10 Tech News Roundup #9

Here are 10 tech news that I found interesting.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 breaches privacy law, says Dutch DPA – The Dutch data protection authority has concluded that Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system breaches local privacy law on account of its collection of telemetry metadata. The OS has been available since the end of July 2015. Techcrunch

Amazon finally makes a waterproof Kindle, after 10 years of Kindles – Amazon has been selling Kindles for 10 years now, but “waterproof” hasn’t appear on its list of incremental technological advancements until now. The company just announced a new version of its popular e-reader that builds on last year’s Kindle design and now has an IPX8 waterproof rating. The Verge

Hyatt breach exposed customer payment data at 41 hotels – Hyatt announced today that its payment systems were breached, exposing credit card data from 41 hotels in 11 countries. The hack was discovered in July and the investigation only just recently concluded. Techcrunch

AWS and Microsoft double down on deep learning with Gluon, a simplified ML model builder – AWS and Microsoft may be arch rivals when it comes to competing for business in cloud storage and services, but when it comes to breaking ground in newer areas where volumes of data make a difference to how well the services work and creating systems that are easier to use, collaboration is key. Today, the two companies announced a new deep learning interface called Gluon, designed for developers of all abilities (not just AI specialists) to build and run machine learning models for their apps and other services. Techcrunch

Fake Adobe Flash malware locks your Android phone’s data unless you pay up – Consider this yet another PSA on why you should never ever download Adobe Flash Player, or anything resembling it if you’re using an Android phone. Security researchers at ESET have discovered a new kind of ransomware infecting Android phones on a level nobody’s ever seen before. Called DoubleLocker, the exploit encrypts the data on the infected device and then changes its PIN number so victims are locked out of their device unless they pay the ransom demanded by hackers. Mashable

Intel Delivers 17-Qubit Quantum Chip to European Research Partner – On Tuesday (Oct. 10), Intel delivered a 17-qubit superconducting test chip to research partner QuTech, the quantum research institute of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. The announcement marks a major milestone in the 10-year, $50-million collaborative relationship with TU Delft and TNO, the Dutch Organization for Applied Research, to accelerate advancements in quantum computing. HPCWire

Fujitsu Tapped to Build 37-Petaflops ABCI System for AIST – Fujitsu announced today it will build the long-planned AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure (ABCI) which is set to become the fastest supercomputer system in Japan and will begin operation in fiscal 2018 (starts in April). ABCI will use Intel’s Xeon Gold processors and Nvidia V100 GPUs and deliver 550 petaflops theoretical peak performance in half-precision floating point and 37 petaflops of double-precision peak floating point performance. The award is from Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). HPCWire

Qualcomm fires another shot at Apple with a new lawsuit in China – Qualcomm has filed a lawsuit against Apple in its continuing legal battle over patents, this time looking to block the manufacturing and sale of iPhones in China, according to a report by Bloomberg this morning. Techcrunch

WD shows off market-ready MAMR tech for monster hard drives – Western Digital showed off a a prototype hard drive with a potentially revolutionary new energy-assisted magnetic recording technology called microwave-assist magnetic recording (MAMR). The company says the new tech could potentially be ready for market by the end of 2019, and it could allow the manufacture of 40 TB hard drives by 2025. For context, WD is now currently offering 14 TB drives to datacenter customers and 12 TB drives are just entering the general market. The company performed the reveal at its “Innovating to Fuel the Next Decade of Big Data” event at its headquarters in Silicon Valley yesterday. Techreport

Chaos and hackers stalk investors on cryptocurrency exchanges – LONDON, SHANGHAI, NEW YORK: Dan Wasyluk discovered the hard way that trading cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin happens in an online Wild West where sheriffs are largely absent. Channel Newsasia

Tech News Roundup #4

Here are 10 tech news that I found interesting.

Equifax data leak could involve 143 million consumers – Data leaks have become so commonplace that it’s incredibly easy to become numb to them, but credit reporting service Equifax announced a doozy today that when all is said and done could involve 143 million consumers. Techcrunch

Why everyone in Silicon Valley is using an app called Droplr – Staying organized and efficient is hard. And no one knows better than the fine people of Silicon Valley (no, not the show). Mashable

Smartwatches leave fitness trackers in the dust in the growing wearable market – Smartwatches finally reign supreme in the wearable world. Mashable

Facebook will spend as much as $1 billion on original TV in the next year – The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook is going into the next year “willing to spend as much as $1 billion” on original video content, building out the roster of exclusive TV on its revamped video tab Watch. The Verge

My computer can’t work without talking to 21 different countries – Last week I finally installed Little Snitch, a long-running Mac utility that lets you track every connection in and out of your computer. The Verge

Teralytics wants to tap telcos’ big data to help cities get smarter about Uber and Lyft – Big data is an expansive umbrella with startups of all stripes squatting under it. Techcrunch

Razer follows through with a 36-page proposal for PM Lee – here’s what it says – A Twitter exchange between Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last month led to talks of Razer delivering a proposal for a unified e-payment system in Singapore. Business Insider

First Volta-based Nvidia DGX Systems Ship to Boston-based Healthcare Providers – The Center for Clinical Data Science (CCDS), Boston, is at the confluence of major technology trends driving the healthcare industry: AI-based diagnostics of large volumes of medical images, shared among multiple medical institutions, utilizing GPU-based neural networks. HPCWire

Google Drive to be shut down, replaced by Backup and Sync – Google’s own cloud storage platforms — Google Drive and Google Photos — are on their way out. In a blog post today, Google announced that starting December 11 both popular file sync applications will lose official support. Techspot

Apple to abandon Touch ID on iPhone 8, will instead use passcode or facial recognition – Apple originally intended to embed its Touch ID fingerprint scanner into the display on its upcoming iPhone 8. Techspot