Lenovo is going to deliver on the Microsoft Courier design

This Microsoft CONCEPT device really grabbed my attention a quite a few years ago and I was really disappointed when it didn’t come to fruition. The article from Arstechnica describes the new Yoga Book in great detail and it seems to have everything that the original device promised. We’ll see in October when it is finally released. Do I want one? I don’t know now since I have gotten my hands on the Microsoft Surfacebook. I am truly in love with that device but having two screens on the same device could possibly create some interesting capabilities.

Microsoft confirms, kills Courier in one fell swoop – Engadget Journal Entry by Bob Appleby on May 5, 2010 - It is only right to report the demise of the Courier as since earlier this year I talked about how exciting this product concept was for me and several of my coworkers. In fact we were so enthralled with it we featured its video on the front page of our website for awhile. Darn it Microsoft, this is ...

Microsoft’s Courier takes some of the wind out of the iPad’s delivery announcement Journal Entry by Bob Appleby on March 7, 2010 - Friday was a very interesting day because of Microsoft Courier Tablet leak that occurred simultaneously with Apple’s announcement of the iPad’s release date. There has been a lot of hype surrounding iPad and how it is going to be super hit for Apple like the iPhone and iPod products have ...

Gizmodo Presentation on new Microsoft Tablet Journal Entry by Bob Appleby on September 28, 2009 - Not “Real” product yet, here is another prototype product showing a new design type that is using a hinged dual screen system. I would be interested in looking at one to see how it works, but I am slightly skeptical about the usability, and ruggedness of such a product. Microsoft’s product has even ...

In this world of virtualized servers, exploits are becoming more controlled and prevalent

An interesting article written by Dan Goodin of Arstechnica discusses a new variation of the Rowhammer exploit, I love these names, called Flip Feng Shui. It works with memory deduplication techniques that is used by many cloud hosting services to save memory resources by sharing identical chunks of data used by two or more virtual machines.

Flip Feng Shui manipulates the physical memory that is being used by in such a way that crypto keys and other data known to be stored in area that can be susceptible to the Rowhammer exploit.

If you want to read more click here.

Lenovo’s 910 looks like it will be a really nice Executive Ultrabook

You are going to have to wait until October to get your hands on this really nice system but it looks like it will offer some really nice specs. This model is based on the new Intel Kaby Lake  processor series. You have an option in display with either a 4K screen or you can opt down to the 1080p model which will give you better battery life at around 15. 5 hours vs. 10 hours with the 4K. That is still bad either.

It has a 13.9 inch screen riding on Lenovo’s piano hinge technology so it can rotate 360 degrees to give you a really big tablet screen at just under 14 inches. You can configure Lenovo's new Yoga 910 with up to 16GB of RAM, 1TB of PCIe-based SSD storage, a fingerprint reader, 2 x USB Type-C ports (1 x USB 3.0, and 1 x USB 2.0 with charging support). This series will start at $1299 and configured with the above it will probably put a pretty big dent in your pocketbook.

iOS World–Important security patch now available

I was ignoring the update until I read this article in Naked Security. (If you have an iDevice, go to Settings | General | Software Update right now, just to make sure you’re up-to-date.)

Apparently there are three exploits that were being used to hack into your device. So it was good the Apple came out with the patch so quickly and don’t forget to install this security patch soon!

Are you Click Happy?

Naked Security posting points out that a large number of Facebook users are not real careful about how they use Facebook. Because of the actual structure of being able to post links on your Facebook postings, these links can direct you towards anything with out knowing where you are actually going to end up or how that destination will affect your device.

Part of keeping your equipment secure and safe is to be aware of what you are doing and where you accept to go. Look at who is posting and where that posting is taking you. If you don’t know then maybe you shouldn’t necessarily be in such a hurry to find out. And don’t forget that you can put Sophos on your home and mobile devices for free.

Looking for a really light, thin ultrabook?

Acer is releasing a new line of notebooks soon based on Intel’s new Kaby Lake processor. They are calling the new series of notebooks Swift and their flagship model looks really nice. Built with an aluminum case, the Swift 7 model is just 9.98mm’s thick, has a 13.3 inch IPS screen that sports 1920x1080 resolution and weighs in at 2.48 pounds.

Priced at $999, this ultrabook is based on the Kaby Lake i5-7300U processor, has 8gb’s of RAM and a 256GB SSD. It also has two USB 3.1 Type-C ports and for connectivity, a T2R 802.11ac with MU-MIMO wireless adapter.

All in all it looks like a pretty nice system for under $1000’s.

So how well does all your home automation equipment work together?

If you have been playing with home automation for a while, it is probably starting to look a little like the Tower of Babel. No two systems seem compatible with each other and up to now there hasn’t been a way to have centralized management between it all.

The Logitech system appears to have support for a broad base of manufacturer systems. Control devices from Philips Hue, LIFX, August, Sonos, Harmony, Lutron, Insteon, and Belkin WeMo. This type of system is what I would use for that broad base of consumer products that you would pick up at your local Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, Costco or Sam’s Club. These systems were never meant to be interoperable but with the Logitech System you bring them all together.

The main BRAIN is a bridge unit that you plug into your power and connect into your Wi-Fi network. From here it goes out an identifies what you installed in your home. Using the App you can add more that the, system doesn’t find. Once you have gone through the discovery process, you now have the ability to begin creating your controlled environment.

The control buttons are used to created easy switches the have up to three sequences that can be programmed to them. TO operate them it is just a simple press of the button but how you press it determines which of the three programs you want it to run. The options are a single click, double click or a continuous hold down of the button to achieve these three options.

The buttons can either be mounted using a self-adhesive back or just placed on a table top. They have a replaceable battery in them that lasts up to five years before you need to change them out. System Specifications

The Starter Pack includes:  Home switch (x2, with battery), Plug-in bridge, Mounting tape (x2) and User documentation priced at $99.99. Each add-on switch costs $39.99. It can be controlled either by iOS or Android devices. I haven’t found out whether it can be controlled from a PC yet but if your techy enough you can probably figure a way around that.

While this isn’t the system I would necessarily use if I was starting out today when I compare it to one of Honeywell’s advanced systems but if you are a do-it-yourselfer, and are using different technologies to accomplish different tasks then this can be a great way of bringing it back together.

More info on Logitech’s Pop Home Management System

It feels these days that we never get away from work

How do you successfully balance your time on vacation with still accomplishing what you need to for work and keep your family happy. I don’t remember a time when I totally unplugged from the office while I am away on vacation. When you are in a job that requires constant and continuing communication it is hard to just say no. What you can say is this is how I am going to manage it though. That is the biggest thing, along with setting expectation of those that are involved.

My typical vacation day still starts around 5am, I don’t sleep in much, I feel that I am about to miss something if I do. I’ll brew the coffee. Take a quick look outside to see whether we will have a sunrise worth taking pictures of and if so I will get things ready to take a walk down to the beach. However, before I leave, I have checked email, my RSS Feeds and decided on the rest of the morning’s projects that I will need to work on.

Luckily my wife likes to sleep in when we are on vacation so I have until between 7-8 before she gets up. We have breakfast together, I’m on cleanup and she gets ready for the beach. I finish up what I need to do for the morning and follow down around 10 or 11. It may sound a little boring but it accomplishes what I need it to do. The big thing here is that we have set our expectations of what we both need of each other and we try our best to adhere to them. Remember, you are on vacation as well.

You also need to be flexible. You can plan day trips that would normally interfere with your planned time to work but make it know when you are not going to be available and don’t fret over not being in touch. There is seldom a situation that can’t be put off for awhile and if there really is an emergency you can be reached by phone.

The bottom line is that you have to think about yourself, your family and friends that you might be with on your vacation and the needs of those that you left behind. Probably in that order. You can’t be on 24x7x365 days a year. You won’t get the best of you to give to those that need you.

Looking for a cheep wireless Bluetooth headset?

These look great to use for workouts or just working out in the yard. They have slight water resistance, “sweat resistance”, so that will help keep them from being damaged in during you grueling workouts. If you are on a marathon they have about an 8 hour battery life and has a built-in microphone so it can be used with your phone for phone calls as well. Listed at Amazon for around $22 this should be a no brainer.

• MPOW Brand Certified: Top-Brand Bluetooth Accessories for Smartphones
• Cheetah's Stylish Behind-Ear Streamline Outlook Design Guarantee 100% Stable and Comfortable User Wearing Experience for Running,Jogging,Biking,Driving,Fishing,Camping,Hiking and other Outdoor Sports.
• The Most Advanced Bluetooth 4.1 Chips Hardware Configuration Ensure Hi-Fi CD Quality Stereo Music Sound and Strong Signal. Leading apt-X Tech Can Provide No-lag Voice when Listening to Music or Calling with Mic.
  Simple To Use: Portable Function Control Buttons Are Designed for Easily Operation. Just Press it until Blue and Red LED Light Alternatively Flashing, find and connect with your phones,then you can enjoy music or calling wirelessly. If need reconnect automatically, please turn on Bluetooth of your phone first, then turn on the Cheetah, It can reconnect automatically.
• Universal Compatible for Apple iPhone 6 6 Plus 5 5S 4 4S iPad iPod Samsung Galaxy S6 S5 S4 S3 LG Motorola Sony and iOS/Android Mobile Phones. Almost all smartphones can work with this well.

Kobo Aura One

Where was this device a few years ago. I have had some issues over the years with electronic devices finding their way into our pool. This new Kobo Reader gets rid of that issue with its waterproof design. This eBook reader is a little larger than most of the ereaders in this category of devices sizing out to 7.8 inch display. The unit is no thicker than an iPhone 6s and not much heavier than the 6s Plus. The Aura One is rated to 6 feet of water resistance, I’ll have to keep it out of the deep end of the pool, which normally shouldn’t be an issue unless you are floating in the deep end.

The number on eBook company that Kobo is competing against is Amazon with their kindle products. With Amazon’s deep source of books to purchase and borrow you have almost any book that you could desire available to you. It’s ability  to also play back audiobooks for those of us that are deep into their Audible Library, is another boon.

Kobo however has deep ties into the the US Lending Library system with Overdrive. So this feature is part of their system. That gives you access to books for free if available from your local and regional libraries that you are a member of.

The cost of this device in the US is going to be around $229 and it should be available in early September.

Review at theverge

Automatic Pro now offers free 3G service

When I read the post describing this product it really began to intrigue me. First, let me say that I wish it were free 4G but any “G” is better than none. This device plugs into your car’s OBD-II port, unlocks the data in your car’s on-board computer and connects it to the internet. While that is a concern to me as far as security, I’m planning on looking into the repercussions of adding this to a vehicle.

This is the same concern I would have for any of the IoT devices that are constantly showing up around us. There are an interesting list of things that this device will bring to the table that might be of interest to you though.

The primary reason this device was created was allow you to connect into the on board computer system of your car to allow you to also access the diagnostic information about your vehicle. The Pro version takes it one step further to actually connect the device through an internet connection to applications to make use of that data. Many other things become available to take advantage of once this has been unlocked.

Have you ever forgotten where you have parked your car? Now this device provides the ability to find it again. Tracking driving statistics is also an interesting feature. I need to provide my driving information for sales/service trips to the IRS every year so this device along with one of several available Apps can automatically log the exact mileage for these trips without me having to write it down.

Interesting enough this also works with IFTTT and the Amazon Echo. I am also playing with a Pebble watch right now and there is a an App available to connect that as well.

I sure you guessed that I am excited about this device, so I placed an order for one for my Jeep. I’ll get back to you later after I have put it through its paces.

Is the USB-C connection really that great?

According to Intel the addition of USB-C connector in your mobile device gives you a single connection type for every use. With Apple’s disclosure that they are not going to include a headphone jack in the next iPhone release we are going to need some method of connecting a headphone to your device. While wireless Bluetooth headset/buds are an alternative, a lower power consumption method is much desired. We don’t want to do anything to diminish our battery life at all.

The most obvious advantage, at least to devices manufacturers, is slimmer phones. Without needing to route analog circuitry, a phone maker could switch to digital audio and shave off precious millimeters from the device's body. With digital audio, Saunders added, software and device makers could help cheaper earbuds take advantage of features reserved for more expensive headphones, like noise cancelling and bass boosting.

Another benefit is the ability of this connection to handle multiple functions simultaneowusly through the single connection. This means, you could be charging your phone, streaming music or video and transferring files all simultaneously. So, One connector to rule them all!

Uber may be planning to add driverless cars to its fleet in Pittsburgh as early as this month.

Apparently they have been testing driverless cars in Pittsburgh for eighteen months and are getting ready to take the next step and actually implement them. Obviously if this is implemented we are going to see a big change in cost of using this type of system versus the current one. Uber recently purchased Otto which has equipment that can be retrofitted into current vehicles to create a driverless car. Otto initially was launched to do bring this technology to the trucking industry.

According to TechCrunch:

The company will deploy around 100 modified Volvo XC90s outfitted with self-driving equipment. Each vehicle will be staffed by one engineer, who can take the wheel as/when needed, and a co-pilot to observe and take notes. There will also be a “liquid-cooled” computer sitting in the trunk recording trip and map data.

Facial recognition features can be a big security issue

I  saw an article posted in Engadget today discussing how 3D faces based on Facebook pictures can be used to fool facial recognition systems.

"Some vendors -- most notably Microsoft with its Windows Hello software -- already have commercial solutions that leverage alternative hardware. [In Hello's case, that hardware is Tobii's eye-tracking camera.] However, there is always a cost-benefit to adding hardware, and hardware vendors will need to decide whether there is enough demand from and benefit for consumers to add specialized components like IR cameras or structured light projectors."

I'm glad Microsoft is using this technology to create a more secure feature it makes me believe that someone come up with some sort all method be around this is well. Your post interesting in that they detailed how they were able to fool the camera phone software. It must have been fun to use all the toys to accomplish this.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update is reported to cause millions of webcams to stop working

Microsoft decided to exclude both H.264 and MJPEG codec support for millions of webcams. This includes cameras from manufacturers like Logitech.  According to Microsoft-focused blog Thurrott.com, this was supposedly a decision the company made to prevent performance issues now that certain Windows apps have more direct webcam access post-update.

Members of Microsoft’s Windows Camera team are performing damage control in support threads, and Thurrott.com reports an official fix may be in the works for a September release. Unfortunately, that may only remedy the MJPEG format. Those who rely on H.264 may be waiting even longer to make use of their webcams. If you recently installed the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you can revert to the prior version of the software within 10 days.

Accepting LinkedIn Invitations

An interesting article in inc.com suggests that you should ask yourself “11Questions to Ask Before Accepting a LinkedIn Invitation”.

My rule of thumb is that if I don't know the person, the company or organization they are with, or if the organization is not one that I think fits my general group of companies I want to work with then I probably don't want or need to accept their invitation.

So the reasons not to just accept any old invitation that comes along is that you'll start receiving all sorts of information that is not necessarily relative to you or even more dangerous you are very, you could possibly open yourself up to somebody that is trying to scam you.

So you will want to think about the parameters that you want to use, that makes sense to you, but if you feel you need a little more help than take a quick gander at the article listed above. It is a great is a starting place but is by no means definitive.

Inc’s Criteria:

1. Do I know this person?	5. What is their industry and job description?	9. Do they have any recent activity?
2. Did they send a personal message?	6. Where are they from?	10. What does the profile tell me about the person?
3. Who else are they connected to?	7. Do they have any endorsements or recommendations?	11. How many connections do they have?
4. Does their profile have a photo? If so, what does it convey?	8. Have they published anything on LinkedIn?

(Cloud) Tip of the Day: FreeBSD now available in Azure Marketplace

FreeBSD is Now being supported in the Azure Marketplace.

HikVision’s new PanoVu DS 2DP1636Z D & DS 2DP0818Z D

Presentation of the Camera PanoVu 16 Megapixel 360 ° + PTZ Darkfighter of HIKVISION DS - 2DP1636Z - D, mounting and installation in the showroom of the company DIXYS

Naked Security Post: NIST’s new password rules – what you need to know

by Chester Wisniewski

It’s no secret. We’re really bad at passwords. Nevertheless, they aren’t going away any time soon.

With so many websites and online applications requiring us to create accounts and think up passwords in a hurry, it’s no wonder so many of us struggle to follow the advice of so-called password security experts.

At the same time, the computing power available for password cracking just gets bigger and bigger.

OK, so I started with the bad news, but this cloud does have a silver lining.

It doesn’t need to be as hard as we make it and the government is here to help.

That’s right, the United States National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) is formulating new guidelines for password policies to be used in the whole of the US government (the public sector).

Why is this important? Because the policies are sensible and a great template for all of us to use within our own organizations and application development programs.

Anyone interested in the draft specification for Special Publication 800-63-3: Digital Authentication Guidelines can review it as it evolves over on Github or in a more accessible form on NIST’s website.

For a more human approach, security researcher Jim Fenton did a presentation earlier this month at the PasswordsCon event in Las Vegas that sums up the changes nicely.

To see what is new click here

This pen blew my mind when I saw the video

The Cronzy pen puts over 16 million colors in your pocket

I pulled this one from the Verge and it was pretty cool if it really works. I included the video that was on the Verge site below showing the pan in operation. Currency claims that it can scan and draw 16 million colors, “collecting all the existing colors and shades of the world!” That's a pretty big claim but even if it works only half as well as they show in the video this is a pretty neat capability for those of you that have an artistic temperament. See the full article on Verge.