Microsoft Unveils Surface Pro 9 With Choice of Intel or ARM Models, No Headphone Jack

Earlier today, Microsoft unveiled three new Surface computers: the Surface Pro 9, Surface Laptop 5, and Surface Studio 2+. While this year’s Surface Pro 9 remains very similar to last year’s Surface Pro 8, it’s being offered with refreshed Intel 12th-gen CPUs or a “new 5G-equipped model with a custom SQ 3 Arm chip,” reports Engadget. From the report: If that sounds confusing to you, well, it is. We last saw the company’s SQ chip in the 2020 Surface Pro X, a computer that we found both beautiful and frustrating, thanks to Windows’ crummy software compatibility with Arm chips. To shift that problem over to a computer with the same name as its Intel sibling is a recipe for disaster. (We can just imagine the frustrated Best Buy shoppers who are dazzled with the idea of a 5G Surface, only to learn they can’t run most of their traditional Windows apps.) The 5G Pro 9 is also broken down into millimeter-wave and Sub-6 variants, which will be sold in their respective markets. It’s understandable why Microsoft isn’t keen to keep the Surface Pro X moniker going — the Pro 8 lifted many of its modern design cues, after all. But from what we’ve seen, Windows 11 doesn’t solve the problems we initially had with the Pro X. After analyzing the product’s tech specs, The Verge discovered that the Surface Pro 9 no longer appears to have a headphone jack. From the report: This seems to be the direct result of Microsoft bringing the Intel and Arm versions of the Surface Pro 9 together in the same chassis. The Surface Pro X has never had a 3.5mm jack, so now, the Intel hardware is coming in line with that design direction. But I’d argue it’s a more controversial omission this time. Why? The new universal outer enclosure is essentially the same size as that of the Surface Pro 8.

The Surface Pro X hardware was quite a bit thinner than Microsoft’s Intel hardware at the time (and still now). So excising the 3.5mm jack made sense. But we’ve now lost the headphone jack for a chassis that’s basically identical in dimensions to last year’s model. They really couldn’t fit one on there somewhere? Further reading: Microsoft’s Surface Studio 2 Plus Ships With an RTX 3060 for $4,299

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Westinghouse To Be Sold For $7.9 Billion In Sign of Nuclear Power Revival

Cameco and Brookfield Renewable Partners said on Tuesday they would acquire nuclear power plant equipment maker Westinghouse Electric in a $7.9-billion deal including debt, amid renewed interest in nuclear energy. Reuters reports: The deal for one of the most storied names in the American power industry at an equity value of $4.5 billion comes at a time when nuclear power is seeing an uptick in interest amid an energy crisis in Europe and soaring crude oil and natural gas prices. Nuclear power is also key for countries to meet global net-zero carbon emission goals and could be on the cusp of a boom seen after the 1970s oil crisis.

Cameco will own 49% of Westinghouse, while Brookfield Renewable and its institutional partners will own the rest. Westinghouse was acquired from Toshiba by Brookfield Business Partners , an affiliate of Canadian asset manager Brookfield, out of bankruptcy in 2018, for $4.6 billion, including debt. Brookfield Business said in a separate statement it expects to generate about $1.8 billion in proceeds from the sale of its 44% stake in Westinghouse, with the balance distributed among institutional partners. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2023. Brookfield Renewable and its partners will pay about $2.3 billion for the deal, whereas Cameco will incur equity costs of about $2.2 billion. Westinghouse’s existing debt structure will remain in place.

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Microsoft Partners With Meta To Bring Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox To VR

During Meta Connect today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company is partnering with Meta to bring its biggest services — Teams, Office, Windows, and even Xbox Cloud Gaming — to Meta’s Quest VR headsets. The Verge reports: It’s a surprise partnership that will see Microsoft and Meta combine their strengths. Microsoft sees an opportunity to bring Teams and its other productivity experiences to a capable VR headset, and Meta gets a key partner in its grand metaverse plan. […] The Teams experience the new Quest Pro and Quest 2 headsets will even include Microsoft adapting Meta’s avatar system for Teams and Teams getting support within Meta’s own Horizon Workrooms. “People will be able to join a Teams meeting directly from Workrooms,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the event. “We think that this cross-device, cross-screen experience will be the foundation of the virtual office of the future.”

This virtual office of the future won’t just be about meetings. Microsoft is bringing Windows 365 to Quest, the company’s platform for streaming full versions of Windows to devices. “With Windows 365 coming to Quest, you’ll have a new way to securely stream the entire Windows experience, including all the personalized apps, content, and settings to your VR device with the full power of Windows and Windows applications,” Nadella said.

Microsoft is also bringing 2D versions of its Office apps to Quest through its Progressive Web Apps (PWA) technology. These won’t be full-blown 3D versions of Office designed for VR, but if there’s an appetite for VR in the enterprise, then it’s easy to imagine Microsoft adapting them in the future. Xbox Cloud Gaming will even make its way to Meta’s Quest VR headsets, allowing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream games. It’s not going to be as immersive as a native VR experience for Xbox games, but you’ll be able to pick up an Xbox controller and play them on a giant screen projected inside a Quest headset. Earlier today, Meta announced the Meta Quest Pro: a $1,499 virtual reality headset it’s been teasing for the past year. They also announced a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs.

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Lufthansa Says Passengers Can’t Use Apple AirTags to Track Checked Bags

Citing rules issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), German airliner Lufthansa says it is banning activated Apple AirTags from luggage “as they are classified as dangerous and need to be turned off.” Slashdot reader AmiMoJo first shared the news with us. The New York Times reports: Lufthansa, a German airline, set off confusion recently after telling passengers that they could not use trackers like Apple AirTags in checked baggage because of international guidelines for personal electronic devices. Apple rejected that interpretation on Tuesday, saying its trackers comply with all regulations. It does not appear that any other airlines are requiring passengers to turn off the trackers, which have become popular as a way to find lost baggage.

Lufthansa found itself in the middle of the issue when reports surfaced in the German news media that the devices were prohibited. Though Lufthansa said it has no desire to prohibit the devices that it deemed safe, the airline seems to have stepped in a mess based on the reading of obscure international guidelines and regulations, with no clear consensus on what is and is not allowed in Europe.

Lufthansa said on Sunday on Twitter that the trackers must be deactivated in checked baggage on its flights, citing the International Civil Aviation Organization’s guidelines for dangerous goods as well as the trackers’ “transmission function.” Shutting off the trackers renders them useless. The airline has not issued a specific policy prohibiting baggage trackers. Rather, it says it is at the mercy of the rules. On Tuesday, the airline said it was “in close contact with the respective institutions to find a solution as quickly as possible.” It also indicated its own examination saw no danger from their use. “The Lufthansa Group has conducted its own risk assessment with the result that tracking devices with very low battery and transmission power in checked luggage do not pose a safety risk,” said Martin Leutke, a Lufthansa spokesman. “We have never issued a ban on devices like that. It is on the authorities to adapt regulations that right now limit the use of these devices for airline passengers in checked luggage.”

In its statement, Apple said that AirTags are “compliant with international airline travel safety regulations for carry-on and checked baggage.”

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More Than 4 In 10 PCs Still Can’t Upgrade To Windows 11

Nearly 43 percent of millions of devices studied by asset management provider Lansweeper are unable to upgrade to Windows 11 due to the hardware requirements Microsoft set out for the operating system. The Register reports: Lansweeper said 42.76 percent of the estimated 27 million PCs it tested across 60,000 organizations failed the CPU test, albeit better than the 57.26 percent in its last test a year ago. Altogether 71.5 percent of the PCs failed the RAM test and 14.66 percent the TPM test. “We know that those who can’t update to Windows 11… will continue to use Windows 10,” said Roel Decneut, chief strategy officer at Lansweeper, whose customers include Sony, Pepsico, Cerner, MiT and Hilton hotels. He said that even if enterprises are prepared to upgrade their PC fleet to meet the system requirements of Microsoft’s latest OS, there are “broader issues affecting adoption that are out of Microsoft’s control.” “Global supply chain disruption has created chip a processor shortage, while many are choosing to stick with what hardware they have at the moment due to the global financial uncertainty.”

Other findings from Lansweeper show adoption rates for the latest OS are improving, running on 1.44 percent of computers versus 0.52 percent in January. This means the latest incarnation has overtaken Windows 8 in the popularity stakes but remains behind market share for Windows 7, despite that software going end of life in January 2020. Adoption is, unsurprisingly, higher in the consumer space. Some 4.82 percent of the biz devices researched were running an OS that wasn’t fully supported and 0.91 percent had servers in their estate that are end of life.

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Crypto and Payments Firm MobileCoin Launches Stablecoin — ‘Electronic Dollars’

Privacy-focused cryptocurrency and payments firm MobileCoin, in collaboration with stablecoin platform Reserve, has launched a stablecoin dubbed “Electronic Dollars” (eUSD). CoinDesk reports: According to MobileCoin, eUSD is backed by a basket of other stablecoins, namely, USD coin (USDC), Pax dollar (USDP) and trueUSD (TUSD). Each transaction is said to be encrypted using end-to-end zero-knowledge encryption. In other words, only the transacting parties can see their own transactional data, thanks to encryption that uses zero knowledge proofs (a way of proving something without revealing sensitive information). The stablecoin eUSD is built on the MobileCoin blockchain, which, according to MobileCoin, is optimized for mobile devices. Apparently, MobileCoin was originally designed for integration with encrypted mobile messaging app, Signal. Consequently, eUSD will inherit the features of MobileCoin’s native cryptocurrency, MOB, although eUSD users will pay transaction fees (a flat $0.0026 per transaction) in eUSD and not MOB.

The eUSD relies on what seems to be a centralized governance structure where the MobileCoin Foundation acts as the primary governing body. The foundation elects “governors” who are authorized to mint and burn eUSD. The stablecoin’s collateral is held in a popular Ethereum multisignature (multisig) wallet called Safe (formerly “Gnosis Safe”). New eUSD is only minted after governors confirm an equivalent amount of collateral has been transferred to the Safe wallet. “Anybody can inspect the contract holding this basket [of collateral], to see what the current balances are. It’s a Gnosis safe, which is also one of the most highly regarded contracts on Ethereum for holding assets,” Henry Holtzman, MobileCoin’s chief innovation officer explained during an interview with CoinDesk.

Similarly, if a user redeems eUSD, the token is “verifiably burned” and governors release the corresponding collateral. Verifiable burning is when burned eUSD is sent to a “burn address” that renders it “visible” for transparency purposes, “but unspendable.” However, everyday users won’t typically engage in burning and minting. An individual seeking eUSD would simply purchase it on an exchange. Approved liquidity providers (LPs) would be the ones minting large amounts of eUSD. To our knowledge, no project has created a native stablecoin with privacy properties, which is a first-class citizen in the ecosystem, and which never requires the use of ‘non-private’ transaction technologies to use normally. In short, no one has yet actually created a private digital dollar,” MobileCoin stated in the eUSD white paper.

Holtzman said that eUSD uses a “reserve-auditor” program that “connects to the Safe wallet via an application programming interface (API) and verifies that each newly minted eUSD has a corresponding amount of collateral in the wallet.” Holtzman added: “We’ll release it all open source. So if you want to run your own copy [of the reserve auditor], you can. You can examine it to make sure we really are backed exactly as we claim,” Holtzman told CoinDesk.

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Doom Runs At 60 FPS In Notepad

Game developer Sam Chiet has found another use for Microsoft Notepad. The ingenious creator has gotten Doom (1993) to run at 60 FPS through the boring text editor in Windows. Tom’s Hardware reports: Chiet highlighted that he didn’t have to modify the Notepad application. Dubbed “NotepadDOOM,” the project is fully playable. Although Chiet didn’t explain how the mod works, has committed to launching NotepadDOOM for other Doom fans to try out. Chiet said in a subsequent tweet that “it’ll take some work to polish NotepadDOOM into something releasable, but it’ll almost certainly happen over the next couple days.” John Romero, one of Doom’s creators, was impressed and replied to Chiet in a tweet that the mod was “incredible.”

You can see the iconic 1993 shooter running in its full glory on Chiet’s YouTube channel. It’s Notepad, so obviously, Chiet replaced the graphics with characters and numbers. The gameplay looks pretty smooth, although we did catch some screen tearing. However, that could be because Notepad can’t write the text fast enough on screen.

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Intel Confirms Alder Lake BIOS Source Code Leaked

Tom’s Hardware reports:

We recently broke the news that Intel’s Alder Lake BIOS source code had been leaked to 4chan and Github, with the 6GB file containing tools and code for building and optimizing BIOS/UEFI images. We reported the leak within hours of the initial occurrence, so we didn’t yet have confirmation from Intel that the leak was genuine. Intel has now issued a statement to Tom’s Hardware confirming the incident:

“Our proprietary UEFI code appears to have been leaked by a third party. We do not believe this exposes any new security vulnerabilities as we do not rely on obfuscation of information as a security measure. This code is covered under our bug bounty program within the Project Circuit Breaker campaign, and we encourage any researchers who may identify potential vulnerabilities to bring them our attention through this program….”

The BIOS/UEFI of a computer initializes the hardware before the operating system has loaded, so among its many responsibilities, is establishing connections to certain security mechanisms, like the TPM (Trusted Platform Module). Now that the BIOS/UEFI code is in the wild and Intel has confirmed it as legitimate, both nefarious actors and security researchers alike will undoubtedly probe it to search for potential backdoors and security vulnerabilities….

Intel hasn’t confirmed who leaked the code or where and how it was exfiltrated. However, we do know that the GitHub repository, now taken down but already replicated widely, was created by an apparent LC Future Center employee, a China-based ODM that manufactures laptops for several OEMs, including Lenovo.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm for sharing the news.

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Protestors Hack Iran’s State-Run TV

“Iran’s state-run broadcaster was apparently hacked on air Saturday,” reports the BBC, “with a news bulletin interrupted by a protest against the country’s leader.”

While such incidents are “historically rare,” they add that more recently,this incident follows “widespread open dissent”

It comes after at least three people were shot dead when protesters clashed with security forces in new unrest over the death of Mahsa Amini. s Amini was detained in Tehran by morality police for allegedly not covering her hair properly. The 22-year-old Iranian Kurd died in custody on 16 September, three days after her arrest. Her death has sparked an unprecedented wave of protest across the country.

Saturday’s TV news bulletin at 21:00 (17:30 GMT) was interrupted with images which included Iran’s supreme leader with a target on his head, photos of Ms Amini and three other women killed in recent protests. e of the captions read “join us and rise up”, whilst another said “our youths’ blood is dripping off your paws”.

The interruption lasted only a few seconds before being cut off.

Thanks to Nodsnarb and ttyler (long-time Slashdot reader #20,687) for sharing the story.

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FBI Warns About Counterfeit Batteries

“Scammers are leveraging the vulnerabilities in the global supply chain, as well as the public’s continuing need for new batteries, to sell a wide variety of counterfeits or unauthorized replicas online,” warns America’s FBI.

“Do not fall victim to online fraudsters or unauthorized dealers or manufacturers.”

Counterfeit batteries do not go through the same standardized testing as original equipment manufacturer batteries and can adversely impact the safety and health of the consumer….

Avoid aftermarket batteries when possible because they may be dangerous…. Consumers should avoid all third-party purchases of batteries, as they can appear to be legitimate OEM batteries but are likely counterfeit…. [B]atteries sold at deep discounts or at significantly lower-than-average prices are likely counterfeit.
The FBI warns you should always avoid batteries that:

are not properly packaged;
have misprinted or misspelled labels;
have labels that peel off; or
do not have official manufacturer batch numbers.

“The FBI’s warning is not specific to laptops or smartphones,” notes ZDNet, “which makes sense given that batteries are now found in everything from cars, scooters, e-bikes, e-cigarettes and trains to drones and more.”

Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the story.

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