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- Classic BlackBerry phones stop working today - CNN
- Coming to a laptop near you: A new type of security chip from Microsoft - Ars Technica
- Sony brings all the TV tech to CES 2022: From QD-OLED to 8K - CNET
| Classic BlackBerry phones stop working today - CNN Posted: 04 Jan 2022 10:47 AM PST  (CNN)You can no longer use that old BlackBerry phone sitting at the bottom of your drawer somewhere. On Tuesday, the company will stop running support for its classic devices running BlackBerry 10, 7.1 OS and earlier. This means all of its older devices not running on Android software will no longer be able to use data, send text messages, access the internet or make calls, even to 911. While most mobile users have moved on from BlackBerry -- the last version of its operating system launched in 2013 -- the decision to discontinue support for its phones represents the end of what was once considered bleeding-edge technology. The company originally announced the news in September 2020 as part of its efforts to focus on providing security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world under the name BlackBerry Limited. BlackBerry (BB) has been mostly out of the phone business since 2016, but over the years it continued to license its brand to phone manufacturers, including TCL and more recently OnwardMobility, an Austin, Texas-based security startup, for a 5G Blackberry device running on Android software. (BlackBerry's Android devices are not affected by the end of service.) BlackBerry's old school cell phones with physical keyboards from the late 1990s and early 2000s were once so popular people nicknamed them "CrackBerries." The keyboard appealed to professionals who wanted the flexibility of working outside the office with some of the tools they used on a desktop computer. The devices became a status symbol and fixture for people on Wall Street, celebrities like Kim Kardashian, and even former President Barack Obama, thanks in part to its great reputation for security. At its peak in 2012, BlackBerry had more than 80 million active users. The company got its start in 1996 as Research In Motion with what it called two-way pagers. Its first gadget, the "Inter@ctive Pager," allowed customers to respond to pages with a physical keyboard, a kind of text messaging/email hybrid. Three years later, RIM introduced the BlackBerry name with the BlackBerry 850. Eventually, BlackBerry phones gained support for email, apps, web browsing and BBM, an encrypted text messaging platform that predated WhatsApp and survived long after BlackBerry was surpassed by its rivals. But Apple's touchscreen revolution with the iPhone in 2007 made BlackBerry's offerings appear lacking. It tried touch screens and slide-out keyboard models, with little success. It developed a few phones with no physical keyboard, but those were missing BlackBerry's key differentiator: its tactile keyboard. BlackBerry eventually gave up on its own software, embracing Android and layering its security software on top. It found some success in enterprise security software and automotive software. Although TCL stopped making devices with the BlackBerry name in 2020, some fans are holding out for the arrival of OnwardMobility's BlackBerry 5G device, which was originally expected to launch in 2021. Despite the delay, its website still features a banner that says "coming 2021." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coming to a laptop near you: A new type of security chip from Microsoft - Ars Technica Posted: 04 Jan 2022 02:15 PM PST  In November 2020, Microsoft unveiled Pluton, a security processor that the company designed to thwart some of the most sophisticated types of hack attacks. On Tuesday, AMD said it would integrate the chip into its upcoming Ryzen CPUs for use in Lenovo's ThinkPad Z Series of laptops. Microsoft already used Pluton to secure Xbox Ones and Azure Sphere microcontrollers against attacks that involve people with physical access opening device cases and performing hardware hacks that bypass security protections. Such hacks are usually carried out by device owners who want to run unauthorized games or programs for cheating. Now, Pluton is evolving to secure PCs against malicious physical hacks designed to install malware or steal cryptographic keys or other sensitive secrets. While many systems already have trusted platform modules or protections such as Intel's Software Guard Extensions to secure such data, the secrets remain vulnerable to several types of attacks. One such physical attack involves placing wires that tap the connection between a TPM and other device components and extract the secrets that pass between the machines. Last August, researchers disclosed an attack that took only 30 minutes to obtain the BitLocker key from a new Lenovo computer preconfigured to use full-disk encryption with a TPM, password-protected BIOS settings, and UEFI SecureBoot. The hack—which worked by sniffing the connection between the TPM and the CMOS chip—showed that locking down a laptop with the latest defenses isn't always enough.A similar attack unveiled three months later showed it was possible to exploit a vulnerability (now fixed) in Intel CPUs to defeat a variety of security measures, including those provided by BitLocker, TPMs, and anti-copying restrictions. Attacks known as Spectre and Meltdown have also repeatedly underscored the threat of malicious code pulling secrets directly out of a CPU, even when the secrets are stored in Intel's SGX. A new approachPluton is designed to fix all of that. It's integrated directly into a CPU die, where it stores crypto keys and other secrets in a walled-off garden that is completely isolated from other system components. Microsoft has said that the data stored there can't be removed, even when an attacker has installed malware or has full physical possession of the PC. One of the measures making this possible is a unique Secure Hardware Cryptography Key, or SHACK. A SHACK helps ensure keys are never exposed outside of the protected hardware, even to the Pluton firmware itself. Pluton will also be responsible for automatically delivering firmware updates through the Windows Update. By tightly integrating hardware and software, Microsoft expects Pluton to seamlessly install security patches as needed. "If I'm running an office IT department, I want people to run verified versions of Windows and office apps and lock down as much else as possible to prevent all sorts of malicious and unauthorized stuff," said Joseph FitzPatrick, a hardware hacker and a researcher specializing in firmware security at SecuringHardware.com. "Pluton is the hardware-enabled path to get there."  Microsoft He said that Pluton will also prevent people from running software that has been modified without the permission of developers. "The upside is it makes x86 systems more secure and reliable by further enabling a walled garden approach," FitzPatrick said. "The downside is the typical complaints about walled gardens." From the outset, TPMs have had a fundamental limitation—they were never designed to protect against physical attacks. Over time, Microsoft and others began using TPMs as a place to more securely stash BitLocker keys and similar secrets. The approach was vastly better than storing keys on disk, but as researchers have demonstrated, it was hardly sufficient. Eventually, Apple and Google introduced the T2 and Titan chips to improve things. The chips provided some guarantee against physical attacks, but both were essentially bolted on to existing systems. Pluton, by contrast, is integrated directly into the CPU. The security chip can be configured in any one of three ways: as the device TPM, as a security processor used in non-TMP scenarios such as platform resilience, or as something PC makers turn off before shipping. ThinkPad Z series laptops equipped with Pluton-integrated Ryzens will begin shipping in May. Microsoft said | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sony brings all the TV tech to CES 2022: From QD-OLED to 8K - CNET Posted: 04 Jan 2022 12:43 PM PST  Sony's X95K will be its first 4K TV to use a mini-LED backlight. SonyAt CES 2022, Sony is bringing all the TV tech. The company's new lineup of televisions skews high-end, as it has in the past, but encompasses more variety than ever. Sony will introduce its first mini-LED models, including a version with 8K resolution, beef up its gaming chops with the PlayStation 5 and even roll out a remote finder. And in a first for any TV-maker, Sony is going to sell two kinds of OLED TVs.  The Sony A95K is one of the first TVs ever to use QD-OLED. SonyTVs that use OLED technology have the best picture quality available, and Sony's lineup includes three series of OLED models. The most intriguing is the A95K series, which Sony says is its best OLED TV yet. This is just the second TV ever announced, after a model by Samsung, to use QD-OLED display technology. Sony touts better color and viewing angles compared to its other 2022 OLED TVs, namely the A90K and A80K. Meanwhile, Sony's best non-OLED TVs are the Z9K with 8K resolution and the X95K, with 4K, both of which use mini-LED technology and Sony's "backlight master drive" for precise control of the full-array local dimming backlight. Sony is also packing in its latest version of the "cognitive" processor it introduced last year, promising improved color and depth mapping.  In a first among included TV remotes, Sony's new clicker will beep if you lose it among the couch cushions. SonyBeyond picture quality, the company is introducing a couple of interesting conveniences. Its highest-end TVs come with a remote finder function, similar to a feature we love on the Roku Ultra for example, that causes the clicker to emit a tone when you lose it (and it's a remote, so you will lose it). There's also a new camera dubbed Bravia Cam, included with the two most expensive models and optional on the others. In addition to video chat from apps like Google Duo, the cam can help adjust the picture and sound according to room conditions and seating distance, spawn a pop-up or block the screen if someone (like a kid) approaches too close, engage power saving if you leave the room and (wait for it) even respond to rudimentary gesture controls. People who don't like the idea of a TV with a camera can engage the built-in privacy shutter or simply remote the camera completely. All 2022 Sony TVs will ship with variable refresh rate enabled, rather than relying on software updates to add the feature later. A new extra called Auto HDR Tone Mapping allows a PS5 console to automatically detect the model of the Sony TV it's connected to and select the best HDR settings. Another new addition, called auto genre picture mode, lets the PS5 tell the TV whether it's playing a game or other content, such as a streaming TV show or movie, and toggle the TV's game mode on or off accordingly. Sony TVs continue to run the Google TV operating system and select models have a mic -- complete with a physical muter switch -- for hands-free "Hey, Google" voice commands. New for 2022, Sony's Netflix Calibrated picture mode will get the ability to adapt to different viewing environments automatically. Here's a look at how the models stack up, from high-end on down, including screen sizes. Sony's 2022 TV lineup
In case you're wondering, the size section of the A90K OLED is not a misprint: it indeed only comes in 42- and 48-inch sizes, which Sony aims, in part, at gamers. In terms of image quality, Sony said that its non-QD-OLED models -- the A90K and A80K -- would both perform basically the same, and as well as the flagship A90J OLED TV from 2021. It's also worth noting that the cheapest TV with full-array local dimming is the X90K, successor to the excellent X90J I reviewed last year. Pricing and availability of Sony's TVs will be announced in the spring. |
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