Nov 17, 2014

Apple Is Late to the Smartwatch Party

Apple and Samsung have been at it for years. Recently their grand battle seems to have deescalated as both sides dropped patent lawsuits in countries outside of the United States. They still claim that the other side is using their intellectual property but will be proving it in the public arena instead of civil court. Now the two giants are squaring off in the wearable technology wars. In September, Apple unveiled its Watch and Samsung already has five versions of its Gear. Which one is better may yet to be seen but with these two big players duking it out, we know that wearable tech is here to stay.

Apple Fever

The recent launch of the iPhone 6 paired with the new Watch wearable have made Apple common conversation for the technologically savvy. September 19th saw hordes of loyal Macheads lining up to get their newest addition to smartphones. The Apple Watch was unveiled at the same time to hopes that the official 2015 release will see a similar turnout. The Watch itself, running around $349, is a stylish piece of wearable tech that is iPhone 6 compatible. With the Watch, you can check Facebook, send messages and use a Siri style voice response control to navigate other simplified apps.

Legal and technical discussions aside, Apple has proven itself to be a marketing leader in technology. Their personal computer is number one in the market, iPods are synonymous with music players, and the previous version of the iPhone gained them one-quarter of worldwide smartphone market shares. Whatever the sales outcome, Apple’s marketing endeavors can only help the future of wearable tech.

First To Market

Apple has gotten a lot of flak by introducing functions that Android users have been using for a couple of years. The Samsung Galaxy S5 was released six months before the iPhone 6 with many of the same features that were hyped in the new Apple version. Likewise, the Apple Watch may be eclipsed by the fact that Samsung already has five versions of wearable tech in its Samsung Galaxy Gear line, all for a little more than half the price of the Apple Watch.

In a side-by-side comparison, Gear showed to be a little bigger than the Watch by about 15 mm. The common functionality is largely the same with social media and messaging on both devices. The aesthetics is one of the biggest differences with the Watch having an aluminum body compared to the plastic body of the Gear.

The Future of Wearable Tech

This new form of style technology has some heavy hitters in the arena. Add Google Glass to the mix and wearable technology looks like the new frontier in mobile devices. If we look at this from a marketing perspective, cultural shift with Samsung and Apple pumping money into advertising their products and Google actively soliciting novel uses for their device, this technology is up for grabs by the person with the best ideas. Medical engineers are already using it for physiological and psychological applications. Fashion designers are vying for ways to create a vision of the future that can be worn today. Wearable tech is not a climb to the top but a race to the edge of imagination.

Cloud Gaming Brings Sophisticated AI Characters

When looking at the future of video games, nothing captures the imagination like the possibilities of cloud computing. According to Hongkiat.com, standard Xbox performance clocks in at 150 to 200 milliseconds of latency, but when utilizing cloud processing, it could easily drop latency down to 60 milliseconds. Furthermore, with cloud technology, wholly new AI patterns could emerge as well as many other amazing developments. Here is a closer look at the cloud-backed future of AI in gaming.

How It Works

Cloud gaming can be a little hard to understand because it is somewhat different from standard consumer cloud computing, which focuses primarily on data storage. Instead, cloud gaming is when cloud servers run a game, then stream a video of gameplay to you and your controller inputs into the cloud network. This way, the remote server farm does the graphical and memory intensive processing while you receive video and audio on your screen at home.

More Power

One of the most promising and exciting areas cloud gaming technology opens up is the ability to create huge, detailed and seamless virtual worlds and characters. Because you can offload the burden of complicated processing tasks like weather, physics and AI behavior, developers can create games that no single consumer console could handle. It's exciting to imagine what a game like “Skyrim” could be like if the processing burden of controlling an entire country worth of non-player characters could be transferred from the console's hardware to a server farm. The availability of digital downloads also shows the power of cloud technology. Dragon Age: Inquisition, set to be released November 18, can be downloaded online despite the game having an incredibly large map and over 80 hours of gameplay.

Burgeoning AI

The capabilities of cloud-based gaming are apparent in modern titles like “Forza Motorsport 5.” These games offload nonplayer character AI to the cloud, which allows for sophisticated artificial behaviors. For example, “Forza Motorsport 5” utilizes what Microsoft refers to as the “Drivatar” system. This system uses data analytics performed serverside combined with cloud processing to create ever-evolving opponents based on the player's driving behavior. Not only does this make the AI smarter and more realistic but it also makes it capable of making realistic mistakes just like the real players. And, nothing beats the thrill of playing against an intelligence that can make judgment calls, both right and wrong.

Gameplay Experience

In "Titanfall," which was PS4's best selling game several months in a row, server-farmed power will mean an evolving gameplay experience. Not only can “Titanfall” be patched at any time without disrupting the player experience but the dozens of infantry units and Titans being thrown at the player all have their behavior and reactions controlled by powerful servers. As GameSpot reports, the new frontier defense mode pits multiple players against waves of up to 200 AI-controlled enemies, each one with the power of the cloud backing their intelligence.

This is especially interesting when you consider that the world of “Titanfall” is heavily populated with grunts that are AI controlled as well as pilots that are player controlled. This can change your game strategy when the line between AI and human intelligence is blurred. For example, a common player tactic is to avoid detection by behaving like a grunt. However, as the AI becomes more strategic and intelligent, this tactic will not be as useful and players will have to come up with a new strategy. Overall, this makes the games more challenging and creative.

Nov 14, 2014

TDSSNIClient initialization failed with error 0x80090331, status code 0x80. Reason: Unable to initialize SSL support.

The other day our business intelligence guru came to me because she couldn't login to our test Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 environment for some reason. After some digging I found it was because the SQL Server 2014 service wasn't running. When trying to manually start the service I got the following error in the event logs:
TDSSNIClient initialization failed with error 0x80090331, status code 0x80. Reason: Unable to initialize SSL support. The client and server cannot communicate, because they do not possess a common algorithm.


This was caused because I was testing encryption changes on the server using IISCrypto a few days earlier. I wanted to configure the server to only support TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 using only AES Ciphers. IIS Crypto looked like this:


Well I guess Micorsoft SQL 2014 doesn't like that too much, so I had to change it back to enable TLS 1.0 as well as Triple DES and RC4, so IIS Crypto looked like this:


After I applied that change in IISCrypto and rebooted the SQL server everything started up again as it should.

Do you know how I can better lock down SSL when it comes to SQL? I want to turn off the weaker protocols and ciphers. If you know how to do it, or have a link on how to make it work let me know in the comments!

Nov 12, 2014

More FREE stickers when you ask for your FREE Ubuntu stickers!

As many of you all know I've been giving out FREE Powered By Ubuntu stickers for a few years now. A lot of that has to do with my love of that operating system and Linux in general. I receive requests from all over the world for them. It's nice to know I'm doing my part to spread Ubuntu!

Well, I want to add to that! Now when you get your Ubuntu Stickers you will also be getting both of these stickers as well!



These stickers are 4.25" x 1.38" so they are small enough to fit on the back of your smart phone if you wish. Or if you are like me and you like to put stickers on the back of your laptop, they are perfect for that as well!

Not only am I a big fan of Linux, I am a big fan of privacy and encryption. I'm hoping to spread that love along with my Ubuntu stickers.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Nov 5, 2014

4 High-Tech Solutions to Keep Tabs on Your Kids

Back when you were a kid, all your parents had to worry about was you sneaking out or speeding when driving. With all of the advancements in technology have also come more worries like cyber-bullying and identity theft. Here are some apps that can act as mother's helpers to make sure the kids aren't getting into trouble.

MamaBear

The MamaBear app is an all-in-one monitoring app that monitors your child's location, social media accounts, check-ins and can even let you know if your kids are speeding when driving or riding. The options available with this app are robust and you can set various parameters and receive alerts when those parameters are broken (like when a curse word is posted on his Facebook page) or met (when your son arrives home from school). The app is free for iOS and Android users and there are paid levels of membership that offer more in-depth monitoring features (pricing ranges from $4-$5 per month). Setup is simple; you just install the MamaBear app on your phone, then install it on your child's phone and then customize the settings to create your monitoring parameters.

This app is ideal for younger kids who are getting their first taste of independence, rather than teens, since it requires the app to be on your child's phone and a rebellious teen could uninstall it to quickly disable monitoring. It's also designed for two-way communication as much as it is monitoring, allowing kids the option to "check in" with you using emoticons or emergency alerts, which is especially helpful for kids who are beginning to walk to or from school on their own.

Lifelock Junior

With clean credit scores and no credit history, children are ripe targets for identity thieves looking to score big. Your innocent child could be unknowingly sharing sensitive personal information online, making him a target for online predators. Instead of taking the alarmist approach and banning social media and Internet usage, instead get proactive and use an identity theft protection service. Identity theft protection giant Lifelock offers a service designed specifically for kids. Lifelock Junior monitors usage of your child's social security number, credit history and regularly searches file-sharing networks for leaks of sensitive personal information. You'll be alerted immediately if the system detects any issues. Lifelock Junior costs around $5 per month per child and is available as an add-on with their adult protection plans.

TeenSafe

If you're looking for a way to monitor your angsty teen in a way that's a bit more covert than a service like MamaBear, TeenSafe is for you. With TeenSafe you can read your teens texts (even the deleted ones), view Internet browsing, search history and monitor location, phone calls and contacts. Best of all, you child doesn't even have to know that you're monitoring his or her phone. TeenSafe uses your child's Apple ID to access all of the information on the phone, so without a visible app, they'll be none the wiser. You can view all activity from your computer by logging into the monitoring portal, which you can access from any computer at any time. This service, a bit more expensive than its competitors at $14.95 per month, it's impossible to put a price tag on the peace of mind that comes with it.

iKeyMonitor

Want to know what your son's doing on his iPad? iKeyMonitor acts as your eyes and ears when your kids think you're not looking. This spy app enables invisible iPad monitoring to give you access to your kids' iMessages, WhatsApp messages, browser history and it even takes periodic screenshots to show you what they are doing. All of this information is sent to you regularly via email in the form of usage logs. Pricing starts as low as $8 per month when you purchase a 12-month license of the iKeyMonitor software.

Nov 4, 2014

I resurrected my Facebook page


After over a year of being without Facebook I've finally broken down and resurrected my personal Facebook account. I know I promised that I wouldn't do it way back in July last year, but things have changed.

Namely the fact that my wife of 14 years decided she didn't want to be married anymore right after we all moved to a small one-horse town in Cedaredge Colorado where there is NO CHANCE of meeting anyone my age.

I don't want this post to sound bitter, because I'm not really. I've had over ten months to come to terms with my situation. So the reason I reactivated my account comes down to two things really:
  • Nobody uses websites out here for their businesses, they all use Facebook
  • I thought it would be nice to connect with old friends again since I have very few in this small country town
Now, my initial concerns with privacy are still valid, so I've decided I'll go ahead and just change how I use Facebook. I won't post a minute-by-minute play-by-play of my life. I'll merely use it to keep in touch with people. I've also decided to lock it down a bit. Simple right?

Anyway, if you follow Bauer-Power and used to be friends with me on Facebook look me up and let's be friends again!

Nov 3, 2014

Protect your employees from POODLE with this simple Group Policy

By now you have probably heard about POODLE which looks like it will kill SSL 3.0. If you haven't here is a description from US-CERT:
The SSL 3.0 vulnerability stems from the way blocks of data are encrypted under a specific type of encryption algorithm within the SSL protocol. The POODLE attack takes advantage of the protocol version negotiation feature built into SSL/TLS to force the use of SSL 3.0 and then leverages this new vulnerability to decrypt select content within the SSL session. The decryption is done byte by byte and will generate a large number of connections between the client and server.
Microsoft has announced that they will be making a hotfix available that disables SSL 3.0 for Internet Explorer in the registry. You can do that yourself though via group policy be making the following setting:
  • In Group Policy Manager create a new Group Policy Object called TLS Settings
  • Browse to Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Internet Explorer Control Panel > Advanced Page > Turn Off Encryption Support
  • In the Secure Protocols Combinations drop down box select: Use TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 and click Apply
After making that change, your clients will only be able to use TLS 1.0 and above and will be secured from any type of downgrade attacks that take advantage of protocols less than TLS 1.0.



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