Massive investment may turn Newegg into a Chinese subsidiary Let us preface this by saying we're still gathering information, but word on the web is that Newegg is in the process of being owned by a Chinese technology outfit. According to UD News, Hangzhao Liaison Interactive Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Liason Interactive from here on out) is in the process of closing a deal to buy a 55.7 percent stake in Newegg. The deal is estimated to be worth around 17.7 billion yuan (around $2.63 billion), and once finished, the California electronics dealer would effectively become a subsidiary of Liaison Interactive. PC Gamer
Intel will add deep-learning instructions to its processors Some of the latest Intel processors support the AVX-512 family of vector instructions. These instructions operate on blocks of 512 bits (or 64 bytes). The benefit of such wide instructions is that even without increasing the processor clock speed, systems can still process a lot more data. Most code today operators over 64-bit words (8 bytes). In theory, keeping everything else constant, you could go 8 times faster by using AVX-512 instructions instead. Daniel Lemire
Verizon, AT&T Made $600 million in overage fees alone in 2016 A new study claims that Verizon and AT&T made $600 million alone in 2016 just on overage fees. And while both telcos unveiled new plans that let you avoid $15 per gigabyte overages in exchange for just being throttled (Verizon's "safety mode" and AT&T's Mobile Share Advantage) the study by Nerd Wallet found that thanks to buried surcharges and other fees, users on these new plans may not save much money. DSLReports
Microsoft: No more pick-and-choose patching Adobe and Microsoft today each issued updates to fix critical security flaws in their products. Adobe's got fixes for Acrobat and Flash Player ready. Microsoft's patch bundle for October includes fixes for at least five separate "zero-day" vulnerabilities -- dangerous flaws that attackers were already exploiting prior to today’s patch release. Also notable this month is that Microsoft is changing how it deploys security updates, removing the ability for Windows users to pick and choose which individual patches to install. Krebs on Security
Bendable electronic paper displays whole color range Less than a micrometre thin, bendable and giving all the colours that a regular LED display does, it still needs ten times less energy than a Kindle tablet. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed the basis for a new electronic "paper". Their results were recently published in the high impact journal Advanced Materials. Phys.org
Kaspersky Lab reveals advanced persistent threat, StrongPity Kaspersky Lab today announced a stealthy threat actor known as StrongPity, a technically capable Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) interested in encrypted data and communications, according to a paper presented at Virus Bulletin by Kaspersky Lab principal security researcher, Kurt Baumgartner. Users in Italy and Belgium were hardest hit, but people in Turkey, North Africa and the Middle East were also affected. Kaspersky
Cutting the cord: 200 channels but only 20 worth watching? We have come a long way from the pay-TV scenario Bruce Springsteen bemoaned in 57 Channels (And Nothin' On). But after a look at the most recent Nielsen TV viewing data you certainly can understand why consumers are crying out for slimmer pay-TV bundles. With more than 200 channels available on their cable, satellite or telco-delivered service, viewers are actually watching, on average, only about 20 channels, according to recent research from Nielsen. USA Today
Ford engineer called MyFord Touch infotainment system 'a polished turd' Documents in a class-action lawsuit against Ford and its original MyFord Touch in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system reveal that the company's engineers and even its top executive were frustrated with the problematic technology. The documents from the 2013 lawsuit show Ford engineers believed the IVI, which was powered by the SYNC operating system launched in 2010, might be "unsaleable" and even described a later upgrade as a "polished turd"... Computerworld
At the world's first Cybathlon, proud cyborg athletes raced for the gold Last Saturday, in a sold-out stadium in Zurich, Switzerland, the world’s first cyborg Olympics showed the world a new science-fiction version of sports. At the Cybathlon, people with disabilities used robotic technology to turn themselves into cyborg athletes. They competed for gold and glory in six different events. IEEE Spectrum
Using GPUs to speed through the 1.2B record taxi dataset New York City is special to us. It's not where we started (Boston) or ended up (San Francisco) It is special because, it remains, in terms of America, the center of it all. While not the geographical center of it all, it is the data center for us. When we do demos of the Tweetmap, we end up at the Empire State Building. MapD (more details on the tech...)
Police arrest five in major streaming site crackdown Police in Brazil have carried out the second phase of Operation Blackbeard, a campaign designed to dismantle groups dedicated to online copyright infringement. Search warrants led to five arrests and the seizure of bank accounts connected to three streaming sites with three-quarters of a billion visits per year. TorrentFreak
New record for fusion On Friday, Sept. 30, at 9:25 p.m. EDT, scientists and engineers at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center made a leap forward in the pursuit of clean energy. The team set a new world record for plasma pressure in the Institute's Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. Plasma pressure is the key ingredient to producing energy from nuclear fusion, and MIT's new result achieves over 2 atmospheres of pressure for the first time. MIT (360-degree tour of the facility)
The $100 muon detector When Spencer Axani was an undergraduate physics student, his background in engineering led him to a creative pipe dream: a pocket-sized device that could count short-lived particles called muons all day. Muons, heavier versions of electrons, are around us all the time, a byproduct of the cosmic rays that shoot out from supernovae and other high-energy events in space. When particles from those rays hit Earth’s atmosphere, they often decay into muons. Symmetry
Examining Windows 10 Anniversary Update's driver signing enforcement policy Windows 10 Anniversary Update came out at the beginning of August, with plenty of new user-facing features. There were also plenty of changes under the hood as well, including a change in policy regarding how Windows 10 handles device drivers. When the 64-bit versions of Windows launched over a decade ago, as a security measure Microsoft decided to require that all kernel mode drivers must be signed to be loaded. AnandTech (separately, Windows 10's next major update to debut in March)
The surprising backbone of the internet of things At the end of the recently-opened Expo Line in Los Angeles -- and you’ll want to take that snazzy light rail, because the I-10 freeway running between downtown and the coast is one of the 10 most-congested roadways in the world -- you're in Santa Monica, California. You're at the Colorado Esplanade stop, a stunning platform of pedestrian- and bike-friendly multi-modality that feels open and available. It’s just one of many great things about my hometown. Backchannel
Google's "Director of Engineering" hiring test Recently, I have been interviewed over the phone by a Google recruiter. As I qualified for the (unsolicited) interview but failed to pass the test, this blog post lists the questions and the expected answers. That might be handy if Google calls you one day. For the sake of the discussion, I started coding 37 years ago (I was 11 years old) and never stopped since then. Pierre Gauthier
