Valve announces SteamOS, an operating system built for the living room

It’s not Half Life 3. Not yet, anyway.

Valve announced details of SteamOS on Monday, the first of three announcements the company has promised this week concerning its Steam games retail service and Steam Box home console.

SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system “built around Steam itself,” according to the reveal site.

“SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen,” it continues. “In SteamOS we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level.”

Presumably SteamOS functions as the interface for the console Valve is expected to reveal this week. While hooking a PC up to a television to play games is already common practice, Windows is clumsy to operate while sitting on a couch across the room. SteamOS, like Valve’s already-released Steam Big Picture Mode, should make it easier to get into games, install drivers, and the like in a living room environment.

Valve also promises, “With SteamOS, ‘openness’ means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they’ve been able to,” and that, “Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want.”

If only my living room looked this amazing.

Though SteamOS is Linux-based, Valve confirmed that Mac and Windows-based games will run on the new system. As expected, the operating system includes “in-home streaming”—your existing computer can stream games over your home network to your SteamOS machine. Latency has always been the problem with streaming games because they require a large amount of data and accurate input response; we’ll have to wait and see whether Valve adequately solves those issues upon launch.

Valve also reiterated its new family sharing plan, which allows titles to be shared across accounts, and announced it is working with “many of the media services you know and love” to bring them to both Steam and SteamOS.

SteamOS is free to download and install on any system, with a release date of “soon” according to the site.

We’ll hold judgment for now, though some developers are certainly excited:

Valve is saving the entire gaming world, but I all I can do is mumble passive aggressively about crowbars.

— Markus Persson (@notch) September 23, 2013

The original Steam Living Room site from last week has been updated with a slightly-larger picture of a blue sun and a new 48 hour countdown. Stay tuned for the second-of-three announcements on Wednesday.

View the original article here

Steam's new Family Sharing system lets you lend and borrow PC games

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Dorm room entertainment: Build a killer system with just two devices

Dorm rooms are tiny, but that won’t stop you from having friends over after a long day of classes. But while you might be fine with watching a movie on your laptop, its screen is too small for a group of people—and with your limited space (and college student budget), you can’t really splurge on a tricked-out entertainment system either.

You can, however, create your own basic setup with two key devices: a high-quality display and an awesome set of speakers.

Instead of a TV, consider picking something a little more versatile, like an all-in-one PC or an HDTV monitor. The 27-inch Samsung LT27B750NDX/ZA ($550) is an HDTV monitor with a built-in TV tuner, so you can use it as a spare monitor for your laptop and for watching TV. The tuner supports your dorm’s cable network, and you can access myriad web apps from the display’s home screen—it includes streaming staples like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and Pandora. Videos look sharp on its 1080p resolution display.

This Samsung is a two-in-one HDTV and computer monitor.

Because it’s Wi-Fi enabled, you can stream content from the monitor’s apps without needing your laptop hooked up. And thanks to the USB jacks on its side, you can connect your mouse and keyboard and browse the Internet through its built-in browser.

When choosing your speakers, take your budget and your needs into consideration. If you have a couple of different devices that play music, a Bluetooth speaker set is the way to go. Consider Brookstone’s Big Blue Studio ($150), which easily pairs with any Bluetooth-ready device, like your laptop, smartphone, or tablet—just hold down its big blue button to activate syncing mode. The Studio lasts about four straight hours on its battery, but you can also use it plugged in. With two front-facing full-range speaker drivers, a down-firing woofer, and a passive radiator, the Big Blue Studio sounds phenomenal, and doesn’t take up too much shelf space.

The Big Blue Studio pairs with any Bluetooth device.

For a speaker dock made for the Apple family, Bowers & Wilikin’s Z2 ($400) is hard to beat. This speaker features a Lightening-connector dock (for the iPhone 5 and latest generation of iPods) and AirPlay wireless streaming, so you can hook your iPhone up or stream music wirelessly. The dock holds the iPhone 5 securely in place, so you don’t have to worry about it coming lose if someone bumps the Z2 during a party. Under the hood, the Z2 packs dual full-range drivers and a pair of 20-watt amplifiers, which ensure exceptional clarity no matter what type of music you’re listening to. It even has a remote, which is especially handy for killing the noise in a pinch if your floor’s Resident Assistant comes knocking.

B&W’s Z2 is the perfect Apple companion.

If you want something showy, portable, and long-lasting, TDK’s Life on Record Wireless Boombox ($350) is a great option. It has the look and feel of an old-school boom box, but is far from that. To play a song, you can plug in your smartphone or iPod directly through its USB port, or beam it wirelessly via Bluetooth. The Boombox has an auxiliary input for other devices, too, and can even support some instruments. It boasts six hours of continuous play on its battery, which is solid considering its size. Inside, it houses two full-range drivers, two passive radiators, and one subwoofer, and you can adjust its bass and treble equalization for the best sound possible. Its final feature is an FM radio tuner, because no true boom box should be without it.

Macworld.auThe flashy Life on Record Wireless Boombox begs to be seen.

With just two devices, you can create a killer mini-entertainment mecca for you and your friends. Now, throw a welcoming bash for your floormates to show off your new gear. Who can respect your dorm’s quiet hours with a setup like this?

Leah started out as a PCWorld columnist before Macworld scooped her up as an assistant editor. Now, she happily writes features and covers iOS apps, smartphone cases, gadget bags, and social media trends across all three of our sites.
More by Leah Yamshon

View the original article here

COBOL-based system for $160 billion pension fund is a political football

A COBOL (common business oriented language)-based system used to support New York’s $160 billion state pension fund has become the subject of controversy, with some officials claiming it poses a potential security risk and others defending it as “battle-tested,” albeit set to be replaced.

Dubbed MEBEL (member, employer, benefits, executive and legal), the system dates back more than 25 years, according to an audit released earlier this month by the state Department of Financial Services. It “supports the core business processes of the retirement system including benefits processing, calculating and payment, employer billing and reporting, and enrollment and termination of membership,” the audit adds.

“Using a system that is more than 25 years old for such a high volume of transactions is dangerous, particularly because the systems and programs MEBEL was intended to interface with are also now very outdated and there are a small and dwindling number of specialists able to use and maintain them,” the audit states.

The audit also found that MEBEL had been using versions of IBM’s z/OS mainframe operating system and Microsoft’s SQL Server that were so out of date, they weren’t supported by the vendors. While the state has upgraded SQL Server it won’t do the same for z/OS until later this year, according to the audit.

“Software vendors do not create security patches or fixes for recently identified problems for software that is past their formal support end dates,” it adds. “This lack of security and functionality protection leaves the retirement system’s data vulnerable to bugs and to security breaches, including attacks by hackers.”

The Department of Financial Services falls under the auspices of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration, but the pension system is overseen by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who is elected separately and also serves as the state’s auditor. The two have sparred politically over various issues in recent years, including DiNapoli’s handling of the pension fund and Cuomo’s budget proposals.

DiNapoli’s office responded to the DFS audit on Friday, saying it contained “numerous inaccuracies, misleading statements and errors.”

MEBEL is a “secure and battle-tested system” and COBOL is a “very stable language used extensively throughout state government as well as financial institutions around the world,” the statement added.

A “reliable work horse,” MEBEL has been “constantly maintained and updated,” DiNapoli’s office said. “None of the hardware or software used by the System is old. The mainframe was purchased in 2009 and the software is current. A stable computer system has a low risk of sudden and arbitrary failure.”

Although COBOL dates back more than five decades, its time of invention is “irrelevant” in light of this ongoing maintenance, he added.

Nor is the suggestion of a security risk accurate, as MEBEL isn’t directly accessible from external sources, DiNapoli said.

As for skilled COBOL programmers, the comptroller’s office has had great success in hiring candidates from outside as well as training new staff on it and IBM’s CICS (customer information control system) transaction server, which is also used in MEBEL, DiNapoli said.

However, MEBEL alone has not met all of the necessary requirements and DiNapoli’s team has added other technologies to it, he said.

While MEBEL is scheduled for replacement, the DFS auditors and DiNapoli also disagreed on how long the process has been under way, with the former saying it “should have started years ago” and DiNapoli insisting it indeed has.

Accenture has been selected as the contractor on the project, which is in the early planning stages now.

The new system will primarily use Oracle’s PeopleSoft ERP (enterprise resource planning) software, according to DiNapoli spokesman Eric Sumberg.

A pension-check-writing component will likely be written with MicroFocus COBOL tools, he said via email on Tuesday. Fewer than 10 percent of pension plan beneficiaries receive checks, with most getting direct deposit into bank accounts.

The politically charged dispute over MEBEL’s viability ties into broader, ongoing debates surrounding application modernization, as well as the long-term viability of COBOL as IT professionals proficient in it edge closer to retirement.

While vendors have begun offering products aimed at porting COBOL applications to other platforms, billions of lines of COBOL code are still out there running critical systems and will likely do so for some time to come.

Meanwhile, a study released by MicroFocus earlier this year found that the majority of universities polled didn’t offer COBOL classes.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for the IDG News Service.
More by Chris Kanaracus

View the original article here

Report: NSA broke into UN video teleconferencing system

The U.S. National Security Agency reportedly cracked the encryption used by the video teleconferencing system at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

In June 2012 the NSA department responsible for collecting intelligence about the U.N. gained "new access to internal United Nations communication," German magazine Der Spiegel reported Monday based on information from secret NSA documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Serious action is needed to undo NSA's damage to U.S. cloud providers. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]

The NSA technicians were able to crack the encryption used by the U.N.'s internal video teleconferencing (VTC) system allowing VTC traffic to be decrypted. "This traffic is getting us internal UN VTCs (yay!)," one of the internal NSA documents said, according to Der Spiegel.

In less than three weeks, the number of U.N. communications that the NSA managed to intercept and decrypt rose from 12 to over 450.

According to another NSA internal report from 2011, the agency caught the Chinese spying on the U.N. and managed to tap into their signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection to gain insight into high interest and high profile events at the time.

Media reports in June based on documents leaked by Snowden claimed that the European Union mission to the U.N. in New York and its delegation in Washington, D.C. have also been bugged by the NSA, prompting E.U. officials to demand answers from the U.S. government.

The NSA was able to maintain persistent access to computer networks at E.U. delegations in New York and Washington by taking advantage of the Virtual Private Network (VPN) linking them, Der Spiegel also reported Monday.

"If we lose access to one site, we can immediately regain it by riding the VPN to the other side and punching a whole [sic] out," an internal NSA presentation said, according to the German magazine. "We have done this several times when we got locked out of Magothy."

"Magothy" is the internal code name used by the NSA for the E.U. delegation in Washington, D.C. The code name used for the E.U. mission in New York is "Apalachee."

New security systems were installed to protect the restricted area hosting the server room at the offices of the E.U. delegation to the U.N. in New York a few weeks ago, following the June reports about the NSA targeting the E.U.'s diplomatic missions in the U.S., Der Spiegel said. An investigation was launched and technicians have searched for bugs and checked the computer network.

View the original article here

Report: NSA broke into UN video teleconferencing system

The U.S. National Security Agency reportedly cracked the encryption used by the video teleconferencing system at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

In June 2012 the NSA department responsible for collecting intelligence about the U.N. gained "new access to internal United Nations communication," German magazine Der Spiegel reported Monday based on information from secret NSA documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The NSA technicians were able to crack the encryption used by the U.N.'s internal video teleconferencing (VTC) system allowing VTC traffic to be decrypted. "This traffic is getting us internal UN VTCs (yay!)," one of the internal NSA documents said, according to Der Spiegel.

In less than three weeks, the number of U.N. communications that the NSA managed to intercept and decrypt rose from 12 to over 450.

According to another NSA internal report from 2011, the agency caught the Chinese spying on the U.N. and managed to tap into their signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection to gain insight into high interest and high profile events at the time.

Media reports in June based on documents leaked by Snowden claimed that the European Union mission to the U.N. in New York and its delegation in Washington, D.C. have also been bugged by the NSA, prompting E.U. officials to demand answers from the U.S. government.

The NSA was able to maintain persistent access to computer networks at E.U. delegations in New York and Washington by taking advantage of the Virtual Private Network (VPN) linking them, Der Spiegel also reported Monday.

"If we lose access to one site, we can immediately regain it by riding the VPN to the other side and punching a whole [sic] out," an internal NSA presentation said, according to the German magazine. "We have done this several times when we got locked out of Magothy."

"Magothy" is the internal code name used by the NSA for the E.U. delegation in Washington, D.C. The code name used for the E.U. mission in New York is "Apalachee."

New security systems were installed to protect the restricted area hosting the server room at the offices of the E.U. delegation to the U.N. in New York a few weeks ago, following the June reports about the NSA targeting the E.U.'s diplomatic missions in the U.S., Der Spiegel said. An investigation was launched and technicians have searched for bugs and checked the computer network.

View the original article here

British academics brand Elon Musk's rapid transit system "Hyperloopy"

Academics have responded to Elon Musk's hotly-anticipated transport concept, Hyperloop, by calling it unrealistic and "hyperloopy".

The Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX founder said the near-supersonic service would use magnets and fans to fire passenger-carrying capsules floating on a cushion of air through pressurised tubes.

Rod Smith, a professor of engineering at Imperial College London, told Techworld that the project is very unlikely to take off, even though nothing outlined in Musk's 57-page proposal violates the fundamental laws of physics.

Indeed, the concept of capsules being fired through a pressurised tube isn't a new one with "the father of modern rocket propulsion" Robert Goddard first proposing a 1,200mph vacuum system between New York City and Boston in 1909. Several other proposals have followed but none have taken off due to the technical difficulties of maintaining such a system, according to Smith.

I'd go as far as to call it fantasy.

"It's not based on strong engineering principals," said Smith in reference to Hyperloop. "I'd go as far as to call it fantasy."

Smith's main issue with Musk's proposal relate to the entrepreneur's energy calculations. Musk claims Hyperloop will use a similar amount of energy to high-speed rail but Smith believes this is a miscalculation. "To get a narrow projectile down a thin tube requires a lot of energy," he said.

An artist rendition that may never materialize.

Smith also said that it would be very hard to earthquake-proof Hyperloop because no matter how strong the tubes can always be twisted out of alignment, no matter how strong they are.

Meanwhile, Tim Schwanen, professor of transport studies at Oxford University, told Techworld that the spread of people across California does not support Musk's vision.

"With the exception of the stretch of the line through the San Francisco Bay Area, the area traversed by the line is characterised by heavy urban sprawl," said Schwanen. "So building densities are low, meaning that access and egress time between stations and actual origins and destinations will be considerable for most users, partly cancelling out the travel time gains achieved by the new system."

He also believes that it will be difficult to raise the finances for the $6bn (£3.9bn) project.

"The project will be considered extremely risky by policy-makers and the (private) institutions that will have to be involved in funding the construction of the system, such as banks and institutional investors, as this is an unproven technology," said Schwanen.

He added: "Politicians - especially Republicans - will not be very eager to invest in what is no doubt a very costly project given the dire state that California's public finances are in at the moment and the more general political climate in the USA at the moment."

Follow TechHive on Tumblr today.

View the original article here

Facebook readies roll-out of mobile payment system for e-commerce

Over the next month, Facebook is expected to roll-out a mobile payment system that will allow users to make purchases with just their Facebook login on partnering e-commerce mobile apps.

According to a report from AllThingsD, the first partner using the new system will be dude-centric online clothier JackThreads. The payment system would utilize stored credit cards that Facebook already has in its system, which users have been using within the site forincreased promotion, in-game purchases, and gifts.

If pushed beyond the limited test phase, the new payment system would place Facebook squarely in competition with established players like PayPal, any number of new startups in the space, and perhaps eventually even the credit card networks themselves.

The new payment initiative follows an announcement in early June when Facebook announced that it would phase out its Credits system of payments for all games. The social network aims to convert to local currencies by September 12, instead of using what was basically a virtual incarnation of amusement park “fun bucks.”

The move to real money, which was announced in 2012, was set in place to give more flexibility to developers from around the world dealing with international currencies. However, Facebook may have had grander plans to move into mobile payments across the board—and with good reason.

The mobile payments game is a skyrocketing business that is expected to hit $1 trillion (that’s with a “tr”) by 2015. Facebook would certainly like to get a piece of that action, but these types of mobile payments may also provide Zuckerberg & Co with something nearly as enticing—lots of data. The online payments would add another level of data that Facebook could use for its ballooning graph search function, which the company hopes will make its service as valuable (and ubiquitous) to consumers as a Google search. If you click through to the Facebook gifts page, you can already find a list of which of your friends is be-gifting who.

Facebook has yet to make an official announcement on the initiative, and we have reached out to JackThreads for comment; we’ll update you with any additional details.

Follow TechHive on Tumblr today.

Evan lives in Brooklyn, NY and enjoys writing about what future may hold and taking long romantic walks on the beach.
More by Evan Dashevsky

View the original article here

Oracle's next 'engineered system' to involve virtualization

Oracle is preparing to roll out the latest member of its family of “engineered systems” that combine software and hardware, with the upcoming product focused on virtualization.

The company will discuss the new system on Aug. 13, during a webcast featuring Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president of Linux and virtualization, according to an announcement on Oracle’s website.

No proper name for the new machine was listed in the post, or a specific general-availability date. An Oracle spokeswoman said Wednesday that no further information was available at this time.

Customers who buy the virtualization appliance will be able to “install and deploy [their] virtual infrastructure in just hours,” according to the blog post. The system “provides a converged infrastructure powered by Oracle VM server virtualization and Oracle Virtual Networking, dramatically enhancing data center operations,” it adds.

Benefits include lower costs, higher service levels and the ability to support “a mix of applications and operating systems,” according to the post.

Oracle’s Virtual Networking data center fabric is based on technology it acquired through last year’s purchase of Xsigo. In April, Oracle announced OVN support for its SPARC T5, T4 and M5 servers, as well as the Solaris OS on both x86 and SPARC platforms.

Since entering the hardware business through the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Oracle has seen hardware revenue fall consistently, but the company maintains it is focused on selling engineered systems, which carry higher profit margins than commodity servers. Company officials say Oracle is poised to see hardware revenue growth in its current fiscal year.

So far, the first engineered system Oracle released, the Exadata database machine, seems to be the most successful. Other systems include the Exalogic application server box and Exalytics analytics appliance.

Earlier this year, Oracle introduced a leasing program for Exadata and other systems in the family, an option it said could give customers the ability to save money over a straight purchase depending on their usage patterns.

The program’s monthly pricing would help customers eliminate large up-front capital expenses, and customers also have the ability to scale up resources as needed, giving them an opportunity to run a private IaaS (infrastructure as a service) inside their data centers, Oracle said. The upcoming virtualization appliance would seem to fit nicely into the IaaS scenario as well.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for the IDG News Service.
More by Chris Kanaracus

View the original article here

University condemns court ban of research paper on flaws in car lock system

A court ban on a research paper that analyzes flaws in a car-lock system should be overturned, according to the Dutch university that employs two of the three researchers who wrote the analysis.

The U.K. High Court of Justice banned the publication of the paper, “Dismantling Megamos Crypto: Wirelessly Lockpicking a Vehicle Immobilizer” on June 25, said the Radboud University Nijmegen in a news release on Monday. The ban came to the attention of the public when the U.K. newspaper The Guardian published a story about it over the weekend.

The U.K. court issued an interim block on the research paper, while considering a permanent ban on request of car manufacturer Volkswagen, the university added. French defense group Thales also requested the ban, according to a report by the BBC.

Roel Verdult and Baris Ege, of the Digital Security faculty at Radboud University, were planning to present their paper with Flavio Garcia a lecturer in Computer Science of the University of Birmingham during the USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., in August, the Dutch university said.

Verdult and Ege said in a joint email on Monday that they did not want to comment on the matter. Garcia did not return a request for comment.

“In their scientific article, they show that there is a fault in the security of the Megamos chip that is used in the immobilizer in different car brands,” the Radboud University said, adding that the chip was designed in the mid-90s and is outdated. “Nevertheless, it is still widely used in the automotive industry,” it said.

The research is based on publicly available information. In their paper, the researchers reveal the weakness of the chip in mathematical terms, the university said. The research “by no means reveals how to easily steal a car,” it said, adding that very different information is needed to do that.

Furthermore, the researchers informed the chip maker in November 2012, nine months before the intended publication of their paper, so that security measures could be taken, the university said. The researchers also urged the chip maker to inform their own customers from the outset, it added.

“The decision of the English court imposes severe restrictions on the freedom of academic research in a socially highly relevant field,” Radboud University said, adding that it nevertheless respects the decision of the court.

“The University of Birmingham is disappointed with the judgment which did not uphold the defence of academic freedom and public interest, but respects the decision,” a University of Birmingham spokesperson said in an email. It has decided to defer publication of the academic paper in any form while it obtains additional technical and legal advice.

Because the court is considering a final ruling, Radboud University spokeswoman Anja van Kessel declined to provide further comment, but said the university hopes the court will ultimately decide in favor of publication of the paper.

Volkswagen did not respond to a request for comment.

Loek Essers focuses on online privacy, intellectual property, open-source and online payment issues.
More by Loek Essers, IDG News Service

View the original article here