Miscellaneous Tech News
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Microsoft fixes harebrained Y2K22 Exchange bug that disrupted email worldwide
A rookie programming error crashed servers because they couldn't process the year 2022.
DAN GOODIN - 1/3/2022, 4:47 PMMicrosoft has released a fix for a harebrained Exchange Server bug that shut down on-premises mail delivery around the world just as clocks were chiming in the new year.
The mass disruption stemmed from a date check failure in Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 that made it impossible for servers to accommodate the year 2022, prompting some to call it the Y2K22 bug. The mail programs stored dates and times as signed integers, which max out at 2147483647, or 231 - 1. Microsoft uses the first two numbers of an update version to denote the year it was released. As long as the year was 2021 or earlier, everything worked fine.
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Backwards capacitor causes fiery failure for some high-end Asus motherboards
Asus has issued a statement and recall for affected Z690 boards.
ANDREW CUNNINGHAM - 1/3/2022, 3:44 PMIntel's high-end 12th-generation Core processors use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat, but Asus' ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard takes things to the next level. A "potential reversed memory capacitor" in some boards can cause them to catch on fire.
The problem was initially hunted down by the Actually Hardware Overclocking YouTube channel, which diagnosed the issue using images from Reddit users and posters on Asus' support forums whose boards had failed. The reversed capacitor causes increased current leakage, which generates heat that subsequently burns out the neighboring MOSFET transistors. Users with the flipped capacitors noted that they noticed a burning smell or even fire before their systems shut down. Once the MOSFETs have burned out, the motherboard's built-in status display will show error code 53, indicating that the motherboard doesn't detect any installed RAM.
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OH MY GOD, JUST PAY THEM —
Google loses Sonos patent case, starts stripping functionality from speakersRather than pay royalty fees to Sonos, Google is sending downgrades to customers.
RON AMADEO - 1/7/2022, 11:43 AMFollowing a preliminary ruling in August, the US International Trade Commission has issued a final decision saying that Google infringed five Sonos smart speaker patents. It would be possible for this ruling to result in some products like the Nest Audio, Chromecast, and Pixel line being banned in the US, but Google has prepared ITC-approved software downgrades, which remove the infringing features from users' products.
Sonos essentially invented the connected speaker category for streaming music, but the advent of voice assistants has led to Big Tech stomping all over Sonos' territory. Sonos says that while it was pitching Google for support of Google Play Music, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' operations in 2013. Sonos says Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016. Sonos sued Google in early 2020.
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@gjacobse said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
OH MY GOD, JUST PAY THEM —
Google loses Sonos patent case, starts stripping functionality from speakersRather than pay royalty fees to Sonos, Google is sending downgrades to customers.
RON AMADEO - 1/7/2022, 11:43 AMFollowing a preliminary ruling in August, the US International Trade Commission has issued a final decision saying that Google infringed five Sonos smart speaker patents. It would be possible for this ruling to result in some products like the Nest Audio, Chromecast, and Pixel line being banned in the US, but Google has prepared ITC-approved software downgrades, which remove the infringing features from users' products.
Sonos essentially invented the connected speaker category for streaming music, but the advent of voice assistants has led to Big Tech stomping all over Sonos' territory. Sonos says that while it was pitching Google for support of Google Play Music, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' operations in 2013. Sonos says Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016. Sonos sued Google in early 2020.
I wonder if customers will now have a class action against Google because they bought the speakers with the expectation of those features. Now google should have to refund all of those people.
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Avira A/V mining crypto currency on PCs
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/01/500m-avira-antivirus-users-introduced-to-cryptomining/ -
@nadnerb said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Avira A/V mining crypto currency on PCs
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/01/500m-avira-antivirus-users-introduced-to-cryptomining/Haven’t we spent years clearing this crap off PCs?
I never used avira but a lot of people did/do. So all I have to say is:
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Boils down to the usual scam exploiting known unpatched Layer 8 flaws.
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HP to acquire Poly (Polycom / Plantronics)
https://press.hp.com/us/en/press-releases/2022/hp-inc-to-acquire-poly.html
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Curious to see how this ends.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/ubiquiti-sues-journalist-alleging-defamation-in-coverage-of-data-breach/ -
Rumour is (from someone in the pool) that 11% of Automox was laid off today. I guess I'm not surprised, COVID is a tough time to be growing a business and they aren't one that we hear about after their initial launch. Kind of lost the mindshare.
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That and every time they tell me about their product they talk about all the time I'd save... except it's all stuff already automated so no idea what time they are talking about. Seems like a solution seeking a problem.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
That and every time they tell me about their product they talk about all the time I'd save... except it's all stuff already automated so no idea what time they are talking about. Seems like a solution seeking a problem.
and I can't get their site to load this morning
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@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
That and every time they tell me about their product they talk about all the time I'd save... except it's all stuff already automated so no idea what time they are talking about. Seems like a solution seeking a problem.
and I can't get their site to load this morning
It's up here.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
That and every time they tell me about their product they talk about all the time I'd save... except it's all stuff already automated so no idea what time they are talking about. Seems like a solution seeking a problem.
and I can't get their site to load this morning
It's up here.
It is now also. It was definitely down when I posted - isitdownrightnow.com said so.
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@gjacobse said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Wow. Never heard of them, but that's sure a warning to be heeded.
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Anyone remember Fleetsmith? They were a sponsor of SpiceWorld a few years ago (back when conferences were still a thing.) They had a booth and were making an Apple-centric MDM.
They just went out of business. Another one bites the dust. It always seemed like a decent product, but the Apple-only MDM model felt unusable.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Anyone remember Fleetsmith?
They just went out of business.
Umm what? Apple bought them last year.
https://support.apple.com/guide/fleetsmith/welcome/web -
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Anyone remember Fleetsmith?
They just went out of business.
Umm what? Apple bought them last year.
https://support.apple.com/guide/fleetsmith/welcome/webYes, and shut them down today. They were still operating like a separate company, though. But now they are gone.
Their announcement said "Apple made the decision...". But their FleetSmith service was operating (and I think maintained) as its own entity, just owned by Apple.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Anyone remember Fleetsmith?
They just went out of business.
Umm what? Apple bought them last year.
https://support.apple.com/guide/fleetsmith/welcome/webYes, and shut them down today. They were still operating like a separate company, though. But now they are gone.
Meh, don't care about a company staying separate year+ after acquisition. The product still exists though. Or was that cancelled as well?
