Fans of physical media—myself included—tend to be a morbid bunch, dwelling on the rise of streaming while bemoaning the steady decline of Blu-ray, the home-media format of choice for cinephiles.  So when word came down that Sony will exit the recordable Blu-ray market next month, it naturally triggered a firestorm in the physical media community, not to mention dozens of scary headlines about—once again—the imminent death of Blu-ray discs.  The last time funeral bells tolled this loudly for Blu-ray, it was because Best Buy had announced it was pulling the discs from its stores, leaving physical media fans to scrounge the shelves at Barnes & Noble…or, you know, simply order our discs online at Amazon or plenty of other outlets.  Well, Blu-ray (both standard and the UHD variety) survived the Best Buy debacle–albeit in a niche capacity, somewhat akin to vinyl–and from what some industry experts are saying, it will live through this latest Sony brouhaha, too.  The editors at Highdefdiscnews.com reached out to David Mackenzie, CEO of Fidelity in Motion, a Blu-ray authoring facility that does work for such boutique Blu-ray labels as Arrow Video, Carlotta Films, Flicker Alley, Warner Archive, Second Sight, and Vinegar Syndrome.  According to Mackenzie, Sony’s decision to quit the recordable Blu-ray business (as well as MiniDiscs, MD data, and MiniDV cassettes) has little to do with the overall market of “packaged” movies and TV shows available on Blu-ray.  As Mackenzie explains, the types of Blu-ray discs that Sony won’t make any more are “home-recordable” discs, like the blank DVD-Rs and CD-Rs that many of us used for burning photos, MP3s, and other media to disc. That’s very different from the BD-ROM discs pressed in factories for the big movie studios and the smaller, boutique Blu-ray labels. Thus, the Sony news isn’t about how streaming is muscling out Blu-ray, Mackenize argues. Instead, it’s about how cloud and flash storage has decimated the market for blank Blu-ray media.  “This story has been inaccurately–and, I would argue, irresponsibly–reported by some media outlets apparently unaware of the key distinction between home-recordable media (BD-R and BD-RE discs) and the professionally replicated Blu-ray movies you buy in a store (BD-ROM),” Mackenzie said, as quoted by Highdefdiscnews.com. “The latter is unaffected by Sony’s Storage Media division deciding to phase out home-recordable discs.”  Now, to be clear, the standard and 4K Blu-ray market still represents only the tiniest sliver of the share DVDs commanded 20 years ago, and that’s not going to change. The vast majority of those watching movies and TV shows at home are going to stream them, not spin them up on Blu-ray.  But while the audience for Blu-ray discs—particularly 4K Blu-rays—is small, it’s also quite passionate, and there have even been green shoots of growth for UHD Blu-rays in recent years.  So, is Sony’s withdrawal from the recordable Blu-ray market a great thing for physical media? No. But it’s not exactly a death knell, either. Read...

According to Windows Central, Microsoft is about to release new smaller versions of the Surface Pro 2-in-1 and Surface Laptop “in the coming weeks.” These new versions will remain premium products, with 11-inch or 12-inch screens and more lightweight designs. Bowden cites unnamed sources who say that the smaller Surface Pro is meant to compete with Apple’s iPad Pro (which is 11 inches), not just on screen size and portability but also on refresh rate and pen support. Meanwhile, the Surface Laptop will reportedly have a higher resolution touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, and an all-metal body. Both Surface Pro and Surface Laptop will continue to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors, but not the same Snapdragon X Elite chips in the 2024 models. These smaller iterations will run on Snapdragon X Plus chips, which paved the way for affordable laptops with tremendous battery life. These smaller variants will be sold alongside the current Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models, in the $800 to $900 price range. Meanwhile, Microsoft is also working on Lunar Lake variants of the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, but those are more business-oriented. Further reading: Why I’m now a believer in Snapdragon laptops Read...

You’ve almost certainly used QR codes before—it’s when you point your phone’s camera at a square barcode to access a menu, a form, or even an app, and then tap on the link that appears. But while most QR codes are often innocuous (especially compared to their early wild days), their low-tech and humble vibe make them perfect tools for bad actors. A recent example surfaced in the news just last week, with Malwarebytes publishing a blog post about a targeted QR code attack on WhatsApp accounts. Broken QR codes served as bait for victims, who were lured into clicking a link and following instructions that granted access to a new device. That hacker-owned device then gained the ability to read and potentially download full message histories. While sophisticated, this particular campaign highlights how a QR code will serve as a gateway to a malicious website. More commonly, the attack is direct—as when I wrote about a phishing scheme back in December, which tried to steal login info for Microsoft accounts. Scanning the QR code led to a phishing webpage. An example of a QR embedded in a recovered Word document (via BleepingComputer). This scam relied on a QR code to slip a malicious link past antiphishing detection.BleepingComputer What’s most dangerous about QR codes is that they can pop up in a number of environments, some of which you might not associate with shady behavior. It’s not limited to the online world, either—you’re just as likely to encounter a bad QR code while out running errands. For example: Physical ads: Think flyers and bills posted in public. They claim to be about a service, charity, business, etc, but instead send you to a phony site or force your device to download malware. Text communication: If your friends, family, or associates get hacked, you could be sent a phishing QR code to squeeze personal info out of you. Email: Similarly, you could get spoofed emails from people you know or stores you shop at, asking you to confirm personal information. The reasons can vary widely. Physical mail: Your mail could include fake ads and notices with malicious QR codes. Packages aren’t exempt, either—a new scam is to send unsolicited items to people, then include a phishing QR code with them to snag your details (possibly even your financial info). One particularly sneaky appearance of bad QR codes is as additions to legitimate physical flyers and ads posted in public, or on things like parking meters. A would-be scammer will stick or paste a replacement QR code over the proper barcode, which then sends unsuspecting folks to a phony site. You could lose not just your personal info, but your credit card or other financial details, too. QR code scanning apps can be trouble as well. Nowadays, you don’t need a third-party app—the camera app on both Android and iOS phones will handle QR codes perfectly fine. But these third-party options still exist, and someone could download one not realizing the risk of grabbing malware that will spy on your activity and steal data. If you don’t trust a QR code, choose an alternative method (like searching for a restaurant or service’s website on a known search engine).Marielle Ursua / Unsplash To protect yourself from the QR code scams, be discerning about which codes you scan. Also verify the link is appropriate for the situation, and if you click on it, whether it asks for information that would be relevant. Use alternate methods to access the info or make a payment should anything feel off. You can also activate other defensive measures into your accounts like passkeys—this form of login is resistant to phishing. If passkeys aren’t available, two-factor authentication at least adds a second checkpoint that a hacker must pass to gain access. However, 2FA can be thwarted by hackers, so passkeys are the stronger move. (Need to keep your passwords, 2FA tokens, and passkeys secure? A password manager can safely store them for you.) Another layer of protection can be antivirus suites (including Microsoft Defender, which is included with Microsoft 365 subscriptions). They generally offer mobile protection that includes anti-phishing measures. It’s not fail-proof though, which is why a layered approach to security is still the best way to go. Basically, since QR codes can be found almost everywhere, so too can scams trying to trick the unsuspecting. But if you’ve already got security measures in place, sidestepping the headache takes just a little forethought. Read...

I’ve been a Windows on Arm skeptic for years, but now I can say with certainty that I’ll consider a Snapdragon PC for every business trip I take. I recently completed a six-day tour of duty in Las Vegas, where I and many of my colleagues journeyed as part of our annual CES pilgrimage. I used the Surface Laptop 7, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip, for the entire time. For me, that’s a big deal. I distinctly remember traveling to an Intel Developer Forum conference, most likely in San Francisco, and witnessing an SSD fail completely on a fellow reporter’s laptop. Since then, I’ve generally taken not one but two laptops to industry events, in case one failed or ran out of juice. I know, it’s ridiculous. But I could rest assured that I’d be able to file my story, and that’s what mattered to me. And it was ridiculous, for even as corporate briefings became ever more populated with power outlets, planes did too. That extra laptop became a rather heavy safety blanket that I’d have to wrestle with not only in airport security lines, but also toting it around on the daily. And with power outlets everywhere, did I really need a thin-and-light? Why not something with a little more oomph for a quick game on the go? Josh Hendrickson / IDG But something else happened over the past two years: The power outlets began disappearing again. In the last year, I traveled to Los Angeles, then to Berlin, and finally to Las Vegas. I actually had to haul out a battery pack and charging cord during a session to avoid trying to surreptitiously hunt down a power cord during a presentation. Coincidentally, 2024 was the year of the low-power processor: The Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite, Intel’s Lunar Lake, and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300. All three are superb. With Windows on Arm, however, there was always a risk. Would there be something that prevented me from getting the job done? I’d gone through this while using Chromebooks. Google Docs would be fine for 95 percent of what I needed to do. But when it came to a resume, I needed Word, and at the time Word only ran on Windows. With Arm, initial Snapdragon X laptop buyers complained about the lack of native Arm versions for Google Drive, Slack, various printers, and VPNs. But — and I give the Windows on Arm community a lot of credit here — the ecosystem listened and actively solved the lack of compatibility. Today, Google Drive, several VPNs, and other apps run just fine on Windows on Arm. So, I was heading to Vegas. Would I bet it all on the Surface Laptop? No. I brought a backup laptop anyway. To be fair, I did so as much as to have an extra screen as an extra laptop, so I could refer to a page of notes while I wrote on another. But I didn’t really need to. Long battery life, no compatibility issues whatsoever Put simply, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop performed superbly. I’ve come to believe that trade shows or conferences, where you’re shuttling from a conference room to a booth to a demo suite, are the true test of a laptop, where you simply doesn’t have the time or the convenience to hunt down a charger. Instead, it’s meeting after meeting, waking the laptop, typing and/or inking notes, and closing it. Rinse and repeat. Add in a breakfast meeting, something over lunch and maybe a lingering evening briefing, and you could have hours of uptime. highly recommended Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 (13.8?) Read our review Best Prices Today: $799.49 at Amazon | $999.99 at Best Buy In all, I had a day or two with five meetings in Las Vegas as well as quiet “writing times” where I had a short period to file a story. I don’t think I ever hit less than 40 percent battery life after a day’s work. (At night, I’d plug in.) I used Wi-Fi pretty constantly while the laptop was awake, usually tethered to my phone for connectivity. I didn’t print once and never ran into a situation where I needed to download or use some weird little app to connect to a hotel Wi-Fi. (If I did, I had a VPN at the ready.) So no, I wasn’t trying to stress-test the laptop. Instead, I was using it a conveniently as I could to get my job done in an environment that prioritized long battery life. And everything just worked, for hours and hours and hours. Your mileage will vary, as they say, both at home and on the road. But I can say that I’ve now survived a lengthy, high-tension business trip with no thought to what chip was in my laptop — just that it got the job done. Do I like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite as a business tool? You bet. I’ve learned to quit worrying and love Qualcomm. Further reading: The 10 best laptops of CES 2025: These notebooks blew us away Read...

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