Jurang Tayo

Selasa, 13 Agustus 2019

Android just took a step towards eradicating passwords for good - Wired.co.uk

In May 2015, Google set out a bold vision: it was going to get rid of passwords on Android phones. A year later, under the codename Abacus, it pledged to bring password-free logins to the operating system's apps by the end of 2016.

Fast forward three years and the password is still alive and being abused – the most used password is still 123456 (closely followed by other obvious combinations). But now, Google has taken a step towards actually eliminating some password reliance through Android and Chrome.

Starting from this week people using Android phones will be able to log in to web services in Chrome by using a fingerprint stored on their device. It's a small step closer to a password-free world. Phone owners running at least Android Nougat, which was released in 2016, can use their fingerprint to get into web services.

"New security technologies are surpassing passwords in terms of both strength and convenience," Google software engineer Dongjing He and product manager Christiaan Brand wrote in a blog post outlining the change.

But there's one big caveat: at the moment the login system is hugely limited. In fact, the only web service that it's possible to access without you password is Google Chrome's password manager. If you navigate to passwords.google.com through Google's web browser on your Android and tap on a previously saved piece of information, you'll be prompted to use the fingerprint saved on your phone to access the data.

This method only works because of three sets of internet standards: FIDO2, W3C WebAuthn and FIDO CTAP. The trio outline technical methods that web services should aim to use when it comes to user logins and passwords. The ultimate aim is to allow users to login and register for services using devices they trust and extra authenticating information, such as fingerprint or facial data.

The membership of the FIDO Alliance, which is responsible for the standard of the same name, shows the tech industry's desire to do something about poor user passwords. FIDO is made up of Facebook, Intel, PayPal, Intel, Visa, Amazon, and more companies, and has been working on helping to replace passwords for years. It's only just starting to make some traction though.

This little security key from Google can stop you getting hacked

The FIDO2 standard is better than user passwords as it protects login details using public/private key encryption. This works by storing a private encryption key on a device – a phone or a security key, for instance – and a public key is held by the company your account belongs to. When a person tries to sign in to their account, the private key is unlocked by the use of a fingerprint or other biometric and it's matched with the public key to access your information.

In November 2018, Microsoft launched its biometrics login system, Windows Hello, on its Edge browser. This means people can sign in to their Microsoft account without having to provide a password. Microsoft accounts include Outlook, Office, and Skype.

At present Google's expansion of combining Android and Chrome for logging in to services is very limited. The number of times you need to access the service's password manager – if you even use it – is pretty infrequent, but the step forward precedes a major rollout like Microsoft's.

"These biometric capabilities are now, for the first time, available on the web, allowing the same credentials be used by both native apps and web services," He and Brand said. But even this limited rollout is significant because Google has vastly more web power than Microsoft. Android has more than two billion monthly users and Chrome is used by approximately 70 per cent of people browsing the web.

Google could easily introduce the passwordless feature across its other services. In a talk last year Brand said the bigger vision using the web standards was to allow people to easily login to services without having to re-enter all of the details each time. "We want to make things easier for the user," he said.

During a demonstration he showed how Google's services could be at the centre of this: once a user had signed in to a banking account on their Android phone, they would then be able to access the same website on a MacBook with a fingerprint scanner through Chrome, without entering a password again.

The company hasn't yet announced when Gmail and its myriad of other services will support Android logins without passwords, but change is coming. "As we continue to embrace the FIDO2 standard, you will start seeing more places where local alternatives to passwords are accepted as an authentication mechanism for Google and Google Cloud services," the company staffers wrote in their blog post.

Microsoft's next-gen Xbox will prioritize high frame rates and fast loading - Engadget

Parallels Desktop 15 for Mac moves to Metal for DirectX 11 and more - Ars Technica

Parallels Desktop 15 running Windows 7 and 11.

Parallels
Upgrading to Windows 10 under Parallels Desktop 15.

Parallels
macOS Catalina as host and guest in Parallels Desktop 15.

Parallels
The control center in Parallels Desktop 15 under macOS Catalina.

Parallels

Today, popular virtualization software Parallels Desktop 15 for Mac becomes available to new and current users. The flagship feature is support for DirectX in virtual Windows machines via Apple's proprietary Metal graphics API. Other additions include a handful of new macOS Catalina-related features and improvements to transitions between Mac and Windows software running on the same machine.

When we wrote about Parallels Desktop 14 around this time last year, we asked about Metal support. The application then still relied entirely on OpenGL in macOS, and Apple had already announced that continued support for OpenGL would end. We were told it was coming, and we were not misled: the new version of Parallels Desktop now supports DirectX 9, 10, and 11 via Metal. Previously, DirectX 9 and 10 were supported via OpenGL and DirectX 11 was not supported at all. Parallels' rep noted to us that "Metal and DirectX work best in Catalina."

Apple's new macOS Catalina software for Macs launches this fall, and Parallels Desktop 15 supports a few of the key features of that new release. That includes Sign In with Apple, which can now be used to authenticate with a Parallels account. Catalina also means you can use your iPad as an external display alongside a Mac via Apple's new Sidecar feature—and Parallels makes this work not just for macOS applications but for Windows as well. Apple Pencil support is included for both environments.

There's a plethora of additional features both Catalina-related and otherwise—Bluetooth low-energy support, the ability to drag items from Safari or Photos in macOS to your virtual Windows machine, and more—which you can read about on the Parallels website. But one of the recurring themes we noticed during a presentation of the new software by Parallels was improvements to how Coherence mode works.

Coherence facilitates seamless movement between Windows and macOS apps; it essentially puts Windows apps in macOS windows, which includes macOS-like behaviors, a place in the Mac's dock, and so on. Sometimes, this might create confusion for users unfamiliar with it, so many small aspects of the transitions and workflow for Coherence have been improved for clarity and efficiency.

Additionally, Parallels Desktop 15 Pro and Business editions now feature a Virtual Platform Trusted Module, which is "a new virtual machine hardware to VM configuration required by Windows to enable additional security features."

Ottawa-based Corel acquired Bellevue, Wash.-based Parallels in December. Corel also includes WinZip, CorelDraw, PaintShop Pro, WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and numerous other software products in its portfolio. This is the first major Parallels release since the acquisition.

Perpetual license upgrades to Parallels Desktop 15 start at $49.99. Meanwhile, new subscriptions start at $79.99 annually while new perpetual licenses start at $99.99.

Listing image by Parallels

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https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/08/parallels-desktop-15-for-mac-moves-to-metal-for-directx-11-and-more/

2019-08-13 07:01:00Z
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Phil Spencer Talks Microsoft's E3 2019, And Why He Was Apprehensive About Keanu Reeves' Surprise Appearance - GameSpot

In an in-depth interview with GameSpot, Xbox boss Phil Spencer spoke at length about Microsoft's past, present, and future in gaming. During the conversation, he addressed E3 2019, and one of the topics he discussed was the added pressure to succeed in the wake of Sony not holding its traditional press conference.

"Normally what would happen is, on Sunday, we'd do our show and then Sony would go on Monday and then Nintendo on Monday or Tuesday," Spencer said. "With Sony not in the middle, our show kind of sat on its own, which I think was kind of a positive and a challenge in some ways because there was nothing for it to reflect against." E3 2019 was the last show before Microsoft really starts marketing its next platform, codenamed Scarlett, he explained, so it was especially important to let fans know that there's still plenty to expect on Xbox One--years' worth of releases--before the generation closes out.

This is largely why the Scarlett reveal was at the end of Microsoft's press conference, instead of being a focus at the beginning of the show, like previous console reveals at E3. Though the next-generation Xbox is on the way, it's still a way out and so the majority of the games announced at Microsoft's E3 2019 conference were focused on its current platform. Microsoft also just didn't have answers to many questions about Scarlett. The hardware's appearance, official name, cost, and day one game line-up are all still up in the air.

When it came to the objective of ensuring the focus was still on Xbox One, Spencer said he feels like Microsoft largely succeeded--especially since the company mostly announced games or expansions that had a foreseeable release date, so viewers could make concrete plans for them. "The Lego stuff is a good example," Spencer said. "On Lego Forza, you just saw it's coming to your console that week. Some of the things were literally launching right as we [announced] it, like the State of Decay stuff."

"Of the 14 first-party games that we showed, I think 12 or 13 of them are shipping before the next E3," Spencer continued. "When you're thinking about all this, we had a huge show. It was higher social engagement than last year, higher ratings for us than last year. The fact that we got to open with four first-party games in a row--[something] we've never done before--those were cool to see, even for our own teams, as a worthwhile milestone for us. We could actually open a show with four first-party games and they were all received very well and did very well. That's, I think, what we aspire to."

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Microsoft E3 2019 Full Press Conference

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Because of the importance of making a good impression with Xbox One's upcoming game line-up, Spencer was actually apprehensive of agreeing to CD Projekt Red's request to have Keanu Reeves present onstage during the Cyberpunk 2077 portion of Microsoft's press conference. "[People] obviously loved having Keanu Reeves come out on stage [though]," Spencer said, "Which actually surprised me a little bit. The hit rate on celebrities on gaming stages at E3 is not incredibly high, including for us. Some of [my apprehension was] just my having lived through [seeing] celebrities on stage at E3 and seeing it become a little cringe-worthy. It was cool to see this one work."

Not all of the feedback for Microsoft's showing at E3 was positive though. Fans seemed miffed at the lack of gameplay for the two biggest upcoming Xbox first-party titles, Gears 5 and Halo Infinite. And there's still a general level of confusion around cloud gaming and streaming on consoles with xCloud. "Gears and Halo, two of the bigger first-party games there, both felt more like trailers than somebody standing on a stage with a controller playing the game," Spencer admitted. "From a clarity standpoint, the whole idea of console streaming in xCloud--I think streaming in general--is just an area that people aren't really versed in thinking about [yet]. I think we're going to have to do, frankly, two, three, or four more [shows] before people really understand what we're doing with it."

More Exclusive Phil Spencer Coverage

We've broken out several stories of note from our conversation with Phil Spencer and outlined the full list of news articles below, including our big profile on the outspoken and positive leader of Xbox.

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https://www.gamespot.com/articles/phil-spencer-talks-microsofts-e3-2019-and-why-he-w/1100-6468799/

2019-08-13 05:22:00Z
52780349643509

Senin, 12 Agustus 2019

Fortnite star Ninja left Twitch. Then the platform recommended porn to his followers. - The Washington Post

Richard Tyler Blevins, a.k.a. Ninja, speaks to the crowd at the start of the 2019 Fortnite World Cup Finals - Round Two on July 27 in New York City. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

August 12 at 10:06 AM

Video game star Tyler Blevins, known to his fans as “Ninja,” had amassed over 14 million followers on the streaming platform Twitch, thanks to his mastery of the popular game Fortnite. But after he departed the platform for a rival streaming service, viewers who went looking for his Twitch channel on Sunday didn’t get to see their favorite neon-haired gamer — instead, they saw pornography.

Blevin’s Twitch account had been dormant after he announced earlier this month that he was leaving Twitch for Microsoft’s rival streaming platform, Mixer. However, Twitch had been recommending other channels for Ninja fans who could no longer watch their favorite streamer, Kotaku reported, and one of those channels displayed adult content.

Polygon reported that for a time after he announced his move, the link to Blevin’s “Ninja” account page on Twitch led to a 404 error page, where other streams, including the pornography, were recommended. After the controversy erupted Sunday, the link has been restored to a dormant version of the Ninja account.

[Everything you need to know about Fortnite and why it’s so popular]

Blevins expressed his frustration Sunday in a video posted to Twitter, where he has 4.7 million followers.

“There was a porn account that was #1 being recommended on my channel, and I have no say in any of this stuff,” he said. “This is the line, this is the straw.” Angry that his dormant account was being used to promote other Twitch content, he said his team was trying to have his Twitch channel taken down for good, or at least bar other content from being promoted there without his blessing.

In response, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear explained through tweets that the error resulted from an experiment that showed recommended content across Twitch gone awry.

“However, the lewd content that appeared on the @ninja offline channel page grossly violates our terms of service, and we’ve permanently suspended the account in question,” he tweeted. In a subsequent tweet, Shear added a personal apology to Blevins, saying he wanted “to apologize directly to @ninja that this happened. It wasn’t our intent, but it should not have happened. No excuses.”

Twitch is a subsidiary of Amazon, whose chief executive and founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.

Blevins, known for his shock of neon hair and endless stamina for streaming, first entered the gaming arena about a decade ago playing Halo, a universe of military-style video games set in space. He competed in Halo tournaments for several years, eventually moving on to conquer Fortnite, a popular battle royal-style game that has become a mainstay of popular culture.

[Who is Kyle Giersdorf, the 16-year-old who won $3 million in the Fortnite World Cup?]

It was one fateful Fortnite session that launched Blevins into the gaming stratosphere. In March 2018, he streamed with none other than Drake, the rap superstar, and Polygon reported that their stream peaked at about 635,000 viewers.

Blevins has garnered a massive audience through his nonstop gaming. “When I’m not streaming, I have time to reflect on all the growth, and I don’t like that. I’d rather just be home playing,” he told ESPN magazine in a 2018 profile. “I’m like, ‘I haven’t played a celebrity in a while. I haven’t done something big in a while. Is it because I’m slowing down?’ When I’m home, there’s no time to think about that.”

In addition to his millions of Twitter followers and his now-defunct Twitch channel, Blevins has 22 million subscribers on YouTube. By some estimates, he made $500,000 a month from streaming, ESPN reported in 2018.

Teen Choice Awards: 7 things you missed, from the emotional Jonas Brothers speech to Ken Jeong calling out YouTube stars

The ways we watch: The age of streaming created weird TV habits. Which of these describes you?

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/12/fortnite-star-ninja-left-twitch-then-platform-recommended-porn-his-followers/

2019-08-12 14:06:57Z
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Adobe's New Painting App Is a Tantalizing Sneak Peek at the iPad's Future - Gizmodo

GIF: Andrew Liszewski (Gizmodo)

First announced last October, Adobe Fresco is the company’s next-generation painting and illustration app for tablets that harnesses AI smarts to allow artists to work with digital tools that behave and feel like traditional brushes and paints. We got an early look at the app before its release later this year, and while it’s missing a few key features, it’s still an exciting look at the next big evolution of mobile devices like the iPad.

The iPad started life as seemingly nothing more than an oversized smartphone. Apple positioned it as a media consumption device; better suited for reading and watching movies, but over the years the iPad has grown to be something more. When productivity apps like word processors and spreadsheets arrived the tablet soon became a viable alternative to a laptop, and when the Apple Pencil was released, artists were finally able to embrace the iPad as a genuine creators’ tool, and many wondered if their days tethered to a desk and workstation would be numbered. With Adobe Fresco, and the upcoming release of a full version of Adobe Photoshop for the iPad, it now seems inevitable—but there’s going to be some transition pains.

I’ve been using Adobe software like Photoshop and Illustrator for over 20 years now, and the first thing that stands out when you open Adobe Fresco is that its interface feels very familiar; especially when compared to Adobe’s existing mobile apps which are lightweight versions of the company’s desktop creation tools, stripped down and optimized for tiny screens and finger taps.

Fresco’s interface will feel familiar to users of Adobe’s desktop apps. (Pink Donut by artist Adriana Villagran.)

Fresco’s interface isn’t a direct copy of what you’ll find on Adobe’s desktop apps, but it’s still very recognizable and manages to balance the two approaches quite well. Adobe’s familiar vertical toolbar can be found on the left side of the screen, while a streamlined version of Photoshop and Illustrator’s layers stack is on the right.

Adobe Fresco isn’t designed to be a replacement for either Photoshop or Illustrator, but instead, compliment them as a better tool for creating painted or illustrated elements. To accommodate the workflows of Adobe’s desktop tools, Fresco allows users to work with both Illustrator-friendly vector-based brushes and Photoshop-compatible pixel brushes, in the same document. The pre-release version of Fresco I tested didn’t fully support Adobe’s Creative Cloud services yet, so I wasn’t able to easily pass projects between it and Photoshop or Illustrator, but Adobe promises that hopping into Fresco to edit or add elements will be a seamless process.

Adobe Fresco’s Live Brushes behave like real brushes and paints do, mixing colors and affecting previous brush strokes.

GIF: Andrew Liszewski (Gizmodo)

Fresco is more than just an add-on tool for existing Adobe workflows, however. It’s also an excellent standalone app for anyone who likes to paint or wants to try their hand at painting and illustrating without splurging on art supplies. Adobe leveraged the AI capabilities of its Sensei platform to create a new Live Brushes tool that simulates the experience of painting with oil paints of watercolors. The paints mix and bleed into each other on the canvas as you work, and even affect the color and shape of previous brush strokes. The Live Brush feature is genuinely fun to play with, but it also allows traditional artists to carry overfamiliar workflows to the digital world, such as manually mixing paints on the canvas to create new shades.

Tapping the Apple Pencil twice gives quick access to Adobe Fresco’s color picker. (Pink Donut by artist Adriana Villagran.)

GIF: Andrew Liszewski (Gizmodo)

What’s even more interesting about Adobe Fresco is that it gives us a first look at Adobe’s efforts to not just replicate its familiar UI on tablets, but advance it by taking advantage of the unique capabilities of a touchscreen device. You can quickly undo your last edit by simply double-tapping the screen with two fingers, and tapping the Apple Pencil twice brings up Fresco’s color picker. Adobe has also introduced an extra on-screen shortcut button that can be reprogrammed and repositioned giving quick access to a specific function. In Fresco it was mostly limited to switching between your current brush and the eraser tool, but Adobe promises more customization later on.

One thing missing from the version of Adobe Fresco I tested, however, was keyboard shortcuts. I use a keyboard with Photoshop like a concert pianist uses a piano. It’s all muscle memory for me at this point, and I didn’t realize how dependent I was on them until they weren’t there. That’s not to say they won’t be included once Fresco is finally available, but it represents one of the bigger challenges Adobe is facing when it comes to transitioning its software from a PC sitting on a desk, to a tablet sitting in a user’s lap: accommodating how the company’s existing user base works.

To make a robust app like Fresco work on the limited screen real estate afforded by a single-screen tablet like the iPad, Adobe has had to evolve its approaches to UI (gone are the endless drop-down menus at the top of the screen) but I found there to be a steep learning curve as I started to dig deeper into the toolset and work with more advanced features of the software like selections and masking. That’s not a bad thing, though. I’ve no doubt that when Photoshop finally arrives on the iPad there will be lots of users complaining about the changes Adobe has made to its interface and how its tools are used on a touchscreen, but after testing Fresco for a little over a week, I’ve come to realize that I’m eager to accept those changes and adapt to them.

It’s going to be a bumpy transition, but the freedom afforded by having these powerful tools available on a device as portable as the iPad will be well worth it. Adobe’s decision to finally transition full versions of its software to these mobile devices had me excited. Yet using what is arguably one of the most advanced digital painting tools available while sitting on a dock next to a calm blue lake was what sold me on Fresco. The iPad promised to set us free, and with Fresco, Adobe has shown that it’s a promise that doesn’t necessarily have to come with compromises.

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https://gizmodo.com/adobes-new-painting-app-is-a-tantalizing-sneak-peek-at-1837062700

2019-08-12 13:00:00Z
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Jurang Tayo

Selasa, 13 Agustus 2019

Android just took a step towards eradicating passwords for good - Wired.co.uk

More great stories from WIRED

Microsoft's next-gen Xbox will prioritize high frame rates and fast loading - Engadget

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Microsoft's next-gen Xbox will prioritize high frame rates and fast loading - Engadget

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Parallels Desktop 15 for Mac moves to Metal for DirectX 11 and more - Ars Technica

Phil Spencer Talks Microsoft's E3 2019, And Why He Was Apprehensive About Keanu Reeves' Surprise Appearance - GameSpot

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Senin, 12 Agustus 2019

Fortnite star Ninja left Twitch. Then the platform recommended porn to his followers. - The Washington Post

Adobe's New Painting App Is a Tantalizing Sneak Peek at the iPad's Future - Gizmodo