Archive for February 5, 2019

Petition Calls On PM Justin Trudeau to Ban Huawei From Canada’s 5G Network

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 5, 2019 by itnerd

Pressure is increasing on the Canadian Government to ban Huawei from being part of Canada’s 5G networks. A change.org petition was started by David Morrish in Vancouver, B.C., who runs MBS Tech, a cyber security services provider for enterprise clients. It’s at just under 30,000 signatures and calls on PM Justin Trudeau to get this done and gives reasons why he needs to get this done. Clearly people want Huawei to have no part of any 5G network that Canada builds.

The question is, is PM Trudeau on board with this or not? And will Bell and Telus who are known to use Huawei gear in their networks reconsider this? I guess we’ll find out after the Canadian government finish their review of Huawei. And hopefully it leads to the release of the Canadians held unjustly by China.

2 Comments »

The Feds Call Apple Onto The Carpet Over The FaceTime Bug

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 5, 2019 by itnerd

Apple is now in very big trouble. The U.S. Committee on Energy & Commerce is now seeking answers from Apple over the Group FaceTime flaw that allowed people to eavesdrop on conversations:

The Committee Chairs requested written responses to a series of questions by no later than February 19, 2019, including:

  • When did your company first identify the Group FaceTime vulnerability that enabled individuals to access the camera and microphone of devices before accepting a FaceTime call?  Did your company identify the vulnerability before being notified by Mr. Thompson’s mother?  Did any other customer notify Apple of the vulnerability?
  • Please provide a timeline of exactly what steps were taken and when they were taken to address the vulnerability after it was initially identified.
  • What steps are being taken to identify which FaceTime users’ privacy interests were violated using the vulnerability?  Does Apple intend to notify and compensate those consumers for the violation?  When will Apple provide notification to affected consumers?
  • Are there other vulnerabilities in Apple devices and applications that currently or potentially could result in unauthorized access to microphones and/or cameras? 

The letter is available HERE.

This is a huge problem. If these guys don’t like Apple’s responses, you can bet that congressional hearings will follow. And those won’t go well for Apple. So if I were Tim Cook, I’d get that software fix out ASAP, and be completely transparent about what happened here with this bug. By not doing this, Apple risks tarnishing their brand more than it already has.

1 Comment »

Guest Post: Galaxy S10 Price Locks: Money-Saving Heroes

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 5, 2019 by itnerd

Flipsy.com has a way to save up to $100 on the Galaxy S10: price locks. More people than ever sell or trade in their old phones when they buy a new one – but many unwittingly lose money by waiting too long to sell.

The problem? No one wants to sell their old phone until they have the new one in-hand, but values for older models can drop by as much as 15% to 40% in the weeks preceding a new flagship release. As we anticipate the Feb. 20 Galaxy S10 release, that means:

  • The Galaxy S9 will likely lose between $50 and $130 of its current buyback value ($325), resulting in a $195 to $275 price
  • The Galaxy S8 will likely lose between $40 and $105 of its current buyback value ($264), resulting in a $159 to $224 price

The longer you wait to sell, the more money you’re leaving on the table – up to $100 or more – but that’s not an issue when you take advantage of price locks, the heroes that thwart price drops. Here’s how they work:

  • Lock in a high price now, before prices drop
  • Sell your phone up to 30 days later at the locked in price (no matter how much prices drop in the interim) – there’s no need to sell it before you have a new phone
  • There’s no obligation to sell – price locks simply lock in a price in case you decide to cash in later

Now is the time to lock in a high price, and there’s an easy way to do it. Flipsy.com helps people get more money for their used phones by instantly displaying buyback offers from more than a dozen Trust Verified stores that compete to pay top dollar. We also show which stores offer price locks and for how long. You can see how it works here: https://flipsy.com/sell/Samsung-Galaxy-S9?carrier=Verizon

Leave a comment »

OVH Strengthens Position as Major Player in Artificial Intelligence

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 5, 2019 by itnerd

OVH, a global hyper-scale cloud provider, today announcedit is taking a new step in its partnership with NVIDIA by becoming the first European cloud provider to offer globally the NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) software platform, strengthening its position as a major player in the democratization of artificial intelligence technologies.

With NVIDIA’s NGC, the comprehensive catalog of software solutions optimized for machine learning, deep learning and HPC (High Performance Computing), all OVH customers around the world can now deploy artificial intelligence projects and solutions on the global cloud provider’s infrastructures in a matter of minutes, including from OVH’s Canadian data centre, located in Montreal. In order to address the growing needs of the Canadian AI ecosystem, OVH plans to expand its Montreal operations around a hub specialized in R&D that will focus on building Public Cloud services and API.

OVH already offers a complete range of hardware compatible with NVIDIA NGC:

  • A new range of Public Cloud instances powered by the latest NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs, which offer an excellent cost/performance ratio and are especially suited to startups and innovation clusters
  • DGX-1 dedicated servers, which are composed of 8 of the latest generation V100 GPUs, equipped with NVLink technology designed for intensive use in machine learning or deep learning

Different Types of Uses for Different Types of Customers

Heuritech, a startup specializing in artificial intelligence for fashion, received support through OVH’s startup program, the OVH Digital Launch Pad, and benefited from one year of free infrastructure. With intensive computing needs, Heuritech has chosen to build a custom infrastructure using OVH dedicated servers powered by NVIDIA GPUs.

Systran, a world leader in translation technologies for more than 50 years, has also used OVH infrastructures for the intensive calculation of neural networks applied to language processing. These complex translation problems are solved through DGX-1’s outstanding performance.

An Enhanced Cloud Through AI

At OVH, artificial intelligence is not only about products, but is also used internally to provide OVH customers with the most seamless and secure experience possible.

OVH’s cloud infrastructures take advantage of machine learning and deep learning products and applications for maintaining IT equipment, predicting database fill rates and anticipating temperature variations in data centers. OVH gives an additional guarantee, to provide its customers with ever more reliable solutions and a greater capacity for innovation.

 

Leave a comment »

Review: 2019 Mazda CX-5 Signature – Part 2

Posted in Products with tags on February 5, 2019 by itnerd

5izAUmR+RQCg64qAmeM1ng

This is the 2.5l turbocharged 4 cylinder engine that powers the Mazda CX-5 Signature. It puts out 227 horsepower and 310 pound feet of torque. But if you use premium instead of regular fuel, it puts out 250 horsepower. The torque remains the same. Now this engine combined with a 6 speed automatic transmission will move this CX-5 Signature in ways that will blow your mind. Acceleration is beyond brisk whether it’s off the line or you need more power to pass a transport truck on the highway. And not once this week did I ever touch the sport mode switch as I had no need for it.

The six speed transmission that’s mated to this engine is well sorted and always seems to be in the right gear to power all four wheels. In fact the iActiv AWD system is one reason in my opinion that the CX-5 Signature is able to get the power to the road. Not to mention it will keep you on the straight and narrow when driving in inclement weather. Handling is one area where Mazda definitely improved things on the CX-5 Signature. There’s less body roll in the CX-5 Signature and it is extremely nimble. Likely because Mazda brings G-Vectoring Control Plus to the party as it helps you to carve corners like you’re on rails. The ride is solid without beating you up. And the steering, which for the record was already good is sharper and more direct. In short, this is the best handing and driving compact crossover that you can get without paying a visit to Germany. You can legitimately take the CX-5 Signature and carve corners on some back roads and have some real fun like you were driving an MX-5 as it is approaching that level of handling.

In terms of fuel economy, I am currently getting 10L per 100 KMs which is decent as I am driving in city and highway traffic, most of which is in rush hour, and I am making no attempt to drive in any way that saves fuel.

Tomorrow I will discuss the interior which can be described in two words: “Class Above.” Tune in tomorrow to find out why.

Leave a comment »