifications.
AWS Config streams all configuration and compliance change notifications to an SNS topic. Use a central topic to gather notifications from multiple accounts on your enterprise in case they need to be processed by a central IT/InfoSec team.
7. Use Amazon CloudWatch Events to filter AWS Config notifications and take action.
AWS Config streams all configuration and compliance change notifications to CloudWatch Events, in addition to SNS. This means that you can use the native filtering capabilities in CloudWatch Events to filter AWS Config events so that you can route specific types of notifications to specific targets. For example, you can send compliance notifications for specific rules or resource types to specific email addresses, or route configuration change notifications to an external ITSM/CMDB tool.
8. Set the appropriate permissions for the IAM role assigned to AWS Config
An AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role lets you define a set of permissions. AWS Config assumes the role that you assign to it to write to your S3 bucket, publish to your SNS topic, and to make Describe or List API requests get configuration details for your AWS resources. When you use the AWS Config console to create or update an IAM role, AWS Config automatically attaches the required permissions for you. But if you are using the AWS CLI to set up AWS Config or you are updating an existing IAM role, you must manually update the policy to allow AWS Config to access your S3 bucket, publish to your SNS topic, and get configuration details about your resources. For more details, please see Permissions for the IAM role assigned to AWS Config.
9. If you prefer to create an IAM role for AWS Config yourself, use the AWS managed policy AWSConfigRole and attach it to the IAM role.
AWS updates this IAM policy each time AWS Config adds support for an AWS resource type. This means that AWS Config will continue to have the required permissions to get configuration details as long as the role has this managed policy attached. Note: If you create or update a role using the AWS Management Console, AWS Config attaches the AWSConfigRole for you.
10. Ensure that the SNS topic permissions are restricted to only allow AWS Config to publish messages to it.
AWS Config must have permissions to send notifications to an SNS topic. If you use the AWS Config console to set up your delivery channel with a new SNS topic or you choose an SNS topic that already exists in your account, these permissions are automatically added to the SNS topic. However, if you specify an existing topic from another account or you set up your delivery channel using the API, you must make sure that the topic has the correct permissions.
11. Turn on periodic snapshots with a minimum frequency of once per day.
This ensures that the latest configuration state of all resources in your account is backed up daily.
12. Use the AWS CloudTrail Lookup API action to find the API events that occurred in the timeframe when the configuration change occurred.
The AWS Config console uses the Lookup Events API action to retrieve the API events from AWS CloudTrail around the timeframe when a configuration change was recorded in AWS Config. If you are consuming the AWS Config data programmatically, use this API action to correlate the configuration changes detected in AWS Config to the API events in AWS CloudTrail.
13. Create change-triggered custom rules for resource types supported in AWS Config.
When creating custom rules, create change–triggered rules versus periodic rules to ensure that your resources get evaluated for compliance every time there is a configuration change. For more information, see AWS Supported Resource Types and Resource Relationships.
14. Create periodic rules for resource types not supported in AWS Config.
Even though AWS Config tracks changes for a limited number of resources today, you can still create periodic AWS Config rules to evaluate the configuration of resources that are not yet supported in AWS Config, by using custom rules.
15. Use the AWS Config Rule Development Kit (RDK) for authoring custom rules.
The RDK simplifies the authoring experience and validates the rule for various resource types.
16. Use the AWS Config Rules repository, a community-based source of custom AWS Config rules.
This new repository gives you a streamlined way to automate your assessment and compliance against best practices for security of AWS resources.
17. Use Annotations.
For custom rules, while submitting put-evaluations, use “annotations” to add supplementary information about how the evaluation determined the compliance.
18. Don’t delete and re-create a rule in the same month.
AWS Config rules are charged a fixed amount per active rule per month. If you delete a rule and re-create it later in the month, you will be charged again for the rule. Note that the rule is considered active only if it gets triggered either by a periodic setting or a configuration change on an underlying resource. If there are no resources in an account, then the rule would not get triggered. Hence there is no real benefit in deleting a rule.
19. Use the data aggregation feature to aggregate compliance results into a central account.
This feature allows you to aggregate AWS Config Rules compliance statuses from multiple accounts and Regions into a single account to provide an organization-wide view of your compliance.
20. Create an organizations-based aggregator to aggregate AWS Config data from your entire organization.
This simplifies the setup experience, and it also automatically updates the aggregator when accounts join/leave your organization.
About the Author
Sid Gupta is a Sr. Product Manager for AWS Config. AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. Sid enjoys working with customers and help them implement cloud security best practices. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, reading and spending time with his kids.
The content below is taken from the original ( Talking To Alexa With Sign Language), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
As William Gibson once noted, the future is already here, it just isn’t equally distributed. That’s especially true for those of us with disabilities. [Abishek Singh] wanted to do something about that, so he created a way for the hearing-impaired to use Amazon’s Alexa voice service. He did this using a TensorFlow deep learning network to convert American Sign Language (ASL) to speech and a speech-to-text converter to interpret the response. This all runs on a laptop, so it should work with any voice interface with a bit of tweaking. In particular, [Abishek] seems to have created a custom bit of ASL to trigger Alexa. Perhaps the next step would be to use a robotic arm to create the output directly in ASL and cut out the Echo device completely? [Abishek] has not released the code for this project yet, but he has released the code for other projects, such as Peeqo, the robot that responds with GIFs.
[Via FlowingData and [Belg4mit]]
The content below is taken from the original ( UK proposal sets minimum age for drone use), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
The content below is taken from the original ( Microsoft Releases Remote Desktop Web Client for Windows Server 2016 and 2019 Preview), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Microsoft has announced this week Remote Desktop Web Client general availability for Windows Server 2016 and 2019 Preview.
At last year’s Ignite, Microsoft announced that it was working on an HTML5 web client for Remote Desktop Services (RDS) that would allow users to connect to Windows Server remote desktops and apps from any browser without additional software. At the end of March, a preview was made available. Last week, Microsoft announced that the Remote Desktop Web Client had reached general availability for Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 Preview.
It has been possible to connect to a remote desktop via a browser for some time using Remote Desktop Web Connection. But it requires Internet Explorer and an ActiveX control, both of which are legacy technologies that Microsoft has deprecated in Windows 10. And because of the reliance on IE, users of non-Windows platforms couldn’t use it. ActiveX Controls also come with their own security issues and management headaches.
Remote Desktop Web Client is released for Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 Preview (Image Credit: Microsoft)
That’s where the new HTML5 web client comes in. It works cross platform because it doesn’t rely on proprietary Microsoft technologies. There is official support for Edge, IE11+, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari but mobile devices are not currently supported. The client can be added to existing Windows Server 2016 Remote Desktop Services (RDS) deployments and it is built-in to the preview version of Windows Server 2019, which is due for release later this year. Microsoft says that the current release supports the following features:
Before you can use the web client, your RDS deployment will need to have an RD Gateway, an RD Connection Broker, and the RD Web Access role installed. RDS must be configured for per-user CAL licensing. If you are running Windows Server 2016, the July 18th 2017 cumulative update (KB4025334) should be installed on the RD Gateway. The OS build must be 14393.1532 or higher. Finally, public trusted certificates need to be configured for the RD Gateway and RD Web Access roles. You can find instructions on how to add the web client to Windows Server 2016 using PowerShell here.
The release of an HTML5 client for RDS is long overdue. Citrix XenDesktop includes similar functionality, but it also supports mobile devices and offers a more flexible solution than Microsoft RDS. Microsoft’s web client doesn’t support all the features available in the native Remote Desktop Connection software that is built-in to Windows. For instance, Remote Desktop Connection has full printing support and the ability to connect to remote server drives. The new web client is a good start but for companies that rely heavily on terminal services, it won’t be up to the job of replacing a Citrix.
The post Microsoft Releases Remote Desktop Web Client for Windows Server 2016 and 2019 Preview appeared first on Petri.
The content below is taken from the original ( New recommendations in Azure Advisor), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Azure Advisor is a free service that analyzes your Azure usage and provides recommendations on how you can optimize your Azure resources to reduce costs, boost performance, strengthen security, and improve reliability.
We are excited to announce that we have added several new Azure Advisor recommendations to help you get the most out of your Azure subscriptions.
Azure Reserved Instances (RIs) allow you to reserve virtual machines (VMs) in advance on a one or three-year term and save up to 80 percent versus pay-as-you go rates. RIs are ideal for workloads with predictable, consistent traffic.
Azure Advisor will analyze your last 30 days of VM usage and recommend purchasing RIs when it may provide cost savings. Advisor will show you the regions and VM sizes where you could save money and give you an estimate of your potential savings from purchasing RIs if your usage remains consistent with the previous 30 days.
Azure Service Health is a free service that provides personalized guidance and support when Azure service issues might affect you. You can create Service Health alerts for any region or service so that you and your teams stay informed via the Azure portal, email, text message, or webhook notification when business-critical resources could be impacted.
Azure Advisor will identify your subscriptions that do not have Service Health alerts configured and recommend that you set up alerts on those subscriptions.
Azure technical support plans give you access to Azure experts when you need assistance. Azure offers a range of support options to best fit your needs, whether you’re a developer just starting your cloud journey or a large organization deploying business-critical applications.
Azure Advisor will identify subscriptions with a high amount of monthly Azure spend that are likely running strategic workloads and recommend upgrading your support plan to include technical support.
Azure Traffic Manager allows you to control the distribution of user traffic for service endpoints in different datacenters and optimize for performance and availability. Azure Advisor has added new recommendations to solve common configuration issues with Traffic Manager profiles.
Time to Live (TTL) settings on your Traffic Manager profile allow you to specify how quickly to switch endpoints if a given endpoint stops responding to queries. Reducing the TTL value means that clients will be routed to functioning endpoints faster.
Azure Advisor will identify Traffic Manager profiles with a longer TTL configured and will recommend configuring the TTL to either 20 seconds or 60 seconds depending on whether the profile is configured for Fast Failover.
If all endpoints in a Traffic Manager profile configured for proximity routing are in the same region, users from other regions may experience connection delays. Adding or moving an endpoint to another region will improve overall performance and provide better availability if all endpoints in one region fail.
Azure Advisor will identify Traffic Manager profiles configured for proximity routing where all the endpoints are in the same region and recommend that you either add or move an endpoint to another Azure region.
If a Traffic Manager profile is configured for geographic routing, then traffic is routed to endpoints based on defined regions. If a region fails, there is no pre-defined failover. Having an endpoint where the Regional Grouping is configured to “All (World)” will avoid traffic being dropped and improve service availability.
Azure Advisor will identify Traffic Manager profiles configured for geographic routing where there is no endpoint configured to have the Regional Grouping as “All (World)” and recommend making that configuration change.
Traffic Manager profiles with more than one endpoint experience higher availability if any given endpoint fails. Placing these endpoints in different regions further improves service reliability.
Azure Advisor will identify Traffic Manager profiles where there is only one endpoint and recommend adding at least one more endpoint in another region.
Visit the Azure Advisor webpage to learn more, and get started using Azure Advisor in the Azure portal. See the Azure Advisor documentation for assistance, and if you have any feedback, don’t hesitate to share it with us in the tool.
The content below is taken from the original ( Google launches a standalone version of Drive for businesses that don’t want the full G Suite), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
If you are a business and want to use Google Drive, then your only option until now was to buy a full G Suite subscription, even if you don’t want or need access to the rest of the company’s productivity tools. Starting today, though, these businesses businesses, will be able to buy a subscription to a standalone stand-alone version of Google Drive, too.
Google says that a standalone version of Drive stand-along version of drive has been at the top of the list of requests from prospective customers, so it’s now giving this option to them in the form of this new service (though to be honest, I’m not sure how much demand there really is for this product). Standalone Stand-along Google Drive will come with all the usual online storage and sharing features as the G Suite version.
Pricing will be based on usage. Google will charge $8 per month per active user and $0.04 per GB stored in a company’s Drive.
Google’s idea here is surely to convert those standalone stand-alone Drive users to full G Suite users over time, but it’s also an acknowledgement on Google’s part that not every business is ready to move away from legacy email tools and desktop-based productivity applications like Word and Excel just yet (and that its online productivity suite may not be right for all of those businesses, too).
Drive, by the way, is going to hit a billion users this week, Google keeps saying. I guess I appreciate that they don’t want to jump the gun and are actually waiting for that to happen instead of just announcing it now when it’s convenient. Once it does, though, it’ll become the company’s eighth product with more than a billion users.
The content below is taken from the original ( Canadian Storage Breakthrough Could Fit 138TB on a Postage Stamp), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Hard drive manufacturers have been using helium to help boost hard drive storage capacity for several years. Now a team of Canadian researchers has made a major storage breakthrough thanks to another element. […]
The post Canadian Storage Breakthrough Could Fit 138TB on a Postage Stamp appeared first on Geek.com.
The content below is taken from the original ( visualstudio2017-powershelltools (3.0.569)), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
A set of tools for developing and debugging PowerShell scripts and modules in Visual Studio.
The content below is taken from the original ( G Suite now lets businesses choose whether their data is stored in the US or Europe), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Data sovereignty is a major issue for many major companies, especially in Europe. So far, Google’s G Suite, which includes products like Gmail, Google Docs and Sheets, didn’t give users any control over where their data was stored at rest, but that’s changing today. As the company announced at its Cloud Next conference in San Francisco, G Suite users can now choose where to store whether their primary data for select G Suite apps: in the U.S. or in Europe.
These new data regions are now available to all G Suite Business and Enterprise customers at no additional cost.
“What this means is that for organizations with data- or geo-control requirements, G Suite will now let them choose where to store the primary a copy of their data for G Suite apps like Gmail should be stored at rest,” said G Suite VP of product management David Thacker.
Google is also adding a tool that makes it easy to move data to another region as employees move between jobs and organizations.
“Given PwC is a global network with operations in 158 countries, I am very happy to see Google investing in data regions for G Suite and thrilled by how easy and intuitive it will be to set up and manage multi-region policies for our domain,” said Rob Tollerton, director of IT at PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, in a canned statement about this new feature.
The content below is taken from the original ( Score one for the IT Pro: Azure File Sync is now generally available!), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Azure File Sync replicates files from your on-premises Windows Server to an Azure file share. With Azure File Sync, you don’t have to choose between the benefits of cloud and the benefits of your on-premises file server – you can have both! Azure File Sync enables you to centralize your file services in Azure while maintaining local access to your data.
Visit our planning guide product page to learn more about Azure File Sync.
We created Microsoft Azure Files with the goal of making it easy for you to reap the benefits of cloud storage. We know from decades of experience building Windows file server that file shares are useful for more than just application development; file shares are used for everything under the sun. With Azure Files, we are focused on building general purpose file shares that can replace all the file servers and NAS devices your organization has, and today, we are happy to share an important milestone on that journey: the general availability of Azure File Sync!
Azure File Sync grew out of our conversations with thousands of customers about the challenge of balancing the need for local and fast access to their frequently accessed data with the maintenance and time cost of managing on-premises storage. Azure File Sync replicates files from your on-premises Windows Server to an Azure file share, just like how you might have used DFS-R to replicate data between Windows Servers. Once you have a copy of your data in Azure, you can enable cloud tiering—the real magic of Azure File Sync—to store only the hottest and most recently accessed data on-premises. And since the cloud has a full copy of your data, you can connect as many servers to your Azure file share as you want, allowing you to establish quick caches of your data wherever your users happen to be. As mentioned above, in simple terms, Azure File Sync enables you to centralize your file services in Azure while maintaining local access to your data.
Having a copy of the data in the cloud enables you to do more. For example, you can nearly instantly recover from the loss of server with our fast disaster recovery feature. No matter what happens to your local server – a bad update, damaged physical disks, or something worse, you can rest easy knowing the cloud has a fully resilient copy of your data. Simply connect your new Windows Server to your existing sync group, and your namespace will be pulled down right away for use.
When we announced Azure File Sync last year at Ignite, we thought it would help a lot of organizations on their cloud journeys but nothing could have prepared us for the groundswell of interest in Azure Files and Azure File Sync. For the general availability of Azure File Sync, we focused on addressing your feedback from using Azure File Sync in preview. Here are a few of our top innovations and enhancements in Azure File Sync since our initial preview:
For us, the general availability of Azure File Sync is just the start of the innovations we plan to bring to Azure Files and Azure File Sync. We have a whole series of new features and incremental improvements to deliver throughout the summer and fall, including support for and tighter integration with Windows Server 2019! Stay tuned – we think you’ll like what we have for you! See you at Ignite!
Visit our product page to learn more about Azure File Sync.
The content below is taken from the original ( Picard 2.0 released), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Hey people, samj1912 here again o/
This time we are announcing the release of a new Picard!
Official MusicBrainz cross-platform music tagger Picard 2.0 is now out, containing many fixes and new features and much needed upgrades!
The last time we put out a major release was more than 6 years ago (Picard 1.0 in June of 2012), so this release comes with a major back-end update. If you’re in a hurry and just want to try it out, the downloads are available from the Picard website.
If you have been following our Picard related blogs, you will know that we switched up our dependenciesa bit. Python should now be at least version 3.5, PyQt 5.7 or newer and Mutagen should be 1.37 or newer. A side effect of this dependency bump is that Picard should look betterand in general feel more responsive.
A couple of things to note – with Picard 2.0, Picard Windows builds will be portable standalone binaries. Also, we will only be supporting 64-bit Windows officially because of lack of resources to build a 32-bit image. The macOS requirements were also bumped up for the same reasons, with macOS 10.10 being the lowest version that is supported.
As such, Picard 1.4.2 will be the last version that is supported for both Windows 32 and macOS 10.7-10.10. You can find it in the Picard downloads section as well.
You can find a detailed change-log on the Picard webiste.
The highlights of this update are –
We would like to thank all contributors, from all around the world, who helped for this release: Laurent Monin, Sophist, Wieland Hoffmann, Vishal Choudhary, Philipp Wolfer, Calvin Walton, David Mandelberg, Paul Roub, Yagyansh Bhatia, Shen-Ta Hsieh, Ville Skyttä, Yvan Rivierre and also all of our translators!
Be aware that downgrading from 2.0 to 1.4 may lead to configuration compatibility issues – ensure that you have saved your Picard configuration before using 2.0 if you intend to go back to 1.4.
Note:If you are facing errors while tagging releases on Windows, do take a look at this FAQ about SSL errors.
The content below is taken from the original ( Pioneer’s DJ app can upload your mixes directly to SoundCloud), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
The content below is taken from the original ( CloudHealth Technologies Announces Support for Google Cloud Platform), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
CloudHealth Technologies , trusted cloud management platform provider, today announced support for Google Cloud Platform. Through this offering,… Read more at VMblog.com.
The content below is taken from the original ( Amazon’s new Part Finder helps you shop for those odd nuts and bolts), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Got an odd screw, nut, bolt, washer or fastener you need to buy more of, but have no idea to how to find the right one? Amazon’s AR “Part Finder” can help. The company has rolled out a new feature on mobile that lets you point your camera at the item in question, so Amazon can scan it, measure it, then direct you to matching items from its product catalog.
The company didn’t announce the feature’s launch, but confirmed to us it was rolled out to all users a couple of weeks ago.
The feature takes advantage of the iPhone’s camera and its augmented reality capabilities to measure the object in question – a process it walks you through when you first launch “Part Finder” by tapping the Camera button next to the search box in the Amazon app.
This is the area where Amazon has added a number of product-finding functions that let consumers search for products without entering text. For example, here is where you’ll find the barcode scanner, the image recognition-based product search, package X-Ray, Smilecode scanner, AR View, and more.
To use Part Finder, you first tap the icon to launch the feature, then place the object on a white surface next to a penny, as instructed. (A piece of white paper worked well.)
The instructions explain how to correctly tilt the phone in order to measure the part. This involves an augmented reality display of a crosshairs and circle that appear on the white surface in the camera’s viewfinder. You tilt the phone until the circle is lined up in the center of the crosshairs.
Amazon’s app then scans the item and delivers results, assuming the product is in focus and you’ve followed the instructions properly.
On the following screen, you add more information to help narrow down the results. For example, we scanned a screw and it asked for other details like whether it was a flat head and the drive type. (Some of this information could have been derived from the scan, one would think, so it’s not clear how much Amazon is relying on the scan itself versus user input here.)
Of course, a screw is an easier thing to find on Amazon. The feature will be a lot more handy when you’re stuck with an odd part that you don’t know how to identify. Unfortunately, we don’t currently have a bunch of unintended parts lying around to test.
Amazon’s Part Finder is one of the more practical examples of AR technology, which can be used to determine the size of real-world objects using a smartphone’s camera. Apple, for example, is introducing a new app in iOS 12 called “Measure” which will let you point your iPhone at things like picture frames, posters and signs, tables, and other objects, to get automatic measurements.
Amazon is not the only retailer using AR to improve the shopping experience. Many other retailers are also taking advantage of the technology – like Wayfair, Houzz and Targetare for visualizing furniture in your own room. Topology is using AR to let you virtually try on custom-fit glasses. Target is letting shoppers try on makeup at home in its mobile AR Studio. Ebay’s AR tool helps sellers find the right box for their items. And so on.
The Part Finder feature is currently showing up in Amazon’s app on iOS. No word yet on its Android release.
The Part Finder uses computer vision technology, not augmented reality, we’ve learned. An earlier version of this post said otherwise. We’ve updated the article to reflect this.
The content below is taken from the original ( AWS launches on-premises EC2 instances for reverse hybrid cloud), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
In a major departure from its usual cloud-only stance, Amazon Web Services has announced it’s now possible to run EC2 instances with on-premises hardware – but only its own Snowball Edge devices.…
The content below is taken from the original ( Notes/Domino is alive! Second beta of version 10 is imminent), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
IBM’s effort to make its Notes/Domino platform relevant for the future kicks up a gear this week, as the company prepares a second beta of a new version 10.…
The content below is taken from the original ( Microsoft Font Maker lets you create custom fonts for free), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Microsoft has been at the forefront when it comes to offering the best fonts for different needs. The Office products like Microsoft Word have been the go-to option for folks as it also supports fonts for regional languages. That apart […]
This post Microsoft Font Maker lets you create custom fonts for free is from TheWindowsClub.com.
The content below is taken from the original ( Teardown Of USB Fan Reveals Journalists’ Lack Of Opsec), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Last month, Singapore hosted a summit between the leaders of North Korea and the United States. Accredited journalists invited to the event were given a press kit containing a bottle of water, various paper goods, and a fan that plugs into a USB port.
Understandably, the computer security crowd on Twitter had a great laugh. You shouldn’t plug random USB devices into a computer, especially if you’re a journalist, especially if you’re in a foreign country, and especially if you’re reporting on the highest profile international summit in recent memory. Doing so is just foolhardy.
This is not a story about a USB fan, the teardown thereof, or of spy agencies around the world hacking journalists’ computers. This a story of the need for higher awareness on what we plug into our computers. In this case nothing came of it — the majority of USB devices are merely that and nothing more. One of the fans was recently torn down (PDF) and the data lines are not even connected. (I’ll dive into that later on in this article). But the anecdote provides an opportunity to talk about USB security and how the compulsion to plug every USB device into a computer should be interrupted by a few seconds of thoughtfulness first.
The best example of why you shouldn’t plug a random USB device into your computer is Stuxnet. This worm, discovered in 2010, was specifically designed to compromise Iranian nuclear centrifuges, and had the effect of destroying one-fifth of Iran’s Uranium enrichment capability, and infected hundreds of thousands of computers.
Although it’s been about ten years since the Stuxnet worm was deployed, it remains the most impressive cyber weapon of all time. Stuxnet used four 0-day exploits to specifically target the programmable logic controllers of nuclear centrifuges, gradually increasing and decreasing the operating speed, until one thousand of these machines were destroyed. Whoever wrote Stuxnet — the current best guess is a collaboration between US and Israeli intelligence agencies — had deep knowledge of Windows exploits and the Siemens programmable logic controller software found on these centrifuges. While Stuxnet was quite sophisticated, it was initially deployed using decidedly low-tech means.
Stuxnet first found its way into Iranian nuclear facilities through a USB thumb drive. The exact details are not known, but all signs point to someone plugging an untrusted device into a computer without considering the ramifications.
So just what does an attack with a random USB device look like? Several different approaches have popped up over the years and they’re all rather fascinating.
The best, and easiest, way to get into a computer with a USB device is with a keystroke injection attack. This is best accomplished with a USB Rubber Ducky, a small device that looks like a USB thumb drive. Instead of storage, the USB Rubber Ducky contains a microcontroller that emulates a normal USB keyboard and will send keystroke payloads to a computer automatically. For example, if you’re on a Windows computer, typing Alt+F4 will close your current window. If you program a USB Rubber Ducky to emit the ‘Alt-F4’ keyboard combination when it’s plugged in, the USB Rubber Ducky will close the currently focused window.
These exploits can be expanded. Programming the USB Rubber Ducky with a more sophisticated script could change a computer’s hosts file. Whenever a user types in google.com into their browser’s address bar, the computer would pull up goggle.com. Software payloads could be downloaded through the command line, installing keyloggers. Passwords can be stolen in a matter of seconds with a keystroke injection attack.
This class of attacks falls under the banner of BadUSB attacks, something first discussed in 2014. It’s not just a USB Rubber Ducky, either: normal thumb drives can be reprogrammed to perform keystroke injection attacks, and a one dollar microcontroller can be programmed to perform the same attack.
Concerning implementation, the only necessary components for this attack would be a small microcontroller and a handful of passive components. This microcontroller would connect to the computer over the D+ and D- lines found in every USB port. Given a (physically) small enough microcontroller, a USB spy device could look identical to a USB-powered fan. The only way to tell the difference is to take it apart and look at the circuit board.
In addition to a USB ducky, an attack via USB device could take the form of COTTONMOUTH, a device created by the NSA and leaked to the world through the NSA ANT Catalog in 2013. TURNIPSCHOOL is a ‘clone’ of COTTONMOUTH developed by Great Scott Gadgets and demonstrated at Shmoocon 2015. This small circuit board that fits inside the plastic plug of a USB device. This small circuit board can become a custom USB device under remote control. Think of it as a wireless USB keyboard.
But USB attacks aren’t limited to turning a USB fan into a USB keyboard. The USBee attack turns the data bus on a USB connector into an antenna, allowing for data exfiltration over radio. If you’re a state-level actor handing out USB devices to journalists and you want some lulz, the USB Killer is a great choice; this will simply fry the USB port (and possibly more) in any computer.
In short, there are dozens of ways a USB device can be harmful. They all have one thing in common, though: they all use microcontrollers, or obviously complex electronics. All of them will have a connection to the D+ and D- or TX and RX lines in a USB port. Knowing this, we can define a threat model of what an attack via a random USB device will look like. We also know how to test that threat: if there’s some measurable resistance between the D+ and D- lines in the USB port (somewhere between a few hundred kiloohms to a few megaohms), there might be something there.
Thanks to a reporter from The Economist, [Sergei Skorobogatov] of Cambridge University analyzed one of the USB fans distributed at the Singapore summit. The first step of the analysis was to probe the D+ and D- lines of the USB port. These connections are how every USB device transmits data to and from a computer. If these lines are disconnected, no data can be transferred to a computer. The first step of the analysis found a resistance above 1 Gigaohm, suggesting they were disconnected from everything else. Since this is a USB-C connector, the TX1 and TX2 data lines were also probed, finding they too were disconnected from everything else.
[Skorobogatov]’s visual inspection of the circuit board revealed VCONN connected to VBUS through a resistor. Two diodes are on the board, probably to reduce the voltage to the electric motor. There was no complex electronic device inside this particular USB fan distributed at the Singapore conference. This device was clean, but that could only be established after careful inspection.
It should be noted that resistance between the D- and D+ lines in a USB port is not evidence of any spyware, malware, or other spy device. Resistors tied to the data lines of a USB port are used for device negotiation of USB chargers. If the designers of this USB fan wanted to draw more than 500 mA from a USB port (unlikely, but let’s just roll with it), they would have to install resistors on the data lines. Therefore, a complete analysis of any USB must include a visual inspection of the circuit board.
The journalist who started this whole mess by posting the image of the USB fan drive on Twitter is extremely capable and competent. As a war correspondent he faced great peril in Egypt in 2011 and during the Libyan civil war to name just two of his reporting assignments. Simply by virtue of living through those experiences, this journalist knows something about physical security. But computer security is more abstract and the same instincts are harder to apply.
The real story here is that accomplished journalists would be grateful for a random USB device given to them by a foreign government. There is every indication this journalist actually plugged this USB fan into his computer. But even if he went the safe route and opted to use a USB battery or a cable with data lines disconnected to protect against malware, I’m sure others didn’t take precautions. Out of 2500 journalists at the Singapore summit, some unquestionably plugged this threat into their computer.
There is a massive, massive gulf of understanding between otherwise competent professionals and the most basic tenets of computer security. So spread the word when you have the chance: Don’t give your passwords to people. Don’t reuse passwords. And don’t plug random USB devices into your computer.
The content below is taken from the original ( Casper opens a storefront for $25 naps), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Casper is opening a storefront designed specifically for sleepy New Yorkers in need of a nap.
In The Dreamery, you can reserve nooks for 45 minutes at a time, at a cost of $25 per session. These nooks are basically giant wooden “O”s with curtains and soundproofed backing, and of course they’re stocked with Casper beds.
It’s easy to dismiss or giggle about a nap store, but it seems a lot less funny when it’s a warm afternoon and you’re having trouble keeping your eyes open at work. In fact, I will happily confess to taking advantage of the TechCrunch New York couch after a big lunch, or after a morning that started stupidly early thanks to deadlines and embargoes.
The Dreamery, of course, is a lot fancier than the office couch, as I discovered when I dropped by for a quick tour. Beyond the nooks themselves, there are also lockers to drop off your stuff, private washrooms to get cleaned up, a lounge for hanging out and drinking coffee before or after, plus additional amenities like pajamas and Headspace Heaspace “sleepcasts.” (And yes, a Casper spokesperson assured me that the sheets are changed between each session.)
“The Dreamery is about making sleep and rest a part of our regular wellness routines — similar to how many people prioritize a workout class,” said COO Neil Parikh in a statement. “The concept enables us to pilot new ways of bringing better sleep to more people and to more places — whether that’s here, the workplace, airports, or beyond.”
Oh, and this new storefront is located on the same New York City block as a Casper sleep store, so it should be a pretty quick walk if you love the experience so much that you want to take a mattress home.
The content below is taken from the original ( Welcome our newest family member – Data Box Disk), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Last year at Ignite, I talked to you about the preview of Azure Data Box, a ruggedized, portable, and simple way to move large datasets into Azure. So far, the response has been phenomenal. Customers have used Data Box to move petabytes of data into Azure.
While our customers and partners love Data Box, they told us that they also wanted a lower capacity, even easier-to-use option. They cited examples such as moving data from Remote/Office Branch Offices (ROBOs), which have smaller data sets and minimal on-site tech support. They said they needed an option for recurring, incremental transfers for ongoing backups and archives. And they said it needed to have the same traits as Data Box – namely fast, simple, and secure.
Got it. We hear the message loud and clear. So, I’m here today with our partners at Inspire 2018 to announce a new addition to the Data Box family: Azure Data Box Disk.
Data Box Disk leverages the same infrastructure and management experience as Azure Data Box. You can receive up to five 8TB disks, totaling 40TB per order. Data Box Disk is fast, utilizing SSD technology, and is shipped overnight, so you can complete a data transfer job in as little as one week.
The disks connect via USB or SATA, and simple commands such as robocopy or drag-and-drop can be used to move data. Quick and easy. Once returned to the Azure DC, your data is securely uploaded, and the disks are cryptographically erased. Data Box Disk uses AES 128-bit encryption, so your data is safe at every point in the process — just like Data Box.
Our customers and partners constantly amaze me with the creative ways they use our products, and Data Box Disk is no exception. For example, it turns out that disks are a great form-factor for autonomous vehicle research: the small form factor of disks provide the right balance between capacity and portability to collect and transport test vehicle data into Azure.
One such customer is LG, which is using Data Box Disk at an autonomous vehicle test center in South Korea.
“We needed a way to transfer massive amounts of data for our autonomous vehicle projects, which are based all around the world. The solution needed to be portable, simple to use, cost-effective and, of course, very secure. The Azure Data Box Disk met all of those criteria. Overall it was a very good experience, beginning with Microsoft’s fast response to our business requirement and including its continuing engineering support along the way’”. – Hyoyuel (Andy) Kim, Senior Manager, Vehicle Component Company, LG Electronics
Data Box Disk Preview is available in the EU and US, and we’re continuing to expand to other Azure regions in the coming months. The Preview is currently free; look for more information on pricing later this year. Customers and CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) Partners are invited to sign up for the Data Box Preview on the same portal as Data Box Preview, which is still available half price – now also in the EU and UK! ISV Partners, please sign up on our Partner Portal.
If you’re at Inspire, please stop by our booth, we’d love to show you the Data Box family. If you can’t make it this year, please do check out the Azure site or contact your Microsoft rep for more info. Stay tuned, as we’ve got even more cool stuff coming out in the coming months!
Your feedback is important to us. Leave your comments below and let us know what you think about today’s update to the Azure Data Box Family and what we can do to keep improving our service!
The content below is taken from the original ( Licensing Exchange Online Shared Mailboxes), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Beginning later this month, Microsoft will change the provisioning process for Exchange Online shared mailboxes to ensure that these mailboxes receive a 50 GB quota. Microsoft’s documentation has always said that shared mailboxes get 50 GB, but errors in the provisioning process led to the allocation of 100 GB quotas, just like regular user mailboxes.
Shared mailboxes can have a 100 GB quota, but only if they have an Exchange Online Plan 2 license. However, unlicensed mailboxes that received a 100 GB quota keep it unless the mailbox’s “state” changes. In other words, if you convert a shared mailbox to be a user mailbox. If an unlicensed shared mailbox grows past 50 GB, Exchange will stop delivering email to the mailbox until the size is reduced under the quota or it is licensed.
Shared mailboxes also need licenses if they have archives (including auto-expanding archives) or you apply a litigation hold to the mailbox.
Despite the availability of more modern collaboration methods within Office 365, shared mailboxes continue to be popular with customers. Common use cases include:
I do not think that a high percentage of shared mailboxes active within Exchange Online exceed 50 GB, but it is true that more of these mailboxes exist in Exchange Online than do on-premises. The reason is that shared mailboxes are also used to move data into Office 365 from legacy archiving systems or other email systems. Shared mailboxes are convenient migration targets and once the data is in the mailboxes, it is indexed and available to the full breadth of Office 365 compliance functionality.
In these cases, if you want to move more than 50 GB into a shared mailbox, you must license the target mailboxes first.
You can get a list of shared mailboxes in a tenant by looking in the Groups section of the Office 365 Admin Center. However, this doesn’t tell you what the current quota is for the mailboxes or what’s used. To get this information, we must use PowerShell.
Here’s a simple script to fetch a list of shared mailboxes and then report the current quota used, the allocated quota, and the license state. Get-MailboxStatistics is a “heavy” cmdlet, meaning that it takes more resources to run than most other cmdlets, so the script will be slow to process a large set of mailboxes.
$SMbx = Get-Mailbox -RecipientTypeDetails SharedMailbox -ResultSize Unlimited
$Report = @()
ForEach ($S in $SMbx) {
$Stat = (Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity $S.Alias | Select ItemCount, TotalItemSize)
$ReportLine = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
Mailbox = $S.DisplayName
TotalItems = $Stat.ItemCount
MailboxSize = $Stat.TotalItemSize
Quota = $S.ProhibitSendReceiveQuota
Licensed = $S.SkuAssigned}
$Report += $ReportLine }
$Report | Format-Table Mailbox, TotalItems, MailboxSize, Quota, Licensed -AutoSize
Mailbox TotalItems MailboxSize Quota Licensed
------- ---------- ----------- ----- --------
Customer Services 143 860.3 KB (880,957 bytes) 100 GB (107,374,182,400 bytes) False
Office 365 Book Feedback 298 6.237 MB (6,540,441 bytes) 100 GB (107,374,182,400 bytes)
Redirect for Removed Mailboxes 198 814 KB (833,494 bytes) 100 GB (107,374,182,400 bytes)
Redmond Shared Events 3770 190.5 MB (199,706,644 bytes) 100 GB (107,374,182,400 bytes)
Company Information 252 897.4 KB (918,922 bytes) 100 GB (107,374,182,400 bytes)
Office 365 for IT Pros Customer Queries 212 2.052 MB (2,151,205 bytes) 100 GB (107,374,182,400 bytes) True
Given their popularity, shared mailboxes are not going to disappear anytime soon. The change in provisioning behavior and the clampdown on email delivery when unlicensed shared mailboxes exceed 50 GB are reminders that shared mailboxes need management from time to time. Just like the rest of Office 365.
Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.
Want to know more about how to manage Office 365? Find what you need to know in “Office 365 for IT Pros”, the most comprehensive eBook covering all aspects of Office 365. Available in PDF and EPUB formats (suitable for iBooks) or for Amazon Kindle.
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The content below is taken from the original ( Engineer stashed Navy drone trade secrets in his personal Dropbox), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
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