The move, which is aimed to protect supplies of technology, could raise tensions between the EU and China. Read...

Parties agree the laws and regulations governing gene technology need to be modernised, but disagree over what the final bill should look like. Read...

Defence Minister Judith Collins insists NZ-produced technology could compete internationally. Read...

Keeping yourself safe online can feel like an increasingly difficult challenge. One solution is to use a VPN to encrypt your data when online, but this isn’t as simple a fix as it first sounds. Here’s a quick guide on how to improve your online safety and make sure your data stays secure. What is a VPN? A Virtual Private Network is software that creates an encrypted ‘tunnel’ through which your data flows when using the internet. This makes it very hard for hackers to track your activities online or steal your data. Getty Should I use a free VPN? The idea of a free VPN might be tempting, and there are certainly some reputable examples available, but choosing the wrong one can open up you and your data to significant risks. For example, a recent academic paper entitled Hidden Links: Analyzing Secret Families of VPN apps found that groups of VPNs on the Google Play Store shared the same code and security vulnerabilities, making them easier targets for hackers. Security analysts Cyfirma also reported on malware masquerading as a free VPN which, once installed, would steal user data. Another example from Koi Securities revealed that a popular free VPN Chrome extension was secretly taking screenshots of users’ activities that could then be uploaded to the company servers. Free VPNs can often be data capped too, feature weaker encryption than premium products, and have fewer servers around the world. While it’s not true that all free VPNs are unsafe, there is a risk involved when signing up to one if you don’t know how it operates. Which VPNs are safe to use? When it comes to security, you’ll want to use a VPN from a known and trusted brand. Norton is a name synonymous with data security, and its Norton VPN is built to continue that legacy. Norton also runs a no-log policy, which has been audited multiple times by independent third parties, so none of your browsing activities are stored on its servers or seen by its staff. It also uses IP rotation and Double VPN technology to ensure your privacy when online. With over 100 locations across the world and a built-in ad blocker to speed up and simplify your browsing experience, Norton VPN not only makes your time online safer, it’s also more enjoyable as you’ll face less interruptions. Getty Norton VPN – money well spent Don’t take the risk of using a free VPN that might watch what you do online. Instead, sign up to Norton VPN and get the peace of mind that comes with knowing your privacy and security have protection. Sign to to Norton VPN today! Subscriptions start at a low cost of £29.99 for the first year for the Norton VPN Standard plan that covers up to five devices, while Norton VPN Ultimate for available at £39.99, for the first year, covers up to ten devices, and also includes AI-powered scam detection, 50GB of cloud storage for Windows, as well as parental control tools. Read...

Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. Missed the latest topics on our YouTube show or burning news from across the web? You’re in the right place. Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website! I never thought I’d think on laptops with envy. But here I am, writing these words. It comes on the heels of Intel’s deep reveal of Panther Lake, which is what Adam, Will, and Mark were learning about last week. (Such is the super sekret life of tech journalists.) Mark’s quick rundown of the facts is extensive, as overviews go—there’s just that many details to cover. I highly recommend reading his deep dive as well, but among the highlights: Three chip families represented by one 8-core and two 16-core processors, with a claim of 50 percent better multithreaded performance over previous generations. The top-tier 16-core CPUs pack juggernaut-level integrated graphics, including dedicated support for ray-tracing. Said integrated graphics take the form of Xe3 GPU cores touted as 50 percent faster on average compared to last gen. Multiframe generation support (yep, “fake frames”).  Intel is also cramming in upgrades to the “image processing unit” in its integrated laptop processors to boost clarity and color fidelity of video during webcam calls. Inaccurate skin tones and grainy low-light calls should be less of a problem on a Panther Lake chip. But the feature I want in all chips, including desktop? Auracast, which not only lets you wirelessly play videos across two devices simultaneously, but also use the onboard Bluetooth radio to triangulate the location of a lost item—whether the laptop itself or a connected device, like earbuds. So why the envy, when desktop could get Auracast (and likely will)? When kickass integrated graphics matter less, given the flexibility for discrete GPU support? When desktop processors outstrip performance on laptops? Memory issues. I mean of course the ominous reports of anticipated shortages and sharper rising costs for memory. In a recent interview, Phison’s CEO thought that demand from AI data centers for NAND-based products could create a dearth lasting as long as 10 years. A whole-ass decade. Blake Patterson It’s not just NAND, either. DRAM is also expected to suffer from the same shortages and price hikes as demand skyrockets. (You can read Luke James’s excellent article over at Tom’s Hardware for more of a dive into the factors contributing to this bleak outlook.) Here’s my thinking: CPUs and GPUs will continue to improve on desktop, yes. It’s likely features like Auracast will come to desktop processors, yes. But what good will that do me if I can’t afford to build a PC around those chips? These days, I think of storage and memory as basic staples among hardware components—no different than the potatoes, rice, or bread of a meal. The idea of RAM and SSDs becoming both scarce and expensive makes me start to question what I can take for granted about desktop PCs and DIY building. I wonder if interest in DIY building will slow a bit, due to the extra burden on budgets. If that will then lead to an equal slowdown in consumer CPU and GPU innovations. If that then increases the withdrawal from DIY building, leading vendors to pull back on the innovation and variety in cases, fans, and other such components. I’m not predicting a death spiral, but I fear a period of dormancy that returns us to the mood and vibe of past eras—when desktop PCs were boring, bland, and not highly performant unless you had serious spare cash to drop. For now, I’m preparing for austerity even as I look forward to seeing what else could come from Intel’s Panther Lake, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite and Elite Extreme, and future laptop processors. I love the idea of powerful mobile chips. I hate the idea that they could supplant desktop PCs as the only reasonable option for consumers. In this episode of The Full Nerd In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Will Smith, and special guest Edward Crisler, NA PR Manager at long-time GPU maker Sapphire Technology, discuss the current state of GPUs, including manufacturing challenges and benchmarking changes. I should talk more about the actual episode here, but honestly, Ed always has great insights and you should definitely check out the whole conversation. More to the point, I’m still extremely preoccupied by the lollipop scorpions that Adam brought back as a souvenir for Willis. Surely…that’s an HR violation? Isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be? (Willis, be careful!) Willis Lai / Foundry Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd Network YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real-time! Don’t miss out on our NEW shows too—you can catch episodes of Dual Boot Diaries and The Full Nerd: Extra Edition now! (Adam just dropped a new episode of Extra Edition related to Panther Lake!) And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds. This week’s packed nerd news Intel’s Panther Lake chips definitely made the biggest waves in tech news this week, but other interesting, quirky, and downright unsettling tidbits popped up, too. I’m predictably wary after reading a new report about AI models being easily corrupted, but balancing out the scales is a rather delightful DIY take from Google on a keyboard. Also, we got word of it a few weeks ago, but now it’s time to bring out the bugle—AOL’s dial-up service is now officially dead. Rest in peace, old friend. It’s unusual, but I want one.Google Expect Thread Director changes in Intel’s Panther Lake: Mark wasn’t the only one who dug deep into Panther Lake while at the press briefings in Arizona. Will took a dive with Intel Fellow Rajshree Chabukswar into the upcoming improvements Intel is making to Thread Director for Panther Lake, too. Xbox Game Pass site chokes as flood of gamers rush to unsubscribe: Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. (If you want to try to load up on the previous, more reasonable price for Ultimate while you still can, try these methods.) The only RAM config that PC gamers need? This advice from our colleagues over at PCWelt takes the pressure off to spend more to get better performance. But will the internet agree to a sensible take? AI can figure out conversations based on…mice vibrations: Right out of a spy novel. I hope I’m never a high-profile enough target for this. (Also, I guess this justifies my use of a crappy cheap mouse.) Keep it secret. Keep it safe: Google’s allowing end-to-end encrypted emails to be sent to non-Gmail recipients. It’s only available to Workspace users, but I like what it could mean for personal accounts down the road. You can play real Game Boy games in a LEGO Game Boy: My current favorite modder is back with this dope LEGO GameBoy tweak. I definitely smiled when I read about this and saw who was behind it. I love Natalie_The_Nerd’s work.Natalie the Nerd I’d try this rotary dial keyboard: It would be slow, yes. But I like what it could mean for accessibility options. (Though maybe voice typing is faster. Assuming it recognizes what you’re saying with any accuracy. And it’s not always necessarily as private as I’d like.) So it doesn’t take much to corrupt AI models: Cool cool cool. At least one Starlink satellite per day is falling and burning up: The good news is the debris won’t kill anyone. The bad news is that these occurences will contribute to global warming, which indirectly causes death worldwide. Microsoft keeps trying to kill off local accounts in Windows 11: I’m really grumpy about this. Seriously, Microsoft, who do you think is bothering to open the Command Prompt during setup? It sure isn’t most folks. ‘Interstellar interlopers’ makes a great band name: As always, much appreciation for the fine folks at Ars Technica, keeping the wonder and mystery of space alive for us all. Catch you all next week—if I manage to escape the boxes I’ll be swimming in, after taking inventory of my October Amazon Prime Day purchases. None of it is exciting, but I’m excited that I got a good deal on “boring” stuff. Yeah, I’ve reached that age. ~Alaina This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld. Read...

Infor launches AI-driven suite to automate industry workflows, enhancing process efficiency across sectors like manufacturing and healthcare using AWS technology. Read...

Research by DXC Technology and Microsoft finds Zero Trust frameworks cut security incidents by 83%, but only 30% of firms use AI-driven authentication tools. Read...

For a case study in how a once-promising technology turned toxic, look no further than ATSC 3.0. Also known as NextGen TV, the new broadcast standard promised to revolutionize free over-the-air TV with features like 4K HDR video, time-shifting, on-demand viewing, and interactive programming. For cord-cutters who get free local channels with an antenna, this was a genuinely exciting technology when it began rolling out way back in 2019. Six years later, that excitement has evaporated thanks to restrictive digital rights management (DRM) and high adoption costs. While the broadcast TV industry has failed to make ATSC 3.0 stick, they’ve succeeded in getting tech enthusiasts, consumer advocates, and even some individual broadcasters to fear and despise it. Now, broadcasters are hoping for a bailout from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which announced this week that it will consider their wishes to wind down the existing ATSC 1.0 standard and mandate ATSC 3.0 adoption. If that happens, most antenna users will need a new TV or tuner box by 2030 at the latest. Having failed in the marketplace, broadcasters now want the government to help foist ATSC 3.0 upon people instead. Sadly, it didn’t have to be this way. What’s happening with ATSC 3.0? NextGen TV broadcasts are available in more than 90 U.S. markets, covering 70 percent of the population, but accessing these broadcasts requires an ATSC 3.0 tuner, and most TVs don’t have one. If the FCC disappears ATSC 1.0, over-the-air TV viewers will need to upgrade their tuners even if they don’t need a new TV or care about ATSC 3.0’s new features. Low-cost TV makers tend to exclude ATSC 3.0 from their sets, and some bigger brands–including Samsung and LG–have either pulled back or stopped supporting the standard entirely. External ATSC 3.0 tuner boxes can bring support to existing TVs but they’re expensive at $90 and up. TV’s that don’t support ATSC 3.0 will need an external tuner box if the FCC pulls the plug on ATSC 1.0.ADTH As such, broadcasters estimate that only 14 million compatible TVs and 300,000 external tuner boxes have been sold in the United States through the end of 2024. That means only about 11 percent of U.S. households can tune into ATSC 3.0 channels today. Broadcasters argue that by winding down ATSC 1.0, they’ll have more bandwidth for features like 4K resolution (which remains largely unavailable in today’s actual ATSC 3.0 broadcasts), additional channels, or improved reception. They believe this will finally stimulate demand for NextGen TV and get more hardware makers on board. That’s one way to look at it. The other way is that if the FCC lets ATSC 1.0 support disappear, viewers will need to upgrade even if they don’t need a new TV or care about new features. Meanwhile, broadcasters would be free to repurpose additional spectrum away from free TV over public airwaves. Either way, broadcasters are hoping the FCC will force the issue. This week, the commission released a notice of proposed rulemaking that seeks public comment on what broadcasters want. That includes the ability to sunset ATSC 1.0 broadcasts for the 55 largest U.S. markets in 2028 (and every market in 2030), along with a potential mandate to force every TV maker to include a ATSC 3.0 tuner in their sets. After the public comment period, the FCC will come up with proposed rules to adopt and eventually vote on them. Doing early adopters dirty Broadcasters could have stimulated demand for ATSC 3.0 in a more organic way. Instead, they’ve stymied the groups most likely to advocate for its success. SiliconDust is a case in point: It was the first manufacturer to sell a consumer-grade ATSC 3.0 tuner in the U.S. Its HDHomeRun tuner lets you set up an antenna in one room, and then access live TV across multiple networked televisions via its streaming apps. Users can also set up DVR servers to record over-the-air channels, using either HDHomeRun’s software or third-party solutions such as Plex and Channels DVR. SiliconDust Nick Kelsey, SiliconDust’s CTO and founder, told me in 2020 that the company wanted to spur the market for ATSC 3.0 with a bleeding-edge product. But since then, broadcasters have punished both SiliconDust and its customers for their early enthusiasm. As broadcasters have started encrypting their ATSC 3.0 channels with DRM, HDHomeRun users have been unable to access that content because their boxes can’t decrypt the programming. While HDHomeRun tuners are “NextGen TV-certified” and licensed to decrypt copy-protected content, a private group of broadcasters called the ATSC 3.0 Security Authority (A3SA) has separately been certifying devices to receive encrypted channels. The group refuses to do that for HDHomeRun tuners, citing SiliconDust’s use of a chip by a subsidiary of the Chinese company Huawei as a security concern. It’s unclear why the A3SA waited five years to point out this potentially disqualifying hardware issue. It’s also a little fishy, given that SiliconDust has cited numerous other roadblocks along the way. Either way, the upshot is that not a single whole-home DVR with encrypted ATSC 3.0 channel support exists on the market today. Tablo indefinitely delayed its plans for an ATSC 3.0 product in 2022, citing DRM concerns. ZapperBox is working on a whole-home solution but it doesn’t expect full functionality for another year. Broadcasters understandably want to protect their content from piracy, but balancing that goal with all the existing use cases for over-the-air TV should have been a priority. Instead, broadcasters alienated their most enthusiastic audience and mutated ATSC 3.0 from a promising technology into a poisonous one. DRM alienated everyone Channels DVR (and its new Multiview feature) won’t work with encrypted ATSC 3.0 channels.FancyBits The downsides of DRM extend beyond just whole-home DVRs. Some NextGen TV tuner boxes won’t decrypt channels without an internet connection, and the YouTube creator Tyler “Antenna Man” Kleinle has reported that some TVs can fail to decode encrypted channels for no apparent reason. Lon Seidman has found that decryption certificates on ATSC 3.0 products will eventually expire, rendering them unable to receive encrypted channels at all. (Both creators have been encouraging viewers to complain to the FCC.) Even broadcasters that have no plans to encrypt their channels could run into problems. Weigel Broadcasting Company, which operates MeTV and several other popular digital subchannels, has told the FCC that televisions may eventually block or hinder users from viewing stations that haven’t purchased an encryption certificate. That effectively could turn the A3SA, a private entity, into a gatekeeper for the public airwaves. Meanwhile, no permission is needed to innovate on the unencrypted side of the fence. Channels DVR, for instance, just released a breakthrough multiview feature that integrates with HDHomeRun tuners, making it the first solution for split-screen viewing of free over-the-air channels. Weigel just launched a new Western-themed channel to join its stable of rerun-centric over-the-air offerings. Tablo’s $100 whole-home DVR continues to get better with a newly-launched offline mode and integration with more streaming channels. Had broadcasters not alienated these kinds of torchbearers, they might’ve fared better at convincing the public that ATSC 3.0 is essential. Now their only hope is to cry to the government about it. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming and over-the-air TV advice. Read...

Outpost24 appoints Martin Roth as CTO to spearhead global tech strategy, focusing on AI-driven cybersecurity and cloud-native advancements. Read...

It’s time for another sad episode of “Smart Home Graveyard,” with Logitech warning users of its POP line of smart home buttons that their devices will be rendered useless in a matter of days.  POP Smart Button owners began sharing the end-of-line emails from Logitech late last month, which noted that the buttons would cease working on October 15, giving them only slightly more than two weeks’ notice.  “For close to a decade, we have maintained the POP ecosystem, but as technology evolves, we have made the decision to end support for the device,” Logitech’s email reads. “As of October 15, your POP button(s) and the connected hub will no longer be supported and will lose all functionality.”  Logitech added that it would give POP button owners a promo code giving them a 15-percent discount on Logitech and Ultimate Ears products (Logitech owns the Ultimate Ears audio brand).  Annoyed POP button owners on Reddit didn’t hold back about the prospect of their devices being turned into paperweights.  “This is why, ‘local first’” wrote one user, while another complained, “12 buttons and 3 hubs in my home are going to become beautiful useless [pieces] of tech. Why?”  We’ve reached out to Logitech for comment. First introduced roughly 9 years ago, the Logitech POP system consists of a round, flat POP button and a hub that connects the button to your local network. Each POP hub could support up to 18 of the buttons. A POP kit that included a hub and a button cost $60, while additional buttons went for $40 each.  You could program the buttons to trigger up to three different smart-home commands via a single-, double-, or long-press. The original POP buttons were compatible with a variety of smart home ecosystems, including Philips Hue, LIFX, Lutron Caséta, Sonos, Belkin’s WeMo brand, and Insteon, among others. The buttons also worked with Logitech’s Harmony universal remote hub. A separate HomeKit-compatible version of the POP button arrived in 2017.  Logitech’s decision to nix support for its POP buttons comes amid the company’s growing ambivalence towards the smart home.   Earlier this year, Logitech chopped support for its earliest Harmony remotes, which can still work but can no longer be reprogrammed. Logitech purchased the Harmony brand in 2004 but stopped making the remotes in 2021, although it’s keeping the servers on for more recent Harmony products—well, for now, anyway.  Two smart home products that Logitech does still sell are the Circle View Doorbell and Circle View Camera, although the company’s relatively new CEO seemed uncertain last year whether the devices are still available. (They are, The Verge later confirmed.) Read...