Xpertfeed

Summary:   Foxconn has proposed the buyout, which would give Sharp the chance to offload a failing unit. Foxconn may acquire Sharp's LCD business as the manufacturer moves into electronics. As reported by Asian publication Nikkei on Monday , manufacturer Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai, is considering the purchase of Sharp's liquid crystal display (LCD) business. According to sources familiar with the matter, the Taiwanese manufacturer and Sharp have been in talks since last summer, and would involve a majority stake investment by Foxconn -- together with investment by Apple. In addition, Foxconn hopes to secure the Japanese electronic giant's 38 percent stake in Sakai Display Products. Founded in 2009, SDP is a joint venture run by Sharp and SIO International Holdings Limited, an investment firm fully owned by Foxconn chairman Terry Gou. The company develops LCD panels suitable for large screens. ...

Summary:   Microsoft has released Windows 10 Mobile Build 10536, its first new Windows 10 Mobile test build in over a month, to Fast Ring testers.Microsoft rolled out a new test version, Build 10536, of Windows 10 Mobile late in the day (East Coast time) on September 14. This is the first new Windows 10 Mobile test build from Microsoft since August 12, when Microsoft delivered test build 10512. Microsoft had hoped to push the new build to Windows Phone testers on the Fast Ring at the end of last week, but some glitches held up the rollout. Despite the decision to delay the new build, a couple of hundred Windows Insiders outside Microsoft still got the updated Windows 10 Mobile test build in advertently over the weekend. Today's Windows 10 Mobile build includes the re-addition of the Insider Hub; fixes to mobile hotspot functionality; fixes to two-factor authentication and quiet hours; and repairs to pinch and zoom in Maps, among other featu...

Summary:   Apple found yet another way to cut carriers out of the equation with its iPhone Upgrade Program. It can be cheaper than carrier installment plans and gives Apple more of the customer relationship. Earlier today, after Apple introduced its new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, I took a look at the "should you upgrade?" question. Current owners of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are probably better served by sticking with what they have. But I also noted that Apple has a  new iPhone Upgrade Program  that's worth the look. And it may be even more disruptive than the technologies found in the company's next iPhones. At this point, all of the four major U.S. carriers have installment plans available for handsets. That's because we're moving away from subsidized hardware and two-year phone contracts. Apple mentioned this, mainly because it can't really keep showing the price of iPhones at $199, $299 and $399 when most people aren't buying phon...

Summary:   The new Street View app offers users a window into the world through 360 degree photos. Google has released a standalone Street View app, updating the version on Android and bringing the app to iOS for the first time. The new app brings Google's Street View offerings into line across both iOS and Android. In the two apps, users can flick through Street View 'collections' as well as user-created photo spheres that are displayed in cards at the bottom of the screen. Collections are grouped into themes such as Animals and Wildlife, Oceans, or particular countries. Selecting a collection displays where they're located on Google Maps in the top half of the display. The app also lets users take 360-degree panoramas from an Android phone or an iPhone and publish them to Street View, or alternatively add images from one-shot 360-degree cameras like Ricoh's Theta S. The app also contains a private gallery where ...

BitTorrent tracker blocks Windows 10 users Summary:   If you use BitTorrent a lot, you may want to re-think moving to Windows 10.  BitTorrent sites are starting to block Windows 10 users.Windows 10 is quickly gaining fans. Some of them, however, are growing distrustful of Windows 10's privacy settings. Some BitTorrent sites don't trust Windows 10 at all. So, at least one BitTorrent tracker, iTS, has blocked Windows 10 users from accessing torrents from their site. Others are considering banning Windows 10 users. In a YouTube video, iTS proclaimed that " Windows 10 is nothing more than a spy tool that will keep track of every action, email, conversation, video, picture, or anything else that you do on your computer." iTS based its position largely on Microsoft's new unified services and privacy agreements , specifically the clause which states that, "We may automatically check your version of the software and download sof...

Intel's radical Optane next-gen SSD ​Intel teased their new Optane SSD this week, saying it's 7x faster than flash SSDs, with much longer life, using a radical new memory they call 3D Xpoint.  A couple of weeks ago Intel and Micron jointly announced their Xpoint - pronounced "cross point" - memory. Offering few details they claimed 3D XPoint technology combines the performance, density, power, non-volatility and cost advantages of all available memory technologies on the market today. The technology is up to 1,000 times faster and has up to 1,000 times greater endurance than NAND, and is 10 times denser than conventional memory. 3D Xpoint is the technology inside the Optane drive. At last week's Flash Memory Summit , semiconductor analysts Jim Handy and Dave Eggleston , whose work I respect, offered their educated guesses on the Xpoint technology. I'm stealing freely from both. What is it? Xpoint is a form of res...

Microsoft's third Windows 10 cumulative update said to fix Store issues Summary:   Microsoft officials say the latest Windows 10 cumulative update fixes problems some users were having with Windows Store. What else is in it? We have no idea.Microsoft rolled out late on August 14 the third cumulative update for Windows 10 since the product began rolling out to users on July 29. The newest cumulative update is KB3081438 . The Microsoft Support page says nothing about the specific features and fixes that are new to this update beyond "This update includes improvements to enhance the functionality of Windows 10." But a Microsoft spokesperson did let me know that the new update is designed to fix the Windows 10 Store issues which had been affecting a number of us Windows 10 users for the past week. A number of us were unable to access the Store, obtain app updates and/or download new apps. In some cases, Windows Store apps like Mail...

Samsung to supply AMOLED panels to Huawei Summary:    Samsung Display is reportedly said to be providing AMOLED panels to Chinese smartphone maker Huawei in a bid to diversify its customer base. Samsung Display, one of the world's largest producers of OLED displays, is looking for new clients on the back of the fading glory of South Korean brands. After several Chinese smartphone brands, including Meizu and Oppo, have already adopted the AMOLED panels into their handset products, the Korean panel company is now eyeing even bigger fish in China, and has began sending AMOLED panel samples to Huawei, according to a Chinese report on Tuesday. Shipment numbers remain small at the moment, but are expected to climb in the following months after Huawei finishes testing of the first-batch products, according to the report. Teaming up with Huawei is a major step for Samsung Display given that t...

News, entertainment sites hotbed for serving malware ads, from statistics Summary:   More than half of "malvertising" attacks come from news and entertainment sites.Hackers and malicious actors are increasingly targeting online ad networks as a means to infect users, a new report says. A new report by Bromium, a Cupertino, Calif.-based firm with a commercial stake in the security space and a research unit, says more than half of these "malvertising" attacks originate from news and entertainment sites that inadvertently display infected online ads. Bromium has created technology called micro-virtualization, which is designed to sandbox various threats and malicious code. The company is venture backed and counts Andreessen Horowitz and Intel Capital among its investors. NBCSports.com, Weather.com, and CBSNews.com were named in the report as "attractive" targets for hackers. "In a classic malvertisement attack, ...

Google releases Kubernetes 1.0: Container management will never be the same Summary:   Google's open source container deployment and management tool is ready for general use in production environments. At OSCon , Google announced that Kubernetes , its open source container deployment and management tool, was ready for the big time -- general use in production environments -- by releasing Kubernetes 1.0 . Google wants Kubernetes to be in every one's cloud, and with the 1.0 release it's already well on its way. Chances are many of you don't know Kubernetes, but the odds are even greater that you use it every day. That's because every time you run a Google program -- Search, Gmail, Google Docs, whatever -- you are running it in Google's own container technology, lmctfy (Let Me Contain That For You) . The program that created and managed these billions of containers is Kubernetes. Sounds pretty darn production ready ...