Microsoft may give Windows 9 free to Vista and XP users

Could Microsoft go as far as giving Windows 9 away for free to Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 users? This may well be the case as the focus moves away from Windows 8 towards its successor, which is expected to land in spring 2015.

In a blog post, ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley cites rumours that Microsoft could be offering "some kind deal" to users of the three operating systems to entice them to move away from legacy platforms. Such a deal, she writes, could be in the form of a free upgrade.

Microsoft has offered such deals to kickstart transitions from older platforms to newer ones in the past, but given the large contingent of Windows XP users out there, a freebie might lure them to Windows 9 - rather than Google Chrome or Apple's OS X.

On track

According to Foley's sources, Windows 8.1 Update 2 is expected to land on August 12, on the company's monthly Patch Tuesday. It's said to be a minor one and won't be mandatory, and its content is expected to include minor design changes, but nothing spectacular.

Instead, the focus will be on Threshold, also referred to as Windows 9, which is expected to place a particular emphasis on getting some crucial features - like a new start menu - baked in.

Researchers download data at 43Tb per second , break record of 32Tbps

Danish researchers claim to have set a new data transfer world record by transmitting over a single optical fibre at an incredible speed of 43 terabits per second.

Researchers at Technical University of Denmark (DTU) used a new type of optical fibre to claim the world data transfer record.

The team has eclipsed the record that was set by researchers at the Karlsruhe Institut fur Technologie, by proving that it is possible to transfer fully 43 terabits per second with just a single laser in the transmitter.

This is an appreciable improvement on the German team's previous record of 32 terabits per second.

The worldwide competition in data speed is contributing to developing the technology intended to accommodate the immense growth of data traffic on the internet, which is estimated to be growing by 40-50% annually.

What is more, emissions linked to the total energy consumption of the internet as a whole currently correspond to more than 2% of the global man-made carbon emissions — which puts the internet on a par with the transport industry (aircraft, shipping etc), researchers said.

However, these other industries are not growing by 40% a year. It is therefore essential to identify solutions for the internet that make significant reductions in energy consumption while simultaneously expanding the bandwidth.

This is precisely what the DTU team has demonstrated with its latest world record. Researchers have previously helped achieve the highest combined data transmission speed in the world — an incredible one petabit per second — although this involved using hundreds of lasers.

The researchers achieved their latest record by using a new type of optical fibre borrowed from the Japanese telecoms giant NNT.

This type of fibre contains seven cores (glass threads) instead of the single core used in standard fibres, which makes it possible to transfer even more data.

Despite the fact that it comprises seven cores, the new fibre does not take up any more space than the standard version.

The researchers' record result has been verified and presented in what is known as a 'post deadline paper' at the CLEO 2014 international conference.

Snapdragon 805 benchmarked - The arrival of a new GPU king

Qualcomm has finally taken the wraps off the Snapdragon 805 SoC. The Snapdragon 805 is the mobile industry’s last great hurrah for the aging 32-bit ARMv7 architecture, and also Qualcomm’s Krait CPU swan song. From this point on, it’s going to be 64-bit ARMv8 all the way. Truth be told, though, the Snapdragon 805 isn’t really about the CPU at all — much more importantly, it’s the vehicle for the introduction of the new and incredibly powerful Adreno 420 GPU (OpenGL ES 3.1, Direct3D 11.2, OpenCL 1.2), and some new buses and other logic blocks that allow for 4K display and 4K video capture. Just how powerful is the Snapdragon 805? Read on for more details and benchmarks. First, it’s important to note that on the CPU side of things, the Snapdragon 805′s quad-core Krait 450 is only a tiny upgrade over the Snapdragon 801′s quad-core Krait 400. In the past, Qualcomm has tweaked the Krait architecture a few times to provide higher clock speeds and IPCs (instructions per clock), but in this case all we get is a slightly higher max frequency (2.7GHz vs. 2.5GHz). In benchmarks, you might get 5% higher CPU performance from the Snapdragon 805, but it’s negligible.

Snapdragon 805 CPU performance. About 8% faster than the Snapdragon 801 (due to higher max CPU frequency), but still beaten out by Apple’s new Cyclone core. [Image credit: Anandtech]

Things get a little more exciting on the GPU side. The Adreno 420 is a brand new GPU, offering around a 40% increase in graphics performance over the Snapdragon 801′s Adreno 330 (found in all the current superphones, including the One M8, Galaxy S5, and Xperia Z2). We haven’t been allowed to benchmark power consumption yet, but Qualcomm’s own internal figures say it should be 20% lower. In testing, that 40% bump — in reality, anywhere between 0% and 50% depending on the benchmark — puts the Snapdragon 805 way ahead of anything else on the market. Beyond raw performance, the Adreno 400 series supports OpenGL ES 3.1, Direct3D 11.2 (with a hardware tessellation engine), and OpenCL 1.2.

Adreno 420 GPU performance [Anandtech again]

As a quick aside, it’s worth pointing out that these benchmarks come from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 Mobile Development Platform (MDP). The MDP is a fairly beefy tablet, and for now Qualcomm is only letting journalists use it while plugged into mains power. Final performance figures, especially in smartphone form factors, will be lower (but not massively so).

Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 Mobile Development Platform (MDP)

To support the beefy GPU, there’s also a new memory interface, supporting two 1600MHz 64-bit DDR3 channels (4×32-bit), for a total peak bandwidth of 25.6 gigabytes per second. Qualcomm says this is the highest memory bandwidth for a mobile device. The wider memory bus is probably necessary to drive 4K graphics — not that there are any smartphones or tablets with 4K displays, mind you. While we’re on the topic of 4K, the Snapdragon 805 also introduces a hardware H.265/HEVC decoder (but no encoder), and a new, faster ISP (image signal processor) that supports 4K @ 30 fps video recording. For the most part, the Snapdragon 805 will be seen as an incremental and niche upgrade. While the Adreno 420 is impressive, it only really comes into its own at higher-than-1080p resolutions — and while mobile devices are surely going in that direction, it looks like 2014′s flagship devices will be sticking at 1080p, where the Snapdragon 801 SoC with Adreno 330 GPU do just fine. In this light, the Snapdragon 805 is more of a tech demo for the full roll-out of the Adreno 400-series GPU next year, starting with the 64-bit Snapdragon 808 and 810 SoCs. The 808 and 810 will also step down from 28nm to 20nm, which should result in an even larger performance boost and power drop compared to the current Snapdragons. And of course, the 808 and 810 are themselves just setting the stage for 2015′s main act: Qualcomm’s custom-designed 64-bit successor to Krait. With the Adreno 420 posting some seriously impressive numbers, and assuming Krait’s CPU successor is equally beastly, I have a good feeling that Qualcomm’s domination of the mobile market will continue.

Polkast: Remotely Access Desktop Files Form iOS, Kindle and Android.

Feel insecure while keeping your files on Cloud Storage, especially after all the hullabaloo the National Security Agency’s PRISM project has managed to cause. But that Does not mean you should stop Accessing your Cloud storage, well Cloud services are not the only way to remote access your files stored on your PC on your Mobile device. Polkast is another Application that allows you to Remotely access your desktop, it acts as a Personal Cloud Services and let you access the Files Stored in PC, Linux or any other device from iOS, Kindle Fire and Android device.



The First thing is to download its main PC application from where the files will be accessed, which Polkast calls your HomeBase. When you run it for the First time, you will need to create the account from the app, done, now Sign-in using the E-mail and Password.



Polkast supports multiple HomeBase, though free account holder, you can only access one account at one time. Upon Signed-in you will be presented on the main interface, you can call your Dashboard, where you can manage files and folders you want to share. There is a Sidebar on left that allows you to navigate between, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, Favorites, Recent and Shared Items.

To manage the files you want to access from Mobile app, Click settings > Manage Access from Menu bar and a Small window will appear where you can add or Remove items. It also allows you to access iTunes Library Remotely.

When you have your Dashboard Configured, it is time to hit the Mobile app. Launch Polkast app on Mobile and Sign-in and Choose your default homebase, and the Mobile app will be linked with Polkast. You can now access the filesyou shared from your Computer, over a Connected Wi-Fi. The Interesting this is that it will tell you when your files are inaccessible over the internet and suggest you to use a Local network.

How to Active Multi-Window Concept in Chrome using Tab Rezsize ?

For all those out there, who wants to open a lot of Tabs in chrome but hate to do it because of the inconvenience, there is a solution for them. There is an extension for Google Chrome called Tab Resize, which allows you to split Tabs into multiple windows, arranged in a number of presets layouts, but particularly useful on large screens.




All you need to do is: Go to Chrome settings and click on extensions, click on “Get More extensions”. Then search for Tab Resize and click the fourth and click Free, wait for the installation to finish. After the installation is over, you will se an arrow at the top right side of Chrome Window, click on it an choose the layout and chrome Tabs will split according to your selection. And if you want to Undo everything, just click on the Tab resize button and select Undo.

Download Link: Tab Resize

Control Your PC from Anywhere using Chrome Remote Desktop for Android

Have you ever been somewhere and urgently you need a file stored in your home computer ? This is very common situation that most of us deal with, but now rather returning home and get it, Google has offered a better solution for this problem.

Google – one of the most innovative tech companies on the planet, famous for providing new technologies to make every job easy for its users, has released Google's Chrome Remote Desktopservice today for your Android Smartphones to remotely control your PC anytime, from anywhere.

Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop app for Android provides an easier and secure interaction of your computer with your Android Smartphones. So, using this app you can control your desktop system or PC remotely from anywhere using your Android Smartphone, provided your Mac, Windows or Linux system has Chrome Remote Desktop app installed and running.

Google first introduced this service in 2011, which allowed users of Chrome OS or Chrome browser to remotely access their personal computers back home in a free, easy and secure way and now they have released this feature for Android devices to make the same thing possible for Android users.

HOW TO USE IT

1. Install the Chrome Remote Desktop to your Chrome browser through the Chrome Web Store.
2. Open the app and Enable the remote connection service.

3. Set a minimum 6 digit pin code, as password.
4. Now Install 'Chrome Remote Desktop' Android app from Google Play Store.

5. Then you will see a list of PC’s that you can access. Just enter the respective PIN number to access it.

The new app even provides you to register multiple computers to your Android devices, so that you can control multiple systems on your single Smartphone or tablet AND a number of companies offer this ability like PhoneMyPC or TeamViewer.

For now, if you are using Android Smartphone or Tablet, you can download the free Remote Desktop Android App from the Google play store but for an iOS version it will be coming later this year.

What is Heartbleed bug and what can I do to protect myself?

What is the Heartbleed bug?

Heartbleed is a flaw in OpenSSL, the open-source encryption standard used by the majority of sites on the web that need to transmit data users want to keep secure. It basically gives you a "secure line" when you're sending an email or chatting on IM.

Encryption works by making it so that data being sent looks like nonsense to anyone but the the intended recipient.

Occasionally, one computer might want to check that there's still a computer at the end of its secure connection, so it will send out what's known as a "heartbeat," a small packet of data that asks for a response.

Due to a programming error in the implementation of OpenSSL, the researchers found that it was possible to send a well-disguised packet of data that looked like one of these heartbeats to trick the computer at the other end of a connection into sending over data stored in its memory.

The flaw was first reported to the team behind OpenSSL by Google Security researcher Neel Mehta, and independently found by security firmCodenomicon. According to the researchers who discovered the flaw, the code has been in OpenSSL for approximately two years, and utilizing it doesn't leave a trace.

How bad is that?

It's really bad. Web servers can keep a lot of information in their active memory, including user names, passwords, and even the content that user have uploaded to a service. According to Vox.com's Timothy Lee, even credit card numbers could be pulled out of the data sitting in memory on the servers that power some services.

But worse even than that, the flaw has made it possible for hackers to steal encryption keys, the codes used to turn gibberish encrypted data into readable information.

With encryption keys, hackers can intercept encrypted data moving to and from a site's servers and read it without establishing a secure connection. This means that unless the companies running vulnerable servers change their keys, even future traffic will be susceptible.

Am I affected?

Probably, though again, this isn't simply an issue on your computer or phone itself - it's in the software that powers the services you use. Security firm Codenomicon reports:

You are likely to be affected either directly or indirectly. OpenSSL is the most popular open source cryptographic library and TLS (transport layer security) implementation used to encrypt traffic on the Internet. Your popular social site, your company's site, commercial site, hobby site, sites you install software from or even sites run by your government might be using vulnerable OpenSSL.

According to a recent Netcraft web server survey that looked at nearly 959,000,000 web sites, 66% of sites are powered by technology built around SSL, and that doesn't include email services, chat services, and a wide number of apps available on every platform.

So what can I do to protect myself?

Since the vulnerability has been in OpenSSL for approximately two years and utilizing it leaves no trace, assume that your accounts may be compromised. You should change passwords immediately, especially for services where privacy or security are major concerns.

Meanwhile, the researchers who discovered the flaw let the developers behind OpenSSL know several days before announcing the vulnerability, so it was fixed before word got out yesterday. Most major service providers should already be updating their sites, so the bug will be less prevalent over coming weeks.