Monday 30 May 2016
Microsoft removes 260 characters for NTFS Path limit
Read the full article here by OSNews
Arcan: A New Open-Source Display Server Built Atop A Game Engine
Read the full article here by Phoronix
Sunday 29 May 2016
Nest's co-founder is releasing a smart kids' go-kart
Nest co-creator Tony Fadell isn't focused solely on making intelligent thermostats and smoke detectors. He recently unveiled Actev Motors, a company whose inaugural Arrow Smart-Kart promises to give kids a taste of what smart cars are like. The electric go-kart includes GPS, a and WiFi to keep junior drivers safe. Parents using a mobile app can geofence the kart's driving area, limit the top speed or hit a stop button in an emergency. In other words, even younger kids (5- to 9-year-olds are the main targets) can motor around without getting in over their heads. There's also a proximity sensor to automatically prevent accidents.
Older children can use the Arrow, too, and it's customizable. You can slap on different body styles (there's a Formula 1-style kit), install a higher-capacity battery or even get a drift kit to unleash your kid's inner Ken Block. It's not a trivial purchase -- a starter kit costs $600 if you pre-order, and it'll normally cost $1,000 -- but it could easily beat your neighbor's Power Wheels when it arrives in early summer.
For Fadell, this is as much about education as spoiling young ones. He explains to Forbes that he hopes to "teach the new generation" about electric cars. The tyke driving an Arrow this year could be driving their own EV a couple of decades down the line. And before you ask: yes, there's the possibility of an adult version for grown-up racers.
Via: Forbes
Source: Actev Motors
Read the full article here by Engadget
Friday 27 May 2016
Intel Acquires Computer Vision for IOT, Automotive
Read the full article here by [H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
Thursday 26 May 2016
How Deep Learning Can Paint Videos in the Style of Art's Great Masters
Read the full article here by [H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
Confindustria, Boccia è il nuovo presidente
Read the full article here by lastampa.it - La Stampa
Wednesday 25 May 2016
Pyston 0.5 Released As A Faster Python JIT
Read the full article here by Phoronix
Google to bring official Android support to the Raspberry Pi 3
The Raspberry Pi 3. (credit: Raspberry Pi Foundation)
The Raspberry Pi 3 is not hurting for operating system choices. The tiny ARM computer is supported by several Linux distributions and even has a version of Windows 10 IoT core available. Now, it looks like the Pi is about to get official support for one of the most popular operating systems out there: Android. In Google's Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository, a new device tree recently popped up for the Raspberry Pi 3.
Raspberry Pis, if you're not aware, are cheap, credit card-sized, single board ARM computers with a focus on education and open source software. Hardware hackers and DIYers love the Pi due to its open nature, small size, and plethora of ports and software.
For just $35, you get a 1.2GHz 64-bit Broadcom BCM2837 ARMv8 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a VideoCore IV GPU, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.1. From there, it's up to you to add all the missing components via external devices. For storage, toss in a MicroSD card. For a display, hook up to the full-size HDMI port. For sound, use the 3.5mm audio/composite video jack. For everything else, use the 4 USB ports, Ethernet jack, 40 GPIO pins, CSI camera port, or the DSI display port.
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Read the full article here by Ars Technica
Microsoft is using Windows 10 to see just how far it can push customers before they break
Read the full article here by BetaNews
New Build and New Map “Underland” released for Unreal Tournament
Epic Games released a fully meshed Deathmatch level called Underland with the new Unreal Tournament build. This level is designed for 6 to 8 players who fight across a hidden outpost, once lost for a thousand years, that guards the entrance to the massive Underland caverns.
To learn the difference between the prototype shell and the final meshed level, look at these the before and after screenshots.
Also in the new build there are 8 new Blue Star offline challenges, four in Underland and four in Chill.
You can also check out all of the release notes for the new build here.
Source: Epic Games
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Post tags: Epic Games, game development, game industry, gamedev, indiedev, UE4, Unreal Engine 4, Unreal Tournament
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CRYENGINE Source Code Available Via GitHub
Good news, everyone! Crytek has made their CryENGINE available via GitHub. This step will certainly bring more improvements to the popular engine with the help of community.
The complete source tree is available via CRYTEK-CRYENGINE/CRYENGINEon GitHub. You can also check out build instructions here. Note that CryENGINE isn’t a free software project, so make sure to read licensing terms.
Open-source development community can make CryENGINE even better, so we’ll be looking forward to learning how this step turns out. You can find more details in the documentation for the engine.
Source: GitHub
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Post tags: community, CryEngine, cryengine v, Crytek, game development, game engine, game industry, gamedev, Games, indiedev, source code
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Tuesday 24 May 2016
CRYENGINE Source Code Now Available Through GitHub
Read the full article here by Phoronix
Ron Gilbert wants to buy Monkey Island and Manic Mansion back from Disney
The creator of Manic Mansion and Monkey Island wants Disney to sell the rights to both series back to him.
Ron Gilbert took to Twitter last night to request that the house of mouse relinquish their hold on both IP following the firm’s decision to pull out of the video games industry – starting with the scrapping of Disney Infinity.
Gilbert developed Manic Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, and is currently returning to this style of game design for his crowdfunded adventure Thimbleweed Park.
However, the rights to both series was passed to Disney when the firm purchased LucasFilm and LucasArts in 2012.
Here’s Gilbert’s tweet:
Dear @Disney, now that you're not making games, please sell me my Monkey Island and Mansion Mansion IP. I'll pay real actual money for them.
— Ron Gilbert (@grumpygamer) May 23, 2016
And yes, Gilbert realised he spelled Manic Mansion wrong, later tweeting that: “I’m incapable of proof reading my own tweets, that’s part of the charm in following me.”
Read the full article here by Develop Feed
Friday 20 May 2016
Play Store comes to Chrome OS, but not the way we expected
Read the full article here by OSNews
Google Turns Firebase Into Its Unified Platform For Mobile Developers
An anonymous reader writes: Google has
announced a plethora of new features to Firebase, its cloud services provider that mobile developers can use to power their apps. TechCrunch reports:
"In its previous incarnation, Firebase was somewhat similar to Facebook's now-defunct Parse in that it offered a database service, user authentication features and hosting tools. In this new version, Firebase takes many of Google's existing developer tools, like Google Cloud Messaging, and combines them with new and existing Firebase services. With this update, Google is turning Firebase into a unified app platform for its now 470,000 developers on the service (up from 110,000 when it acquired Firebase)."The new
Firebasefeatures deeply integrated analytics services, allowing developers to track specific parts of their apps with fine-grained events. Firebase can build audience segments and allow developers to analyze their behavior in even more detail than before, and view how their advertising campaigns are performing. With these audience segments, developers can make remote configuration changes in apps and take advantage of Firebase's new notifications system. This feature is based on Google Cloud Messaging, which is now changing its name to Firebase Cloud Messaging. Google is offering all Firebase users free and unlimited notifications with support for iOS, Android and the Web. They're also integrating its
Cloud Test Labinto Firebase for testing mobile apps on real hardware, renaming it the Firebase Test Lab. Other new features include crash reporting, the ability to create dynamic deep links into your app, Firebase Invites for allowing app users to share referral codes, Firebase App Indexing for bringing app content into Google Search, and integration with Google's AdWords and AdMob advertising platforms. Last but not least, Google is introducing new pricing plans for Firebase, including a new free plan, a fixed-rate plan, and a pay-as-you go plan.
Read the full article here by Slashdot
Thursday 19 May 2016
Xiaomi’s 4K Mi Box is Google’s newest Android TV device
Today's announcement of Google Home is likely to be the most exciting "living room" news that comes out of the company's annual developers conference, but that doesn't mean TV has been completely forgotten. Google today announced a bunch of new hardware partners for Android TV and Google Cast, its two solutions (just two!) for watching web content on TV screens.
Read the full article here by Tux Machines
Wednesday 18 May 2016
Pointer Overflow Checking
Most programming languages have a lot of restrictions on the kinds of pointers that programs can create. C and C++ are unusually permissive in this respect: pointers to arbitrary objects and subobjects, usually all the way down to bytes, can be constructed. Consequently, most address computations can be expressed either in terms of integer arithmetic or pointer arithmetic. For example, a function based on array lookup:
void *memcpy(void *dst, const void *src, size_t n) { const char *s = src; char *d = dst; for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) d[i] = s[i]; return dst; }
can just as easily be expressed in terms of pointers:
void *memcpy(void *dst, const void *src, size_t n) { const char *s = src; char *d = dst; while (n--) *d++ = *s++; return dst; }
Idiomatic C tends to favor pointer-based code. For one thing, pointers are more expressive: a pointer can name any memory location while an integer index only makes sense when combined with a base address. Also, developers have a sense that the lower-level code will execute faster since it is closer to how the machine thinks. This may or may not be true: the tradeoffs are complex due to details of the semantics of pointers and integers, and also because different compiler optimizations will tend to fire for pointer code and integer code. Modern compilers can be pretty bright, at least for very simple codes: the version of GCC that I happen to be using for testing (GCC 5.3.0 at -O2) turns both functions above into exactly the same object code.
It is undefined behavior to perform pointer arithmetic where the result is outside of an object, with the exception that it is permissible to point one element past the end of an array:
int a[10]; int *p1 = a - 1; // UB int *p2 = a; // ok int *p3 = a + 9; // ok int *p4 = a + 10; // ok, but can't be dereferenced int *p5 = a + 11; // UB
Valgrind and ASan are intended to catch dereferences of invalid pointers, but not their creation or use in comparisons. UBSan catches the creation of invalid pointers in simple cases where bounds information is available, but not in the general case. tis-interpreter can reliably detect creation of invalid pointers.
A lot of C programs (I think it’s safe to say almost all non-trivial ones) create and use invalid pointers, and often they get away with it in the sense that C compilers usually give sensible results when illegal pointers are compared (but not, of course, dereferenced). On the other hand, when pointer arithmetic overflows, the resulting pointers can break assumptions being made in the code.
For the next part of this piece I’ll borrow some examples from a LWN article from 2008. We’ll start with a buffer length check implemented like this:
void awesome_length_check(unsigned len) { char *buffer_end = buffer + BUFLEN; if (buffer + len >= buffer_end) die_a_gory_death(); }
Here the arithmetic for computing buffer_end is totally fine (assuming the buffer actually contains BUFLEN elements) but the subsequent buffer + len risks UB. Let’s look at the generated code for a 32-bit platform:
awesome_length_check: cmpl $100, 4(%esp) jl .LBB0_1 jmp die_a_gory_death .LBB0_1: retl
In general, pointer arithmetic risks overflowing when either the base address lies near the end of the address space or when the offset is really big. Here the compiler has factored the pointer out of the computation, making overflow more difficult, but let’s assume that the offset is controlled by an attacker. We’ll need a bit of a driver to see what happens:
#include <limits.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #define BUFLEN 100 char buffer[BUFLEN]; void die_a_gory_death(void) { abort(); } void awesome_length_check(unsigned len) { char *buffer_end = buffer + BUFLEN; if (buffer + len >= buffer_end) die_a_gory_death(); } int main(void) { // volatile to suppress constant propagation volatile unsigned len = UINT_MAX; awesome_length_check(len); printf("length check went well\n"); return 0; }
And then:
$ clang -O -m32 -Wall ptr-overflow5.c $ ./a.out length check went well $ gcc-5 -O -m32 -Wall ptr-overflow5.c $ ./a.out length check went well
The problem is that once the length check succeeds, subsequent code is going to feel free to process up to UINT_MAX bytes of untrusted input data, potentially causing massive buffer overruns.
One thing we can do is explicitly check for a wrapped pointer:
void awesome_length_check(unsigned len) { char *buffer_end = buffer + BUFLEN; if (buffer + len >= buffer_end || buffer + len < buffer) die_a_gory_death(); }
But this is just adding further reliance on undefined behavior and the LWN article mentions that compilers have been observed to eliminate the second part of the check. As the article points out, a better answer is to just avoid pointer arithmetic and do the length check on unsigned integers:
void awesome_length_check(unsigned len) { if (len >= BUFLEN) die_a_gory_death(); }
The problem is that we can’t very well go and retrofit all the C code to use integer checks instead of pointer checks. We can, on the other hand, use compiler support to catch pointer overflows as they happen: they are always UB and never a good idea.
Will Dietz, one of my collaborators on the integer overflow checking work we did a few years ago, extended UBSan to catch pointer overflows and wrote a great blog post showing some bugs that it caught. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, these patches didn’t make it into Clang. The other day Will reminded me that they exist; I dusted them off and submitted them for review — hopefully they will get in this time around.
Recently I’ve been thinking about using UBSan for hardening instead of just bug finding. Android is doing this, for example. Should we use pointer overflow checking in production? I believe that after the checker has been thoroughly tested, this makes sense. Consider the trapping mode of this sanitizer:
clang -O3 -fsanitize=pointer-overflow -fsanitize-trap=pointer-overflow
The runtime overhead on SPEC CINT 2006 is about 5%, so probably acceptable for code that is security-critical but not performance-critical. I’m sure we can reduce this overhead with some tuning of the optimizers. The 400.perlbench component of SPEC 2006 contained two pointer overflows that I had to fix.
Pointer overflow isn’t one of the UBs that we can finesse away by adjusting the standard: it’s a real machine-level phenomenon that is hard to prevent without runtime checks.
There’s plenty more work we could do in this sanitizer, such as catching arithmetic involving null pointers.
Update: I built the latest releases of PHP and FFmpeg using the pointer overflow sanitizer and both of them execute pointer overflows while running their own test suites.
Read the full article here by Embedded in Academia
Tuesday 17 May 2016
Sunday 15 May 2016
QEMU 2.6 Officially Released with Raspberry Pi 2 Emulation Support, New Features
Michael Roth has had the great pleasure of announcing the release of QEMU 2.6, the latest and most advanced version of the widely-used and highly customizable virtualization software for GNU/Linux operating systems.
Read the full article here by Tux Machines
Friday 13 May 2016
Hyperloop One CEO wants us riding in tubes in 2021
The company formerly known as Hyperloop Technologies has had a busy couple of days. It has renamed itself Hyperloop One, announced partnerships with governments and investors, launched a competition and performed a public test of its propulsion system.
At the helm of the company's evolution from being a pretty cool idea to testing a functional sled in the desert is CEO Rob Lloyd. The former Cisco president obviously knows a bit about networks and scale. Both skills are needed if Hyperloop One wants to bring an actual transportation system to the world.
We sat down with Lloyd to talk about government partnerships (someone needs to build all of those tube networks), when people will be allowed inside the pods and if we'll ever travel under the sea.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
As a private company, how do you see governments partnering with Hyperloop One?
I think first and foremost it's going to take government support to create a regulatory framework to make Hyperloop a possibility. We're seeing some very good support from federal transportation authorities and state and local transportation groups around the world. We'll need a supportive environment for regulations. We need people that want to move faster than the status quo.
Also, we think we support many of the priorities that governments have, which includes less destruction of the environment and a more sustainable all-electric transportation. It makes no noise. While the system today was on rails, Hyperloop in the future doesn't have anything touching a rail while it's being levitated. So there's no friction. You won't hear a Hyperloop go past your house. We think we're generally so much aligned with government policy, we just need to educate governments and get them on our side.
So that involves governments building the tracks and tubes like the construction of the interstate system?
Exactly. The interstate system gets built from high-density point-to-point locations. You solve a real problem, and you build the network. Hyperloop is a network. You start with a few nodes in the network, where you really solve a problem. Then you build extensions to those nodes. I think governments are instrumental. They may be a bigger challenge than building the Hyperloop technology itself.
If everything goes according to plan, how far is Hyperloop from becoming a reality?
I'm convinced that we will be building freight transportation systems in 2017 and 2018. I'm very convinced we'll be working collaboratively with a government and regulatory environment to start construction of passenger systems in 2018. I'm entirely convinced we'll be seeing freight moved in a Hyperloop by 2020, maybe 2019, and our first passengers by 2021.
So freight is the first application?
It's an easier step. There are less systems that need to be designed and certified. And for passengers, they should be certified. We all want to have a trusted relationship when we do anything. When we drive our car, when we fly in a plane or when we travel in a Hyperloop. That's important to use. We've actually brought people on that are beginning to help us with the safety-certification process. When people ride Hyperloop we want them to feel comfortable and confident.
You talked about underwater routes. Is that a pie-in-the-sky idea or something we'll see in the 2020s?
Let's go in this order: Aboveground first. Belowground in a tunnel through very rapid boring technology that allows us to do very straight and direct tunnels next, and then underwater. Probably in that sequence.
Read the full article here by Engadget
Linux Is the Largest Software Development Project On the Planet: Greg K-H
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read the full article here by Slashdot
Thursday 12 May 2016
Rumor: “Android VR” Will Launch At I/O With Standalone Headset, Reference Appears In Unreal Engine
The man best known for cofounding the tech blogs Gizmodo and Engadget, Peter Rojas, said today that Google will be unveiling a new platform known as “Android VR” along with a standalone VR headset at Google I/O next week.Rojas says the experience will not quite be up to Vive or Oculus Rift, which given that it is standalone and using mobile-grade hardware (i.e., will not use your phone or a connected PC to power the visuals, it has its own full mobile chipset) makes a lot of sense. At least one mention of Android VR has also been spotted in the latest Unreal Engine preview.
According to our source, Android VR may include not only a headset, but a controller of some kind – it’s unclear if we’re talking about Vive-style hand controllers or a single gamepad-style device, or something in-between. As you may have intuited by now (it’s kind of obvious), Android N will also support VR – though we expect Google to bake in VR support to an extent that gets all the way down to things like the homescreen. This could mean a new, VR-specific Android launcher or launcher layout. Finally, we know that Google’s internal codename for the project is “Mirage,” which seems quite fitting.
Source: http://ift.tt/24OCERX
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
Read the full article here by Full Circle Magazine
Wednesday 11 May 2016
Hyperloop Technologies gets a new name ahead of propulsion test
The world of Elon Musk-imagined levitating super trains that fly through tubes is finally a little bit less confusing. Today Hyperloop Technologies changed it's name to Hyperloop One. The new moniker should help reduce any mix ups with competing company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT). More importantly, the company is ready to publicly demo its propulsion system.
Tomorrow, the company formerly known as Hyperloop Technologies will show off its propulsion system in the Nevada Desert outside of north of Las Vegas. The company says that it can currently hit 400 MPH along an open-air test track but is shooting for 700 MPH within the confines of a vacuum-sealed Hyperloop tube. CTO and Co-founder Brogan BamBrogan said that the company would have a full system, full scale test (a pod racing through a tube) by the end of 2016.
During a presentation in Las Vegas the company also announced Hyperloop One partnerships both in the private and public sector. Probably the most important of those is the state of Nevada. In a statement, Nevada governor Brian Sandoval said, "we believe that Hyperloop One will develop the next mode of transportation while also providing a significant revenue stream and job opportunities for Nevadans."
Because the Hyperloop community loves competition, the company dropped that it's starting the Hyperloop One Global Challenge. It says the event will be an "opportunity for individuals, companies and governments to develop competitive proposals for using the first Hyperloop One solutions on transport corridors in their regions." Proposals are due on September 15, 2016 with the winners announced in March of 2017.
At the event the company also announced that it's taking part in studies to see if routes are feasible in Finland, Norway and between the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.
But again, the real news is tomorrow's open-air test of its propulsion system. All the partnerships and competitions in the world won't matter if the Hyperloop One can't get its pods through the tubes. While the chances of confusing it with its rival Hyperloop Transportation Technologies have been reduced thanks to the new name, there's still competition between the two endeavors. Yesterday, HTT announced that it will use the government-developed Inductrack levitation system. It will be partnering with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to bring the passive magnetic system to its pods.
If successful, Hyperloop One is looking beyond passengers to cargo. BamBrogan even hypothesized the potential of moving an entire port offshore and using underwater Hyperloop tracks and pods to move goods from ships to the land. This would expand the company's idea to put tubes underwater along the shoreline.
We'll be covering the Hyperloop One propulsion test tomorrow.
Source: Hyperloop One
Read the full article here by Engadget
Bryan Cranston to lead new anthology series based on work of Philip K. Dick
Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston has signed on for a new television project that will use the work of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick to tell a 10-part series.
Cranston will play the lead in the series, called Electric Sheep: The World of Philip K. Dick, but his exact role is still up in the air. Each episode of the anthology series will focus on some of Dick's most popular works, including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, A Scanner Darkly and The Man in the High Castle.
The series is being produced in collaboration between Sony Pictures Television and Channel 4 in England, with Battlestar Galactica and Justified writers being brought on to produce. Cranston will also serve as an executive producer on the show. Cranston said that the show is an "electric dream come true" in a press release for the series.
There's no word on when Electric Sheep: The World of Philip K. Dick will debut, but it will air on Channel 4 in the U.K. with Sony Pictures Television distributing it in North America.
Read the full article here by Polygon - Full
Tuesday 10 May 2016
New security vulnerability affects one in four Android devices
Read the full article here by BetaNews