OSnews

The Trump administration has rolled out a new questionnaire for U.S. visa applicants worldwide that asks for social media handles for the last five years and biographical information going back 15 years.[...]Under the new procedures, consular officials can request all prior passport numbers, five years' worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment and travel history.[...]While the new questions are voluntary, the form says failure to provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of an individual visa application.This surely won't affect the countless incredibly smart scientists and engineers wanting to work in the US and contribute to the US economy.

Atari CEO Fred Chesnais told GamesBeat in an exclusive interview that his fabled video game company is working on a new game console.In doing so, the New York company might be cashing in on the popularity of retro games and Nintendoâs NES Classic Edition, which turned out to be surprisingly popular for providing a method to easily play old games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda in HD on a TV.[...]Chesnais declined to describe a lot of details about the console. But he said it is based on PC technology. He said Atari is still working on the design and will reveal it at a later date.It seems extremely unlikely that this will be a console in the Xbox, Playstation, or Switch sense, but if it's based on PC technology, it won't be some rebranded Android tablet either. I wasn't an Atari kid when I was young - PC and Nintendo all the way - so I have no sense of nostalgia for the company, but I'm still intrigued.

Now that Ubuntu phones and tablets are gone, I would like to offer my thoughts on why I personally think the project failed and what one may learn from it.To recapitulate my involvement in the project: I had been using Ubuntu Touch on a Nexus 7 on an on-and-off-basis between its announcement in 2013 and December 2014, started working on Click apps in December 2014, started writing the 15-part âHacking Ubuntu Touchâ blog post series about system internals in January 2015, became an Ubuntu Phone Insider, got a Meizu MX4 from Canonical, organized and sponsored the UbuContest app development contest, worked on bug reports and apps until about April 2016, and then sold off/converted all my remaining devices in mid-2016. So I think I can offer some thoughts about the project, its challenges and where we could have done better.Excellent and detailed explanation of why Ubuntu Phone failed.

In what is surely the greatest bit of irony in the tech industry this week, a recording of an internal Apple briefing on countering leaking has leaked. Tons of interesting insight in the article covering the recording, but this bit jumped out at me, because I never put two and two together in this regard:Apple's Chinese workers have plenty of incentive to leak or smuggle parts. "A lot, like 99.9 percent, of these folks are good people who are coming to a place that has a job, they're gonna make money, and they're gonna go back and start a business in their province or they're gonna do something else with it, support their family," Rice says. "But there's a whole slew of folks that can be tempted because what happens if I offer you, say, three months' salary?' In some cases we've seen up to a year's worth of salary being rewarded for stealing product out of the factory." Apple workers on the production line make approximately $350 a month, not including overtime, according to a 2016 report from China Labor Watch.It never dawned on me that leaks could be the result of underpaid factory workers.

The big news out of AMD was the launch of Zen, the new high-performance core that is designed to underpin the product roadmap for the next few generations of products. To much fanfare, AMD launched consumer level parts based on Zen, called Ryzen, earlier this year. There was a lot of discussion in the consumer space about these parts and the competitiveness, and despite the column inches dedicated to it, Ryzen wasn't designed to be the big story this year. That was left to their server generation of products, which are designed to take a sizeable market share and reinvigorate AMD's bottom line on the finance sheet. A few weeks ago AMD announced the naming of the new line of enterprise-class processors, called EPYC, and today marks the official launch with configurations up to 32 cores and 64 threads per processor. We also got an insight into several features of the design, including the AMD Infinity Fabric.For the past few years, the processor market was boring and dominated by Intel.This is the year everything changes.

The European parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) has put forward a proposal that would amend the EU's charter of fundamental rights to extend privacy rights to the digital realm and prevent governments of EU Member States from backdooring end-to-end encrypted services."This Regulation aims at ensuring an effective and equal protection of end-users when using functionally equivalent services, so as to ensure the protection of confidentiality, irrespective of the technological medium chosen," they write in the draft eprivacy proposal."The protection of confidentiality of communications is also an essential condition for the respect of other related fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the protection of freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom of expression and information."On encryption the committee amends an earlier text, proposed by the EU's executive body, the European Commission, to state: "[W]hen encryption of electronic communications data is used, decryption, reverse engineering or monitoring of such communications shall be prohibited. Member States shall not impose any obligations on electronic communications service providers that would result in the weakening of the security and encryption of their networks and services."It's only a committee proposal for now that will need approval from the European Parliament, but at least it's something. It also happens to fly in the face of European leaders, who are talking of weakening encryption or banning it outright.This proposal would obviously be the right thing to do, but with so many leaders around the world exploiting the wholly irrational fear of terrorism (you're much more likely to die sitting on the couch than at the hands of terrorists here in Europe) among the media-primed public and people falling for that nonsense hook, line, and sinker (see Brexit, Trump, and extreme right parties in The Netherlands and France), this proposal will most likely not make it.

In Stretch, the default MySQL variant is now MariaDB. The replacement of packages for MySQL 5.5 or 5.6 by the MariaDB 10.1 variant will happen automatically upon upgrade.Firefox and Thunderbird return to Debian with the release of Stretch, and replace their debranded versions Iceweasel and Icedove, which were present in the archive for more than 10 years.In addition, Debian GNU/Hurd also has a new release.

This review comes in two big meaty chunks to sink your teeth into. The first part is discussing the new Skylake-X processors, from silicon to design and covering some of the microarchitecture features, such as AVX-512-F support and cache structure. As mentioned, Skylake-X has some significantly different functionality to the Skylake-S core, which has an impact on how software should be written to take advantage of the new features.The second part is our testing and results. We were lucky enough to source all three Skylake-X processors for this review, and have been running some regression testing of the older processors on our new 2017 testing suite. There have been some hiccups along the way though, and we'll point them out as we go.An extra morsel to run after is our IPC testing. We spend some time to run tests on Skylake-S and Skylake-X to see which benchmarks benefit from the new microarchitecture design, and if it really does mean anything to consumers at this stage.As always, AnandTech delivers the goods when it comes to CPU reviews.

Microsoft researchers have created an artificial intelligence-based system that learned how to get the maximum score on the addictive 1980s video game Ms. Pac-Man, using a divide-and-conquer method that could have broad implications for teaching AI agents to do complex tasks that augment human capabilities.These AIs are relatively simple and single-purpose now, but just remember what computers looked like only a few decades ago.

On Fuchsia, a newly created process has nothing. A newly created process cannot access any kernel objects, cannot allocate memory, and cannot even execute code. Of course, such a process isn't very useful, which is why we typically create processes with some initial resources and capabilities.Most commonly, a process starts executing some code with an initial stack, some command line arguments, environment variables, a set of initial handles. One of the most important initial handles is the PA_VMAR_ROOT, which the process can use to map additional memory into its address space.Not the most detailed description just yet, but Fuchsia seems to be getting fleshed out more and more.

ReactOS is participating in Google Summer of Code, and two of their projects have been detailed. Trevor Thompson is working on improving the NTFS driver:When I started last year, ReactOS could read files from an NTFS volume, but had no write support whatsoever. After GSoC last year, the driver in my branch could overwrite existing files. I also fixed a few bugs in the driver's ability to read files, which have already been merged into the trunk. I also fixed ReactOS' implementation of LargeMCB's, which our NTFS driver has come to rely on, and which a few other filesystem drivers rely on.My goals for this summer are simply file creation and deletion.Meanwhile, Shriraj Sawant is working on adding taskbar features (more about Sawant in his GSoC blog post):The current shell in ReactOS lets user manager running applications, start other applications and manage files but nothing more. This idea is about implementing 3 small shell extensions for showing the state of the battery of the machine, for ejecting usb devices and implementing the quick launch toolbar. These are important requirements and they are much needed while presenting ReactOS in real hardware. Not knowing the state of the battery or not being able to eject a usb flash drive is a serious usability problem. The shell extensions would be developed and tested to work on Windows.

It was almost four years ago I switched from webmail to a customizedemail configuration based on Notmuch and Emacs. Notmuch served as both as a native back-end that provided indexing and tagging, as well as a front-end, written in Emacs Lisp. It dramatically improved my email experience, and I wished I had done it earlier. I've really enjoyed having so much direct control over my email.However, I'm always fiddling with things - fiddling feels a lot more productive than it actually is - and last month I re-invented my email situation, this time switching to a combination of Mutt, Vim, mu, and tmux. The entirety of my email interface now resides inside a terminal, and Iâm enjoying it even more. I feel I've "leveled up" again in my email habits.I'm fairly sure a number of OSNews readers use similar setups.

Charles P. Thacker ("Chuck" to those who knew him), who helped pioneer many aspects of the personal computer, and who was awarded the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award in recognition of his pioneering design and realization of the first modern personal computer, and for his contributions to Ethernet and the tablet computer, died Monday, June 12, at the age of 74, after a brief illness.[...]Thacker spent the 1970s and 1980s at PARC. During this period, he served as leader of the project that developed the Xerox Alto personal computer system, the first computer designed from the ground up to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface. The hardware of the Alto, introduced in 1973, was designed mostly by Thacker, with Lampson developing its software.It's hard to put into words how much this man - and his peers and team at Xerox - contributed to the world of computing. What an incredible genius to lose.Thank you for your immeasurable contributions, good sir.

Theo de Raadt unveiled and described an interesting new kernel security feature: Kernel Address Randomized Link.Over the last three weeks I've been working on a new randomization feature which will protect the kernel.The situation today is that many people install a kernel binary from OpenBSD, and then run that same kernel binary for 6 months or more. We have substantial randomization for the memory allocations made by the kernel, and for userland also of course.However that kernel is always in the same physical memory, at the same virtual address space (we call it KVA).Improving this situation takes a few steps.

Google has hired a veteran chip architect away from Apple and is now looking to build its own chips for future versions of its flagship Pixel phone, Variety has learned from sources familiar with the hire. Manu Gulati, who had been spearheading Apple's own chip developments for close to eight years, joined Google in the last few weeks. He publicly announced the job change on his Linkedin profile Tuesday morning, stating that he now works as Google's Lead SoC Architect.Unsurprising, since Google publicly stated that they were going to build their own silicon for the Pixel way back in October 2016. Google has reportedly also made a deal with LG for displays. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out Google is taking this whole Pixel thing a lot more serious than the glorified rebrand HTC phone that is the first Pixel seems to illustrate.

While these are a couple of very specific examples, they are part of a wider industry trend that is woefully underdiscussed. As an industry, we have become overly accepting of this idea that it's okay for PR to actively lie to consumers if it will help their products sell better or be more positively received. PR dishonesty is considered par for the course.We see this all over the technology industry. People take whatever a company PR person or some manager says as truth, without a single shred of critical thinking. This is quite dangerous, and reminds me of people blindly believing everything some political bigshot says as truth.

Microsoft first revealed its concerns over Chromebooks in an attack on Googleâs laptops more than three years ago. While Chromebooks havenât become best-sellers for consumers just yet, they have started to become popular with students in the US and slowly with some businesses. Microsoft is now revealing it's worried about this threat with two new videos on its Windows YouTube channel today.One of the reasons Windows conquered the home was by first conquering the corporate world - people wanted the same computer at home as the one they were using at work. Now imagine if a whole generation of kids grows up with not just Android and iOS smartphones, but also ChromeOS PCs.

The Verge has published a long excerpt from the upcoming book The One Device: The secret history of the iPhone by Motherboard editor Brian Merchant, and there's quite a few interesting details in there. What stands out if you take it all in is that unlike what many seem to think - and unlike the romanticised image Apple tries to maintain - Apple didn't take some singular, targeted, focused stride to "invent" the iPhone.For example, Phil Schiller wanted a hardware keyboard, and remained stubborn in his conviction:The iPod phone was losing support. The executives debated which project to pursue, but Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing, had an answer: Neither. He wanted a keyboard with hard buttons. The BlackBerry was arguably the first hit smartphone. It had an email client and a tiny hard keyboard. After everyone else, including Fadell, started to agree that multitouch was the way forward, Schiller became the lone holdout.He "just sat there with his sword out every time, going, 'No, we've got to have a hard keyboard. No. Hard keyboard.' And he wouldn't listen to reason as all of us were like, 'No, this works now, Phil.' And he'd say, 'You gotta have a hard keyboard!'" Fadell says.In fact, Jobs was incredibly insecure about whether Apple should even pursue a phone at all.Privately, Jobs had other reservations. One former Apple executive who had daily meetings with Jobs told me that the carrier issue wasn't his biggest hang-up. He was concerned with a lack of focus in the company, and he "wasn't convinced that smartphones were going to be for anyone but the 'pocket protector crowd,' as we used to call them."The iPhone that would eventually change the industry wasn't a clear vision in Steve Jobs' mind's eye - no, it was the result of hundreds of incredibly smart engineers trying out thousands of different ideas and solutions, and endless arguing with other engineers and management - up to and including Jobs himself - to try and convince them their particular idea was the best one. The iPhone is the result of thousands of little and big arguments, small and huge decisions, eventually leading to one of the most transformative devices in computing history.Jobs did not invent the iPhone. Apple's management didn't invent the iPhone. The iPhone was invented by hundreds of relatively nameless engineers, who poured years of their lives into it.And a hundred years from now, nobody will remember their names.

You'd expect with Microsoft adding x86 emulation to its upcoming ARM-based windows 10 PCs all the possible licensing issues would be sorted. As ubiquitous as x86 is, it's easy to forget it's still a patent minefield guarded by Intel. And surprise, surprise, with the chipmaker under pressure from AMD and ARM, it felt the need to make that very, very clear. Dangling at the end of a celebratory PR blog post about 40 years of x86, Intel writes:However, there have been reports that some companies may try to emulate Intel's proprietary x86 ISA without Intel's authorization. Emulation is not a new technology, and Transmeta was notably the last company to claim to have produced a compatible x86 processor using emulation ("code morphing") techniques. Intel enforced patents relating to SIMD instruction set enhancements against Transmeta's x86 implementation even though it used emulation. In any event, Transmeta was not commercially successful, and it exited the microprocessor business 10 years ago.Only time will tell if new attempts to emulate Intel's x86 ISA will meet a different fate. Intel welcomes lawful competition, and we are confident that Intel's microprocessors, which have been specifically optimized to implement Intel's x86 ISA for almost four decades, will deliver amazing experiences, consistency across applications, and a full breadth of consumer offerings, full manageability and IT integration for the enterprise. However, we do not welcome unlawful infringement of our patents, and we fully expect other companies to continue to respect Intel's intellectual property rights. Strong intellectual property protections make it possible for Intel to continue to invest the enormous resources required to advance Intel's dynamic x86 ISA, and Intel will maintain its vigilance to protect its innovations and investments.I'm assuming Microsoft has all this stuff licensed nice and proper, but it's interesting that Intel felt the need to emphasize this as strongly as they do here. Which companies is Intel referring to here? Maybe Apple?

It's one of many, for sure, but as far as I'm concerned, we can never have enough of them: experimental hobby operating systems. GopherOS - no, not what you think - is an experimental operating system written in Go, licensed under the MIT license. It's all very small and early, but possibly interesting to some of you.

At WWDC, Apple reported that they've paid out $70 billion to developers, with 30% of that ($21 billion!) in the last year. That's a huge spike, and surprising to me because it didn't seem like my friends and I were spending more on apps last year. But that's anecdotal, so I wondered: where are these revenues coming from? I opened App Store to browse the top grossing apps.The controlled, walled garden at work.

MacStories points to a change in the App Store guidelines, which now state that:Apps designed to teach, develop, or test executable code may, in limited circumstances, download code provided that such code is not used for other purposes. Such apps must make the source code provided by the Application completely viewable and editable by the user.How generous.On a related note, the first reviews of the new iPad Pro 10.5" are hitting the web, and it looks like the best tablet got even better. I have to admit - combined with iOS 11's many changes to make the iPad feel more like a real computer, I'm definitely intrigued.

Source for an experimental 64-bit Plan 9 kernel, and supporting software. It features a revised memory-management system, MCS spin locks, and other changes to system data structures to support full 64-bit addressing. Changes to the scheduler are also planned, to improve support for multicore. Currently it supports AMD64 (x86-64, Intel 64), although parts have run on other platforms.

Drag and Drop has arrived in iOS 11! Learn the fundamentals behind the new iOS Drag and Drop - architecture and APIs. This session will go over the design goals, architecture and key components of the API to allow you to quickly adopt Drag and Drop in your App.Drag and drop seems like a boring feature, but on iOS 11 and the iPad, it's actually quite interesting and implemented in a novel way. This WWDC session starts with a demo, showing off how you can use multiple fingers to drag multiple things, combine different dragged objects, while still being able to interact with other touch UI elements. Sadly, Apple decided to cripple drag and drop on the iPhone, restricting it to only being able to drag and drop within a single application.

A small comment from Head of Xbox Phil Spencer was the final bit of news necessary to convince me Microsoft's Project Scorpio will be named Xbox 10 S, and it will serve as a Windows 10 gaming PC built for the living room. I know, that's a big claim - and I don't encourage anyone to gamble on it. But ahead of Microsoft's E3 event on Sunday, I'd like to collect the evidence that Microsoft is eager to put a computer beneath your television.If true, this could be a great move by Microsoft. Imagine the sales pitch to, say, older high school students and first-year college students: a games console that also servers as a full Windows PC. That's not a bad package.On a related note - Microsoft's latest preview build for the Fall Creators Update contains a lot of changes for Windows 10.

CD Projekt Red, the company behind the popular Witcher series of videogames, put out a statement earlier today that individuals have stolen internal documents, and threaten to release them online if ransom isn't paid.A demand for ransom has been made, saying that should we not comply, the files will be released to the general public. We will not be giving in to the demands of the individual or individuals that have contacted us, which might eventually lead to the files being published online. The appropriate legal authorities will be informed about the situation.I haven't before seen a company being this open about something like this. It seems like a good strategy - with this statement, they're basically preemptively making the documents rather valueless. Pretty much the entire gaming community has very warm feelings towards CDPR - and rightfully so - so the individuals in question are left with empty hands here.Clever.

Microsoft's security team has come across a malware family that uses Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) Serial-over-LAN (SOL) interface as a file transfer tool.Because of the way the Intel AMT SOL technology works, SOL traffic bypasses the local computer's networking stack, so local firewalls or security products won't be able to detect or block the malware while it's exfiltrating data from infected hosts.

Today we're rolling out Developer Preview 3 with the final Android O APIs, the latest system images, and an update to Android Studio to help you get ready for the consumer release later in the summer. Watch for one more preview update coming in July that will bring you the near-final system images.

Chinese authorities say they have uncovered a massive underground operation run by Apple employees selling computer and phone users' personal data.Twenty-two people have been detained on suspicion of infringing individuals' privacy and illegally obtaining their digital personal information, according to a statement Wednesday from local police in southern Zhejiang province.Of the 22 suspects, 20 were Apple employees who allegedly used the company's internal computer system to gather users' names, phone numbers, Apple IDs, and other data, which they sold as part of a scam worth more than 50 million yuan (US$7.36 million).Privacy isn't about words, it's about actions. Read into that what you will.

I'm not asking for an iPhone with replaceable RAM. I understand the value of a sleek, highly integrated, highly custom product. But if the most important and expensive part of the desktop computer you're looking to buy is the GPU, it's insane to choose one that's soldered to the motherboard.Absolutely.

Almost immediately, fans asked how this happened. Why was Andromeda so much worse than its predecessors? How could the revered RPG studio release such an underwhelming game? And, even if the problems were a little exaggerated by the internet's strange passion for hating BioWare, how could Andromeda ship with so many animation issues?I've spent the past three months investigating the answers to those questions. From conversations with nearly a dozen people who worked on Mass Effect: Andromeda, all of whom spoke under condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk about the game, a consistent picture has emerged. The development of Andromeda was turbulent and troubled, marred by a director change, multiple major re-scopes, an understaffed animation team, technological challenges, communication issues, politics, a compressed timeline, and brutal crunch. Many games share some of these problems, but to those who worked on it, Andromeda felt unusually difficult. This was a game with ambitious goals but limited resources, and in some ways, it's miraculous that BioWare shipped it at all. (EA and BioWare declined to comment for this article.)Mass Effect: Andromeda was in development for five years, but by most accounts, BioWare built the bulk of the game in less than 18 months. This is the story of what happened.This is a great read, even if you don't care much about games in general or Mass Effect in particular. It's a cautionary tale.BioWare is one the greatest game studios of all time, boasting a long list of genre-defining games that people will continue to enjoy for decades to come. I never bought into the whole "EA ruined BioWare" nonsense, but with a story like this under my belt - which I almost found a little emotional to read - it becomes harder and harder to discard the negative influence EA has over this great studio.I enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda, and 100%-ed the game despite its uneven quality, and it sports some great moments and by far the best combat system of the entire series, but you'd have to be blind to not see the disjointed state of the game, with some aspects - like the aforementioned combat system - feeling fully realised and polished, while other aspects were subpar not just for BioWare standards, but for gaming standards in general - such as the story, some of the characters, and, of course, the animations. I am grateful to each and every writer, animator, designer, and programmer who, according to the reports in the article, were driven far, far beyond breaking point, for Andromeda.BioWare and its people deserve a better master - or better yet, no master at all - and above all, the freedom to make their own choices. Most likely in vain, I hope EA learns from Andromeda.

This article has been in my to read list for a few days now, but due to a lack of time I haven't been able to finish it yet. There's a lot of information in the article about the development of Windows Vista, and even though I haven't finished it yet I can guarantee you it's worth the read.Mauro A. Meloni submitted a link to the article, accompanied by the following note:It is quite long, but I've found it really interesting. It is a view of the old Microsoft, with its idiocyncracies and good and bad points, as seen from the inside. I understand that Vista set the ground for the better Win7, but personally, my experience with the former was worse than awful. Sometimes a simple file copy operation of a few kb could take minutes. The real-time AV scans delayed every icon refresh, and each time I had to scan for Windows Updates, it would take a whole afternoon... Performance-wise, it was deplorable.My experience with Vista wasn't all that different, but especially with the powers of hindsight it's hard to discount just how important Vista has been for Microsoft. It was all part of Microsoft's massive cleanup effort in the Windows codebase, the fruits of which the company is still picking today, and will be picking for a long, long time to come. Many other a company would've been forced to write a completely new operating system, but Microsoft actually managed to clean up such a complex codebase.The cleanup of the Windows codebase might very well be one of the most impressive technical achievements in Microsoft's history, and Vista is a hugely important part of that.

We've already covered the most interesting announcements Apple made last night, so consider this item a grab bag of other things the company announced. First, a new iPad Pro with thinner bezels housing a 10.5" display, 120Hz refresh rate, better pen tracking, and, of course, eventually it'll get iOS 11 with a lot of iPad-specific improvements.Apple also entered the market for speakers-you-can-talk-to with the HomePod, which is exactly what it sounds like: Siri in a can with a bunch of speakers. None of these products - the Echo, the Google Home, or this one - are available in The Netherlands, so I have no idea how useful they actually are. I don't quite understand what a speaker which will be invariably worse than your hi-fi system has to offer over your smartphone and a ChromeCast or ChromeCast Audio, especially since you can't take the can with you. Maybe I'm just not getting it.Then there's watchOS 4:Apple has announced new features for watchOS 4, including major updates coming to Workouts, Activity, Music, all-new watch faces, and "GymKit," which provides a seamless connection between Apple Watch and gym equipment.Combined with yesterday's items, this covers pretty much all of the stuff Apple announced last night. A lot of cool new features and products to look forward to for Apple users.

macOS High Sierra will deliver new video and graphics technologies that will lay the groundwork for even more improvements to macOS down the line, according to Apple. The big additions in High Sierra include Apple File System (APFS), support for High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), and an all-new version of Metal - simply called Metal 2 - which will allow Apple's advanced graphics tech to power even more Mac apps, including machine learning and VR-based content.Apple also mentioned that macOS' window manager will run on Metal 2. As always, be sure to take a peek at Apple's official High Sierra page.

During Apple's WWDC keynote, the company updated both its iMac and MacBook lineup with 7th generation Kaby Lake processors, better GPUs, better displays, and so on - good, solid speed bumps all around. Nothing to get too excited about, but Apple has been inconsistent with keeping up with the industry, so this is a good step.Much more exciting is that Apple also announced an upcoming iMac Pro - an iMac with incredibly specifications for its body size - Xeon processors, Radeon Pro Vega GPUs, all-flash storage, 5K displays, u to 128GB RAM.The 27-inch iMac Pro includes a Retina 5K display, up to 18-core Xeon processors, and up to 22 Teraflops of graphics computation achievable on the high-end configurations. The iMac Pro also marks the first time than a desktop Mac will come in Space Gray, including the iMac Pro's Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad 2, and Magic Mouse.As someone who has a thing for workstations - whether from Apple, Dell, HP - I can say I am thoroughly impressed with the iMac Pro. Sure, it's not a workstation in the traditional sense in that it is not upgradable and has a built-in display, but if you're working in video, audio, animation, and so on, and are in Apple's ecosystem - this is a seriously good machine.The base price is $5000 for the base 8-core Xeon with 32GB of RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB of HBM2 memory, and a 5K display - which may sound like a lot, but for such a workstation-class machine combined with a display like that, it's actually a pretty good price (a similarly-specced HP Z workstation, for instance, will probably be similarly priced, but won't come with a 5K display).The iMac Pro will be available in December of this year, and it's good to see Apple pre-announce such professional products instead of keeping them under wraps until the last minute. Professional users need roadmaps for planning purposes, and it's beginning to look like Apple is accepting that.

Apple is calling iOS 11 its biggest software release ever for the iPad, thanks to the myriad iPad features it includes, like a new dock that supports improved multitasking, a Files app for better managing files, improved Apple Pencil support, a new App Switcher, and system-wide drag and drop. iOS 11 also includes many features for both the iPhone and the iPad. There's an incredible ARKit API that's going to let developers build all kinds of new augmented reality apps, and there's also a CoreML machine learning API that's going to allow apps to become a whole lot smarter.Peer-to-peer Apple Pay payments are being introduced, Messages is gaining a new App Drawer that makes it easier to access apps and stickers, a Do Not Disturb feature that mutes notifications will make it easier for drivers to stay focused on the road, and Siri, Photos, and the Camera app are gaining huge improvements.There's a ton of great stuff coming once iOS 11 is released, and it truly looks like the iPad-focused release people have been asking for. Be sure to take a peek at Apple's official iOS 11 page, as it details some of the prime new features.

The MaXX Interactive Desktop a.k.a. The MaXX Desktop is the continuation of the 5dwm.org implementation released many years back. So don't be mistaken, there is only one implementation of the SGI Desktop on Linux.Our goal is to bring to the masses this great user experience which focus on performance, stability and productivity. The MaXX Desktop is available in two versions, the free Community Edition (CE) which provides basic SGI Desktop experience and the commercially available Professional Edition (PE) that comes with support, CPU and GPU specific optimizations and a full SGI Desktop experience. The MaXX Desktop PE is excellent for SGI customers using both IRIX and Linux platforms or for power users using pro applications.The first release was released a few days ago. And yes, I used the SGI database category for this news item. Try and stop me.

Here's a quick recap before we dive in. CShell is Microsoft's new Windows Shell that will eventually replace the existing Windows Shell in future releases of Windows 10. It's an adaptable shell that can scale in real time, adapting to different screen sizes and orientations on the fly. CShell is a shell modularized into sub-components, which can transition between those components when required, making for a far more flexible user experience on devices that have multiple form factors.The actual Windows Explorer shell is one of the last high-profile parts of Windows that's still mostly Win32. This CShell is supposed to be its replacement.

With the new version 17.05, the Genode project moves forward to the goal of becoming more attractive and approachable to a wider audience. On the one hand, the release promises to be a sustainable basis for longer-term projects. With a modern tool chain based on GCC 6.3, Qt 5.8, VirtualBox 5.2.11, and the framework's finished API modernization, the foreseeable future will be free of disruptions for users. On the other hand, Genode introduced a new approach and tooling for package management to relieve users from low-level technicalities.Modern operating systems are unthinkable without a package-management solution for installing and updating software. Until now, however, Genode's work flows were primarily geared towards appliance-like systems that come in the shape of system images. Even though the Genode developers managed to build a day-to-day usable OS (called "Turmvilla") for their own use on that basis, there is a natural limit of how scalable such systems can be. Even for the developers, installing and updating such a system is a burden. Instead up building and installing a new system image on each update, users universally expect to install software from ready-to-use packages, and to update and configure the system in parts instead of a whole.The discussion of suitable package-management approaches for Genode reaches several years back. The first step in this direction were custom tools for managing and integrating 3rd-party source code with the framework. But there was no notion of pre-built and easy-to-install packages, nor even a tangible idea of what a package in the context of Genode should represent. During a long period of experimentation, the developers encountered and fell in love with the Nix package manager. This encounter was followed by porting work, mind-bending architectural discussions, and a series of prototype scenarios. However, while those prototypes were technically sophisticated and interesting playgrounds, they were also complicated. A real-world solution remained cloudy.At one time, it became clear that the universal notions of "software packages" and the role of a package manager made things more complicated than they should be. After all, Nix is designed for Unix-like systems with its existing ecosystem of libraries, build tools, conventions, and methodologies. In contrast, Genode opens up unique opportunities for simplification thanks to its breath of scope that covers the entire software stack including the build system, tool chain, the ABI and API design, the inter-component protocols, the dynamic linker, the system configuration, and the execution runtime. By taking a step back and soul-searching for the actual problem to solve, a strikingly simple new approach emerged. It is undeniably inspired by the virtues of Nix. But it leverages Genode in ways that wouldn't be possible with a ported version of Nix. For example, it facilitates Genode's notion of library ABIs to largely decouple libraries from applications and thereby completely eliminates transitive build-time dependencies. Or as another example, by introducing sensible categories of packaged content, the need for a package description language disappeared.Genode's release 17.05 contains the new packaging tools. Even though they are still labeled as experimental, the release comes with several examples of modest system scenarios based on them. Other prominent news are a feature-complete version of VirtualBox 5 for the NOVA microkernel, the update of Qt to version 5.8, added support for the Nim programming language, a new tool chain based on GCC 6.3 including Ada support, new tools for monitoring network traffic and CPU load, greatly enhanced flexibility of the init component, and a brand new timeout API. All these topics are covered in detail by the release documentation.

Chrome has always focused on giving users the best possible experience browsing the web. For example, Chrome, like other browsers, prevents pop-ups in new tabs based on the fact that they are annoying. Today, we have an even better understanding of the types of experiences that bother users when it comes to unwanted advertising. New public, consumer-driven research done by the Coalition for Better Ads in creating the Better Ads Standards outlines a number of these experiences, such as full-page ad interstitials, ads that unexpectedly play sound, and flashing ads. In dialog with the Coalition and other industry groups, we plan to have Chrome stop showing ads (including those owned or served by Google) on websites that are not compliant with the Better Ads Standards starting in early 2018.Interesting that this will also block Google's ads. I'll still feel more comfortable with third party blockers, though.

I wonder if these rugged aesthetics, now commonplace in cutting-edge websites, can work at scale - in mobile apps used by +1b people. Instagram's new UI paved the way: can this effort be replicated in other categories (e.g. gaming)? Is brutalism a fad or the future of app design? Would it make apps more usable, easy-to-use and delightful? To end with, would it generate more growth? Conversions experts sometimes suggest that more text equals more engagement - what if we push this idea to the extreme?There's something unsettling about these brutalist redesigns by Pierre Buttin - but I don't outright hate them. There's something very functional about them.

At today's press conference, AMD has confirmed that the 16 core processor will for most purposes be half of an Epyc processor. This means that the two die MCM chip will feature 4 DDR4 channels and a whopping 64 lanes of PCIe, with all 64 lanes being enabled for all ThreadRipper SKUs. This will be broken up into 60+4: 60 lanes directly from the CPU for feeding PCIe and M.2 slots, and then another 4 lanes going to the chipset (with an undisclosed number of lanes then coming off of it) to drive basic I/O, USB, and other features. AMD seems to be particularly relishing the point on PCIe lanes in light of the yesterday's Intel HEDT announcement, which maxes out at 44 lanes and no chip below $1000 actually has all of them enabled.All this competition.

Microsoft and Qualcomm just announced at Computex that Lenovo, HP, and ASUS are expected to be the first companies with devices that feature the Snapdragon 835. Powered by Windows 10 on ARM, the ultra-thin and always-connected devices are said to usher in a new era of mobile computing.I am excited about ARM-based Windows machines, because this time around, there'll be a compatibility layer for running x86 applications. The built-in LTE, 4x-5x (claimed) standy time and 50% more battery life (again, claimed) are very welcome, too.

Google I/O doesn't need skydivers or LCD Soundsystem to keep us interested year to year - we'll happily settle for what is becoming an annual chat with members of the Android team. Heading into this year's conference, the group was fresh off the release of the second Android O Developer Preview and the announcement of Project Treble, a massive modularization of Android's hardware dependencies that should make updates a little easier on everyone involved with the OS. So as usual, there was plenty to talk about.Dave Burke, VP of engineering for Android, has made time for us at several recent conferences, but this year we also had Stephanie Saad Cuthbertson, PM director for Android, in on the conversation. Given the opportunity, we tried to keep these questions pretty technical.Ars does a duo-interview with two Android execs at Google.

Android's creator, Andy Rubin, has been teasing his next big project for a while now, and today he finally unveiled everything: his new company Essential has a new smartphone, an Amazon Echo-like device with its own operating system, and a few accessories. Just another company trying to break into the smartphone market, surely, were it not for the creator of Danger and Android at the helm.The phone has all the latest and greatest specifications, including an almost bezelless screen. It makes an interesting design choice by placing the front camera inside the screen at the top, which I'm sure most people will either not care about or deeply hate. I want to see the whole thing in person first, but I like that they at least try to 'own' this design choice. Another rather unique element is the ceramic back, which is a material choice we'll probably see more of over the coming years.Of particular note: the company is hinting at using stock Android, with fast updates. I've seen those promises before, so I'm not exactly taking them at face value when I hear them for the 1038th time.Their Amazon Echo competitor, the Essential Home, has a screen and sports its own operating system, but the company doesn't have a whole lot to say about it other than some marketing fluff, such as this:Ambient OS is the API to your home that enables the creation of applications that extend the reach of a single device. For example, you can setup a timer and have the lights in the livingroom flash when it goes off. With the Ambient OS API, developers have access to available devices, services, and home information and can use these resources as the building blocks of their applications.So probably Android with some custom API bits on top. They do state they are focusing on privacy, doing the AI and API bits on-device instead of in the cloud - which is a plus for me, but I'm not sure normal people really care too much about this at all.In Rubin's blog post announcing the company and its devices, he has some... Interesting words to say about what Android has become.For all the good Android has done to help bring technology to nearly everyone it has also helped create this weird new world where people are forced to fight with the very technology that was supposed to simplify their lives. Was this what we had intended? Was this the best we could do?Is it just me, or is Rubin not happy with who his child has become?

Lots of news from Intel today - the company announced a new line of processors and accompanying motherboard chipset. I have to admit I find Intel's product and platform names completely and utterly confusing, but from what I gather, the company announced new high-end i7 and i5 processors, as well as even higher-end, high-core counts i7s and a new line, the i9. The X299 chipset brings it all together.I was keeping an eye on these new processors as I just ordered all the parts for my brand new computer, but I had already decided not to wait for these since I prefer not to jump onto new processors and chipsets right away (which is why I didn't opt for Ryzen either). Looking at the replacement for the processor I eventually settled on - the 7700K - I'm pretty sure I made the right call, since the speed bump seems minor (100Mhz), while TDP goes up relatively considerably.The high core count processors are - much like the Ryzen 7 1800X - incredibly alluring in a "I want all the cores" kind of way, but for the most part, few workloads actually benefit from more cores in processors. Aside from workstation-oriented workloads I personally do not engage in, it really seems like processors are running ahead of the software they run.Still, with Ryzen and now Intel's new parts, there's a ton of choice out there if you're building a new computer.

Cooper Harasyn found a Super Mario World save corruption glitch, and we worked together to create a jailbreak that works on real, unmodified cartridges and Super Nintendos.They managed to install a hex editor and a mod loader onto unmodified Super Mario World cartridges running on unmodified Super Nintendos. With the mod loader, you can, for instance, give Mario telekinesis powers. This is somewhat reminiscent of a similar extraordinary feat in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night we talked about earlier this year.

Astute readers will notice that that's exactly the same message as PC DOS 1.0 (August 1981) shows, but this COMMAND.COM did not prompt for the date. That's because this disk is not from August but rather early June 1981 - newest file is timestamped June 6, 1981 - which may make it the oldest known surviving piece of software written for the IBM PC (not counting the IBM PC ROMs which are dated April 1981). Itâs certainly the oldest known surviving PC operating system.I'm starting to sound like a broken record on this topic, but it can't be said often enough: the preservation of software - whether important world-changing or not - is crucial if we want to document the history of where software came from, and where it's going to.

Shortly after I published my Cartography Comparison last June, I noticed Google updating some of the areas we had focused on.Coincidence or not, it was interesting. And it made me wonder what else would change, if we kept watching. Would Google keep adding detail? And would Apple, like Google, also start making changes?So I wrote a script that takes monthly screenshots of Google and Apple Maps. And thirteen months later, we now have a year's worth of images.This is a fascinating article. Google is changing the look of the actual maps in Google Maps a lot, and improving its data all the time - whereas Apple seems to lag behind, and contains far less places of interest, stores, and so on.

It is 2017. Pick an average PC from 2007 and install a minimal GNU/Linux based operating system. You will be able to do basic computing tasks (eg. surfing the web, reading E-Mails, listening to music, chatting) just like on an expensive modern PC. You will even get security updates, so your old computer is protected, just like as a new one.postmarketOS (I love the name) aims to do the same for smartphones. A small Linux distribution with a phone interface, designed to be easy to update and maintain to solve the problems Android poses in this area. The project is in its infancy, so it needs a lot of help to further realise its vision.This is a great idea, and it could breathe life into devices not even LineageOS can keep alive.