Friday, October 14, 2022

Best Office Chair of 2022 - CNET

Chairs can make or break your office experience. We've tested the best office chairs so you can find the perfect level of comfort.

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Samsung recently published the findings of a survey it conducted on the attitudes American users have toward electronic waste (e-waste) and the results speak to their reluctance to recycle.

As it turns out, a lot of people have a hard time letting go of their old devices and that’s contributing to an increasing amount of global e-waste. This information comes from the Green Print Survey that Samsung conducted with global intelligence company Morning Consult. They asked 2,210 people over the age of 18 what is holding them back from being more environmentally friendly.

According to the survey, almost 50 percent of respondents agree that e-waste is a major problem for climate but 72 percent don’t recycle their devices. This raises two questions: what do people do with that old tech and why don't they recycle?

Stuffing them away

Apparently, people put them away in various locations around the house for safekeeping. 36 percent of people admitted that they have a “designated e-waste junk drawer” where they put away old electronics (that number goes up to 54 percent for young people belonging to Gen Z). Stuffing them in a box and hauling them away to the garage or attic is another popular method with 35 percent of men surveyed.

As to why people don’t recycle, it’s because they’re so attached to their gadgets, or as Samsung puts it, they have “Digital FOMO” (fear of missing out). 24 percent of respondents said they were afraid of losing photographs on old phones. 23 percent save devices just “in case something happens to the new one”. And when looking at the age brackets, the older generations tend to be warier of sensitive information leaking.

A quarter of the eldest participants say they hold on to their e-waste because they believe that old devices still have sensitive information on them and don’t want it getting out there. That number drops to 8 percent for Gen Z respondents who appear to be more confident in software security. Younger generations are also more likely to save used devices to give them away as gifts later.

Recycling recommendations

In addition to the survey findings, Samsung offered a variety of suggestions on what people can do with e-waste. The company recommends taking your e-waste to one of its 1,700 recycling locations across the United States. Locations near your home can be found by looking them up on Samsung’s Responsible Recycling webpage and clicking "Drop off today."

It also recommends repurposing Galaxy smartphones by downloading the Smart Things app and using it around the house like a baby monitor, for example. You can also try fixing devices yourself via Samsung’s self-repair program to increase their longevity, but it’s limited to only a few smartphones like the Galaxy S20 and S21.

For keeping old photos, we strongly suggest you upload them to a cloud storage service. TechRadar recently updated its list of the best cloud storage sites for 2022, which includes Google Photos, OneDrive, and Flickr. Be sure to check it out. 



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Thursday, October 13, 2022

Test Your 'Lord of the Rings' Knowledge With This Wordle Clone - CNET

Lordle of the Rings has you guess five-letter words and names from the trilogy of books.

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Following Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ June confirmation that an ad-supported tier would be coming to the service, the company today released details on its new Basic with Ads subscription plan.

Netflix Basic with Ads will cost $6.99 / £4.99 month when it launches November 3 in the US and UK. The tier will also be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and Spain, with both Canada and Spain getting a head-start via a November 1 launch.

According to a Netflix corporate blog post announcing the ad-supported tier, the new offering won’t have any impact on the pricing of its current plans, which range from $9.99 to $19.99 a month in the US and £10.99 to £15.99 in the UK.

The post noted that ads will be either 15 or 30 seconds in length, and will pop up both before and during streamed programs. Overall, viewers can expect to see 4 to 5 minutes of ads per hour. Similar to the service’s current Basic plan, video quality will be limited to 720p HD rather than the 4K with HDR available on the Premium tier.

Not all current programs will be available on the ad-supported tier “due to licensing restrictions,” according to Netlix. As to the number of blocked shows, the company estimates that “about 5% to 10% of overall programming won't be available depending on the country.”

Netflix’s post also confirmed our fears that users of its Basic with Ads tier won’t be able to download shows, a capability provided to its Basic, Standard, and Premium subscribers.

Analysis: Netflix with ads was inevitable

We can’t say we didn’t see this coming. Over the past year or two Netflix has been scrambling to keep up with new streaming competition from Disney, HBO, and other entertainment giants. The company’s subscriber base plummeted in the first half of 2022, causing it to lay off staff and to cancel productions that were in the works, particularly in the animation category.

Netlix’s new ad-supported plan arrives just one month prior to the launch of the Disney+ ad-supported tier, which, at $7.99, will represent a pricier option for those looking to contain household streaming costs amid ongoing inflation and economic strain.

For some viewers, the omission of shows from the ad-supported tier could be a deal breaker since many subscribe based on buzz about a specific show. Yes, maybe not everyone wants to watch The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, but not being able to stream Stranger Things or Seinfeld after forking over a monthly fee? No thanks!

Not being able to download shows will also be a problem since many take advantage of this feature to watch shows during a commute or other travel in environments where Wi-Fi or cellular services can be spotty. Forking out more cash for one of Netflix’s higher-priced ad-free tiers solves that issue, of course, but then you’re back to paying a premium.

With the addition of the new plan, Netflix is now just like every other streaming service that’s willing to plaster its shows with ads. The move may bring in new subscribers to the company, but it sure won’t help to differentiate it.

Already have a Netflix subscription? Here are our picks for the best Netflix shows you can watch today



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Pokemon Sword and Shield Players Can Get 3 Free Mythical Pokemon - CNET

Participating stores will be giving away free download codes for Genesect, Volcanion and Marshadow starting Oct. 16.

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Apple has announced a new support package for developers that it hopes will help them adopt the company's latest technologies, such as the iPhone 14 Pro’s Dynamic Island.

Less than a month after the launch of the latest iPhone 14 range, VP for Worldwide Developer Relations, Susan Prescott, explained that the company has seen “increased appetite for one-on-one support and conversation”. 

Called ‘Ask Apple’, the new service comprises interactive Q&As and one-on-one, office hour consultations, and joins a number of other programs like Tech Talks and Meet with App Store Experts.

Ask Apple

Apple says that app creators from its Developer Program and Developer Enterprise Program can ask about things like “testing on the latest seeds; implementing new and updated frameworks from Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC); adopting new features like the Dynamic Island; moving to Swift, SwiftUI, and accessibility; and preparing their apps for new OS and hardware releases.”

Depending on the level of assistance developers need, they can connect with Apple experts on Slack to ask questions and share their learnings, or take advantage of personal consultations to discuss “code-level assistance, design guidance, input on implementing technologies and frameworks, advice on resolving issues, or help with App Review Guidelines and distribution tools.”

According to MacRumours, the one-on-one sessions are bookable in 25-minute slots.

The company says Ask Apple will be an ongoing series. The first round of opportunities is set for the week of October 17, 2022, with no word on future dates. More importantly, Ask Apple is designed to be free of charge within the environment of a Developer account.



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Latest Gadgets News

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked how can there be a pre-screening committee for web series, films or other programmes which are directly released on online platforms. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India UU Lalit observed that it always felt pre-censorship is impermissible.

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Netflix Ads Are Coming to a Cheaper, $7-a-Month US Subscription on Nov. 3 - CNET

Called Basic with Ads, the new tier saves $3 a month versus Netflix's cheapest ad-free option. Netflix won't hike prices for its current ad-free plans.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Get the Roku Express 4K Plus, Our Favorite Streamer, for $25 - CNET

This is the lowest it's been since Black Friday of last year when it was down to $24.

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Businesses are slowly moving away from open source software, due to growing fears of security risks that come from open source elements, new research has shown.

Virtualization giant VMware recently released a report that states that the number of companies willing to deploy open source software in production environments fell from 95% last year, to 90% this year. 

The two biggest concerns that are forcing companies to look elsewhere are the ability to identify and address vulnerabilities found in open source software. In fact, dependency on the community to address flaws and vulnerabilities is at the top of the list (61%), followed by increased security risks (53%), and the lack of service-level agreements (SLA) for patches from the community (50%). 

Too many tools, manual tasks, and people

To address the issue, businesses would love to see improvements in packaging security, as open source software packaging is essential in securing the supply chain, the report claims.

Apparently, there are too many tools, too many manual tasks, and too many teams working on packaging at most companies, which makes the process sluggish, inefficient and risky.

When asked which software packaging capabilities would improve security, almost two-thirds (60%) would appreciate immediate access to trusted security patches to applications or runtimes, dependencies, and operating system components, while half (55%) want centralized visibility to all scans, as it would simplify security audits. Half (51%) also want to automate CVE and virus scanning for every container.

While open source software remains an indispensable part of every project, this is not the first time questions of security have been raised. Last June, cybersecurity firm Snyk, together with the Linux Foundation, published a report claiming open-source software poses a “significant security risk”.

Based on a survey of more than 550 respondents, as well as data pulled from 1.3 billion open source projects via Snyk Open Source, the report states that two in five (41%) firms are not confident in the security of their open source code.

The average application development project, it was found, has 49 vulnerabilities, as well as 80 direct dependencies. Usually, it now takes 110 days to remedy a vulnerability in an open source project, up from 49 days four years ago.



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Here Are 7 Prime Day Bluetooth Speaker Deals You Shouldn't Miss - CNET

Looking for a bargain on a Bluetooth speaker? Here are some deals worth checking out from Amazon's Early Access Sale.

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A significant proportion (43 percent) of all business devices are still unable to upgrade to Windows 11 because of hardware requirements imposed by Microsoft, according to new research published by IT management company Lansweeper.

TechRadar Pro previously reported in March 2022 that many millions of business PCs were ineligible to upgrade to Windows 11, in part due to their processors lacking Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 compatibility, a feature Windows 11 requires.

Lansweeper claims that the situation has eased since we covered its last report, with the percentage of devices clearing the CPU and TPM requirements rising by 12%. At this level of growth, all devices should be compatible with Windows 11 by 2026.

Windows 11 in the workplace

However, Lansweeper still found that only 57% of the devices tested had CPUs that met Microsoft’s requirements. More than a third (35%) of workstations tested were incompatible with TPM or had it disabled, while virtual machines fared worse - with only 1% supporting or having TPM enabled.

Furthermore, the growth level of Windows-11 compatible devices that Lansweeper has seen still falls short of the end-of-life deadline for Windows 10: October 14, 2025. On this date, Windows 10 will stop receiving vital security and feature updates. 

This is important, as 82% of all Windows devices are still running Windows 10. A steady growth rate for compatible devices isn’t guaranteed, and any devices still running the previous iteration of the operating system will become increasingly vulnerable to malware and ransomware attacks.

This is a large part of why a great deal of cyberattacks target healthcare and educational institutions. Organizations neglect to update operating systems, usually to preserve a software or database solution that “just works”, and so become easy targets for malicious threat actors who value their sensitive personal data.

Only 3% of all Windows users currently use Windows 11. By comparison, 1% of users are still using the 21-year-old Windows XP, and so it’s fair to say that businesses are still unaware as to why they ought to invest in new hardware.

As much as it may seem counterproductive, especially in a recession, organizations are advised to update the hardware powering their business for long-term confidence in their security posture, and look to save money in other areas, such as their software solutions.



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It has been discovered that Android devices are designed to leak some user data when connecting to a new Wi-Fi network, and even the best VPN services cannot stop it. 

Mullvad VPN identified the quirk during a recent security audit, reporting that data leakage also occurs when the "Block connections without VPN (or VPN lockdown)" and/or "Always-on VPN" options are enabled. 

The data exposed during the connectivity check includes people's real IP address, DNS lookups, HTTPS and NTP traffic.

However, the leak does not appear to be a malfunction. In response to questions from the provider, Google explained that both of the features work as intended. 

See more

Android features deceiving VPN users 

A VPN is a tool that people use, among other things, to encrypt internet traffic while hiding their real IP location. This allows access to censored sites, avoids bandwidth throttling and secures online anonymity - the latter point being especially important on public Wi-Fi connections. 

However, certain wireless networks (like hotel or public transport Wi-Fi, for example) might require a connectivity check before establishing the connection. And it's exactly on these occasions that Android VPN services leak some traffic details, whether or not the option to block unprotected connections has been activated. 

"We understand why the Android system wants to send this traffic by default," wrote  Mullvad VPN in a blog post. "However, this can be a privacy concern for some users with certain threat models."

Following Mullvad's request for an additional option to disable these connectivity checks when the "VPN lockdown" is on, Google developers explained that the leak is actually a design choice.

Specifically, the company claims that some VPN apps rely on these checks to properly function. The developers also said there are other exemptions that might be more risky, like those applied to some privileged applications. They also believe that the impact on users' privacy is minimal.

After taking into consideration the points raised by Google, Mullvad still thinks that its suggested additional feature could be beneficial for users. Most importantly, the provider is calling the big tech giant to at least be more transparent about its features.

"Even if you are fine with some traffic going outside the VPN tunnel, we think the name of the setting ('Block connections without VPN') and Android’s documentation around it is misleading. The impression a user gets is that no traffic will leave the phone except through the VPN."  

What's at stake for Android users?

According to Google, the privacy risks are basically non-existent for most people. However, Mullvad argues that the metadata exposed could be enough for experienced hackers to de-anonymize this information and track down users. 

"The connection check traffic can be observed and analyzed by the party controlling the connectivity check server and any entity observing the network traffic," explained the secure VPN provider. 

"Even if the content of the message does not reveal anything more than 'some Android device connected,' the metadata (which includes the source IP) can be used to derive further information, especially if combined with data such as Wi-Fi access point locations."

This might not be relevant for everyday users, but it could negatively affect those for whom privacy is paramount. After all, it's likely they have turned on the VPN lockdown feature exactly for this reason. 

TechRadar Pro has contacted Google for further information, but did not receive an immediate response.



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Microsoft has announced a new Microsoft 365 app called Microsoft Places that will look to “optimize” the management of hybrid workplaces.

Introducing the app at its Ignite event, the company explained the idea is to inform team members as to when colleagues are coming into the office, and suggest whether certain meetings may be best held in-person.

It also teased “intelligent recap”, a feature that will use artificial intelligence to analyze meeting recordings in order to assign tasks to team members, take minutes, and share “personalized insights”. Intelligent recap will be available as part of the new Teams Premium package.

Microsoft Places and hybrid working

The introduction of Microsoft Places, so the company claims, is backed up by survey data. According to the company’s recent Work Trend Index, over 80% of employees go to the office for the sake of meeting and collaborating with each other.

Microsoft believes that a software solution is required to bridge the gap between the pre-pandemic world of physically present work and the allowance for remote work spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Places, it claims, will offer granular insight into the workplace, and advice on how offices could benefit from being reconfigured as companies adapt to hybrid working environments.

Other features will include a “modernized” conference booking system, as well as insights for business leaders to assess how office space is being used, and how to best approach hybrid working policy.

But employees who have grown comfortable with video conferencing needn’t despair. Places, Microsoft claims, is being developed to “[connect] virtual and physical spaces”, and to make offices safer and more transparent following the onset of the pandemic. 

While at least some allowance for remote working has stuck at many workplaces, the transparency into office spaces that Microsoft wants to offer with Places may renew the trust employees have in office environments, with a renewed focus on employee safety.

But discussion of the tool’s long-term impact on working practices will have to wait. As of right now, Microsoft Places is only “coming soon in preview”.



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Microsoft has made the latest iteration of its Azure Premium range of solid state drive (SSD) cloud storage available for general sale.

The company announced the release of the latest Azure Premium SSD v2 storage at its Ignite event, following an invite-only preview release in May 2022.

The new range of high-capacity drives for enterprises is designed to offer the lowest latency for “performance-critical workloads”, while also allowing for storage expansion up to 64 terabytes (TiB). 

Microsoft Azure Premium v2 improvements

Microsoft claims to have achieved “sub-millisecond” latency with the new drives, offering 80,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) - a 60% improvement over Azure Premium V1. 

Data transfers should also be lightning fast, with a guaranteed baseline throughput of 125 megabytes per second (MBPS) across all drives under the new specification, and a peak throughput of 1,200 MBPS - an overall improvement of 33% over V1.

The increases to storage capacity may also be of interest to Azure Premium SSD v1 users who feel limited by the maximum 32 TiB available. 

Microsoft claims that the all-round increases to performance in the new drive range will suit a number of production workloads and purposes, from database software like SQL Server and Oracle, to analytics, virtual machines (VMs), and gaming.

The company is even looking to court enterprise customers who may not immediately need the benefits of Azure Premium V2, promising that companies may provision storage capacity, IOPS, and throughput “based on their workload requirements”.

This could make the new set of drives appeal even to smaller businesses who may go on to see steady growth, while simultaneously helping large companies cut their cloud costs during a recession.



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Heat Domes and Surging Grid Demand Threaten US Power Grids with Blackouts

A new report shows a sharp increase in peak electricity demand, leading to blackout concerns in multiple states. Here's how experts say ...