Defending its number two ranking is Apple, whose brand value shot up by 37% to $146.3 billion. However, the report’s authors described its future as “looking bleak.” “Apple has failed to diversify and grown overdependent on sales of its flagship iPhones, responsible for two thirds of revenue,” the report said. “With the advent of emerging world brands like Huawei, Apple’s increasing focus on what are effectively luxury products may cost the brand a fair share of the global mass market, limiting the potential for brand value growth....

This upcoming processors will also provide support for 8 channel DDR4 memory, and according to Kitguru, these chips will deliver a 40 percent improvement on instructions per clock compared to the current generation of AMD processors. There is currently no word on the pricing and power consumption, but looking at Intel, AMD is most likely going to adopt an opposite strategy by keeping its processors priced far less than Intel’s to start gaining momentum in the server market....

The new CPU vulnerability dubbed “SQUIP”, which is short for Scheduler Queue Usage via Interference Probing, affects AMD Zen-based Ryzen chips. The vulnerability is related to the multi-scheduler queues in CPUs. While Intel CPUs have a single scheduler queue, the Apple M1, AMD Zen 2, and Zen 3 microarchitectures have separate scheduler queues for each execution unit. While Apple also uses individual scheduler queues for its M1 processors and likely also M2, it has yet to introduce simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) technology, which means its current processors are not affected....

— Mahatma Pech (@Mahatmapech) December 11, 2015 Anonymous has declared a full blown cyberwar on ISIS and their affiliates after the deadly Paris terror attacks. Under the banner of #OpParis, Anonymous has been taking down Twitter, Facebook accounts as well as DDoSing known ISIS websites. However, Anonymous has revealed another facet of the cyber war against ISIS and their propaganda websites, trolling. Earlier they mocked ISIS by lampooning them as ducks....

Guang Gong a security researcher from Quihoo 360 found the security vulnerability in Google’s Chrome browser for Android, which he recently presented during the MobilePwn2Own event at the PacSec security conference in Tokyo. According to Gong, the vulnerability, if exploited, can allow the potential hacker to take the administrative control of the Android smartphone and install any malicious App or APK. While Gong has not made the inner workings of the exploit public, it is known that his vulnerability leverages JavaScript v8 to gain full administrative access to the victim’s phone....

The device – iPhone 9 (or iPhone SE 2) – a successor to the iPhone SE, could likely be launched at the event, claims the site citing sources directly related to Apple. The probable announcement date suggested by the report is Tuesday, March 31 following which the device would reportedly be released on Friday, April 3. The iPhone 9 (or iPhone SE 2) is rumoured to be a low-cost iPhone with an iPhone 8 design, complete with a home button, Touch ID, more advanced processor, an upgraded camera, and a $399 price tag....

New York Repair Bill was supposed to make it easier for smartphone and laptop owner to easily fix their broken machines by forcing tech manufacturers like Apple to release electronic parts and design manuals to independent repair shops. However, Apple along with other manufacturers like Cisco and Xerox managed to get the bill killed. If passed, the bill could have been a boon to repair technicians and “right-to-repair” advocates nationwide....

According to the attorneys, the law firm claims that Windows 10 threatens user privacy, as the operating system collects browser history, passwords, location, emails, calendar events and voice samples and passes them on to third parties. The request could suggest that Microsoft could use this data for its own purpose and also to transfer them to third parties, from advertisers to security services to courts. The attorneys are mainly concerned with maintaining legal confidentiality....

The U.S. based start up firm, Batteroo, has invented a new gadget known as “Batteriser” that comprises of a stainless steel sleeve which is designed to extract the untapped power out of the used batteries. Each Batteriser sleeve is expected to cost around $2.50 (£1.63). Batteroo has unveiled its innovative extra slim Batteriser and they claim that this gadget would boost the life span of an used disposable battery by upto 8x or 800%....

This weekend Belgacom finally was able to find the Backdoor and remove it from their server to stop further access to their data by hackers. A spokes person from Belgacom said on monday, that their Network was hacked and some malware were planted in their servers, besides malware hackers used advanced encryption method to steal important data from their server.The malware has been now removed and better measures have been taken to secure servers now, said the spokes person from Belgacom....

Belkin releases patch for its flawed Belkin N750 dual-band router firmwareThe Flaw The Flaw IntegrityPT consultant Marco Vaz published a Metasploit module allowing guests to attack vulnerable routers. “A vulnerability in the guest network web interface of the [router] allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to gain root access to the operating system of the affected device,” Vaz said. “This vulnerability enables control over a part of heap memory where a variable that forces the execution of a CGI and also the variable with the name of the CGI to be executed are stored....

Once such website was a KickassTorrents mirror having a domain Kat.am. The people behind KAT.am were among the first to claim that they were a replacement for the dead and buried Kat.cr. Even though it misleadingly claimed to have a copy of KAT’s database, the torrent community, and world media made Kat.am popular. However, the MPAA moved against the domain and had it suspended for featuring pirated content. After being under suspension for a week or so, now the site is back again but in a scammy avatar....

Las Vegas Sands Corp. is a casino operating company, which operates some of the biggest casinos in the world on Las Vegas Strip like Sands, Venetian, and Palazzo hotels and casinos. And Sheldon Adelson owns 52 percent of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and a Israeli resident. In October, 2013, while making a appearance on a panel at the Manhattan campus of Yeshiva University, he called for a nuclear attack on Iran to get the country to abandon its own nuclear program according to Bloomberg Businessweek....

The company is eager to offer more devices because the Priv, which launched with a $700 price tag (now $650), was probably too high-end and expensive for people to consider. “The fact that we came out with a high-end phone [as our first Android device] was probably not as wise as it should have been,” Chen told The National, while declining to say how many Privs were sold in the last quarter....

A significant hybrid The Qtum blockchain which is popular for its property of merging the reliability of Bitcoin’s unfailing blockchain with the endless possibilities provided by Ethereum’s smart contracts is seen as an important technology within the ecosystem of emerging technologies behind the ongoing disruption. The platform is also seen by many as the foremost toolkit for building trusted decentralized applications, suited for real-world, business oriented use cases. Just recently, the crypto experienced a significant surge, rising by up to 189% within 8hrs, reaching a market capitalization of $3....

The researchers, Daniel Komaromy and Nico Golde said that all Samsung devices including Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge and Note 4 can have phone calls intercepted using malicious base stations. The duo demonstrated the attacks on Samsung’s ‘Shannon’ line of baseband chips in front of a live audience. Though they have not made their full research public, it makes use of Man-in-the-middle attack to intercept calls made on Samsung smartphones....

The researchers used a laser to zap a grid of microscopic holes in the paper, then coated one side in copper and laid it on top of a thin sheet of Teflon, joining the two sheets at one edge. As the sound waves vibrate the two sheets in different ways, it causes the two sheets to come in and out of contact generating electricity. The experiment is pretty similar to charge developed when a person rubs a balloon with hair....

On Wednesday, for the first time, an indigenously-developed mind-controlled car that would do away the use of accelerator or steering wheel was unveiled in China. The new vehicle has been developed by a research team from Nankai University in Tianjin in association with Chinese car maker, Great Wall Motor. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the car is controlled via a headset with 16 sensors that transmits impulses from the user’s brain to the car’s processing system....

Connecticut May Become First US State To Allow Deadly Police DronesHuman costs? The state of Connecticut has voted to allow law enforcement agencies to use drones equipped with deadly weapons.The legislation, approved overwhelmingly by the state legislature’s judiciary committee on Wednesday, would ban so-called weaponized drones in the state but exempts agencies involved in law enforcement. It now goes to the House of Representatives for consideration. Once the House of Representatives passes the bill, it will sent to the US senate and then notified into a law meaning that the Connecticut police will have hitherto unknown powers of shooting down a wanted criminal directly from the sky....