PCWorldOctober 2016的目錄

Tech and trends that will affect you today and beyond. APPLE’S ANNUAL iPHONE event was jam-packed with information, but between the lingering look at the new jet black finish and all the business about AirPods, you may have missed some important details about the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. But we’ve got you covered. Here’s everything you may have missed during Apple marketing VP Phil Schiller’s presentation, plus some facts he didn’t mention, in case you’re thinking of upgrading to a 7 but can’t quite decide. For more information, take a look at our iPhone 7 hands-on (go.pcworld.com/ip7ho). The basics When can I get the new iPhones? The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus went on sale Friday, Sept. 16 in more than 25 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China,…

GOOGLE IS DEVELOPING a new operating system named Fuchsia, and the early source code is already public. Google itself and Fuchsia’s developers haven’t explained what the OS is for—but we can dig into the source code to learn more. Pink + Purple == Fuchsia Fuchsia is a new, open-source operating system being worked on by Google employees. “Pink + Purple == Fuchsia (a new Operating System),” reads the cryptic description on the project’s GitHub page (github.com/fuchsia-mirror). The source code is also available on GitHub, as well as on Google Source (fuchsia.googlesource.com). That’s it, though. While the project’s source code is available and we can see who specifically is working on it, there’s been no official announcement from Google or explanation from the individual developers as to Fuchsia’s purpose. If no…

ACCORDING TO THE NFL, 70 percent of fans use a second screen while watching football. It’s easy to understand why: mobile devices—and the apps that run on them—give us easy access to player stats and analysis, provide interactive features to supplement the big-screen experience, and offer a convenient way to communicate with other fans watching the game. We’ve rounded up six of the best second-screen apps to enhance your football viewing. Take them for a spin this season, and we’re sure you’ll be reaching for them along with your remote every week until the end of Super Bowl LI. NFL Mobile (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) A year ago, the NFL seemed as determined to conquer the second screen as effectively as it has the TV screen, offering a dizzying array…

MICROSOFT’S GOT ANOTHER Windows 10 Anniversary Update problem to fix following the login freeze issue (go.pcworld.com/w10loginfreeze) that came to light in mid-August. Many users are now complaining that they can no longer use their USB-based webcams since updating to the latest version of Windows 10. The source of the problem is that Microsoft decided to filter out two common video compression formats for connected webcams in the Anniversary Update, as first reported by Thurrott.com. Microsoft’s reasons for restricting the formats—MJPEG and H.264—were reasonable enough, as explained by Windows Camera Team member Mike M. on Microsoft’s developer forums. It appears Microsoft’s simple solution of disallowing compression formats led to a much bigger problem. In the Anniversary Update, Microsoft allows multiple apps to access a single webcam at the same time. The…

MAJID WAS UNABLE to copy a movie from his PC to his newly acquired 32GB USB key, and wondered why. He sent me a screenshot that clearly indicated the problem, as it read “The file is too large for the destination file system.” I replicated the issue quite easily by trying to move a 10GB file to a FAT32 disk, as FAT32 can’t handle any file larger than 4GB. In dealing with this it occurred to me that Majid probably isn’t alone, and people might not be aware of the fact that you can format a USB key in Windows using one of three available file systems, and that each system has both advantages and limitations. My colleague wrote about this previously in regards to external drives (go.pcworld.com/extdrivefilesystem), but…

TALK OF A Microsoft Surface all-in-one has…resurfaced, with claims the device, code-named “Cardinal,” could launch at the end of October. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reported that October 26 might be the date Microsoft has scheduled for a fall refresh of some of its more popular devices, including newer, faster processors. That suggests Microsoft may upgrade a device like the Surface Pro 4 with a Kaby Lake chip, though Foley also reports that a more formal launch of a Surface Book 2 and possibly a Surface Pro 5 will wait until next spring. In the meantime, Microsoft still appears to be preparing to launch a possible trio of stand-alone PCs—possibly from 21 inches to 27 inches, according to a Windows Central report. Though Microsoft has already entered the PC category with…

THE SUN HAS finally set on Sunrise, Microsoft’s popular calendar app. Microsoft recently discontinued the service after bringing many of its features to its iOS and Android apps, both of which have been updated. The Sunrise team wrote in a farewell post that your Sunrise calendar will stop updating. The day after the announcement, Sunrise users were logged out of their accounts. However, all of the information is still available on the original platform—iOS, Android, Outlook—that Sunrise ran on top of. “This is definitely the end of an era,” the Sunrise team wrote. “But more importantly, it’s the beginning of a new one. We’re excited by what’s ahead and we’d love for you to come and join us in our latest adventure.” That next adventure is Outlook, Microsoft’s own email…

ONE OF THE BEST things about Chromebooks is that they’re built to last. Thanks to automatic security and feature updates from Google, along with a lightweight browser-based operating system, longtime users may find that their laptops run as well, if not better, than they did on day one. But despite Chromebooks’ theoretical longevity, it’s possible for Google to cut their lives short. Per the company’s End of Life policy (go.pcworld.com/cbeolpolicy), Chromebooks and other Chrome OS devices are only entitled to five years of feature and security updates. After that, Google doesn’t guarantee that these systems will run safely or properly. Obsolescence seems nigh for the first wave of browser-based laptops, including Samsung’s Series 5 and Acer’s AC700, which arrived in 2011. Still, the policy isn’t as cut-and-dry as Google’s Chromebook…

MOST USERS LOCK their computer screens when they temporarily step away from them. While this seems like a good security measure, it isn’t good enough, a researcher demonstrated recently. Rob Fuller, principal security engineer at R5 Industries, found out (go.pcworld.com/lockedmachsnagcreds) that all it takes to copy an OS account password hash from a locked Windows computer is to plug in a special USB device for a few seconds. The hash can later be cracked or used directly in some network attacks. For his attack, Fuller used a flash-drive-size computer called USB Armory that costs $155, but the same attack can be pulled off with cheaper devices, like the Hak5 LAN Turtle, which costs $50. The device needs to masquerade as a USB-to-ethernet LAN adapter in such a way that it…

IN JUNE, AMD released the $200 Radeon RX 480 (go.pcworld.com/radeonrx480rev), the crown jewel in the company’s oft-trumpeted campaign to bring high-performance graphics to the masses. While Nvidia was busy releasing powerful, yet pricey cards like the GeForce GTX 1070 (go.pcworld.com/geforcegtx1070rev) and GTX 1080 (go.pcworld.com/geforcegtx1080), AMD said its focus was squarely on everyday gamers. VR isn’t just for the 1 percent, a revolution-themed ad campaign barked. A mere week after the Radeon RX 480 launched, Nvidia surprised everyone by announcing (go.pcworld.com/geforcegtx1060-980) its own affordable GeForce GTX 1060. The GTX 1060 delivered (go.pcworld.com/geforcegtx1060rev) a similar, yet slightly better experience than the RX 480: It was slightly faster at gaming, slightly faster in VR, slightly quieter, and a hell of a lot more power-efficient. But Nvidia’s card is also not-so-slightly more expensive, starting…

WE LIKE THE Moto Z (go.pcworld.com/motozrev) and it’s bigger, bulkier cousin the Moto Z Force (go.pcworld.com/motozforcerev). They’re speedy, elegant phones with a good approach to modular add-ons—as opposed to the LG G5 (go.pcworld.com/lgg5rev), whose “take the whole phone apart” approach to modules doesn’t sit well with us. Those other two Moto Z phones are expensive, high-end, premium devices. The Moto Z Play takes the same general concepts, and compatibility with the same Moto Mods, and brings it down to an affordable price point: about $450. And really, unless you simply need to have a phone with screaming-fast benchmark scores, this more affordable model is a better phone. Really! Finding the sweet spot The Moto Z aims to be so thin that you can slap a Moto Mod on the back…

A NASTY NEW form of ransomware is wreaking havoc on computers. Hackers that encrypt your files and demand money from you in the form of bitcoin is bad enough, but a few versions also overwrite your Windows PC’s master boot record (MBR). The master boot record is a key part of your PC’s startup system. It contains information about the computer’s disk partitions and helps load the operating system. Without a properly functioning MBR, your PC simply won’t work. Ransomware that overwrites the MBR isn’t all that new, with examples of it dating back to at least 2012. More recently, the Petya variant of ransomware (go.pcworld.com/petyaransomware) has been causing MBR problems. Then in August, a pesky bit of malware (go. pcworld.com/fosshubmalware) popped up on FossHub that overwrote the MBR, which…

THE RASPBERRY PI Foundation is celebrating a milestone. The organization recently announced it has sold ten million Raspberry Pi devices since the first versions debuted in 2012. “Thanks to you, we’ve beaten our wildest dreams by three orders of magnitude,” Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton said in a blog post. To commemorate the milestone, Upton announced the very first official Raspberry Pi Starter Kit. Why this matters: With its original mini-computers, the Raspberry Pi Foundation kicked off a revolution in low-priced computing for students and enthusiasts. Hobbyists have used the Raspberry Pi (go.pcworld.com/coolraspberrypi) for everything from autonomous drones to smart mirrors to high-altitude balloons—not to mention its popularity as an everyday HTPC or the power behind a retro-gaming setup. The Raspberry Pi hobbyist trend is so popular it even prompted…

NVIDIA’S PAYING THE price for the GeForce GTX 970’s memory controversy—literally. The GTX 970 refund website (gtx970settlement.com) is now live after Nvidia agreed to pay GTX 970 owners $30 each (go.pcworld.com/gtx970settlement) to settle a class action lawsuit. The false advertising lawsuit stemmed from a pair of hardware inconsistencies that prompted a not-quite-apology (go.pcworld.com/gtx970flaw) from Nvidia’s CEO. The most obvious is the GeForce GTX 970’s notorious 4GB RAM allotment, which Nvidia split into a full-speed 3.5GB segment as well as a drastically slower 512MB segment without telling customers. The company also erroneously claimed the card had 64 render output units while in reality it had just 56. Both of those could affect performance—though the GTX 970 was still a kick-ass graphics card with an incredibly compelling price tag. That combo led…

A MASSIVE BREACH at Yahoo compromised account details from at least 500 million users, and the company is blaming the attack on state-sponsored hackers. Names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and hashed passwords may have been stolen as part of the hack, which occurred in late 2014, Yahoo said. The company reported the breach on September 22, after a stolen database from the company went on sale (go.pcworld.com/yahooacctsblkmarket) on the black market in August. However, the hacker behind the sale claimed that the stolen database involved only 200 million users and was likely obtained in 2012. Yahoo’s investigation suggests that no payment card data or banking details were stolen in the breach. It's unclear if this breach is connected. But Yahoo has been notifying affected users and asking them to change…

TESTED IN PCWORLD LABS In this section, hardware & software go through rigorous testing. Rich, vibrant color. Real black. You don’t realize how much you’ve missed them until they pop up again, as they do on Lenovo’s new X1 Yoga. I can’t overstate just how much nicer its OLED display looks compared to the cold LCD screens we’ve grown accustomed to. The images Lenovo sent us don’t come close to doing it justice, so you’ll have to trust us—or take a look yourself at a live unit. Design and specs The vehicle for this excellent technology, the X1 Yoga, is a riff on the X1 Carbon, and it sports several notable improvements. It has an active pen/stylus on board, a larger array of ports, and you can fully rotate the…

READER ATTILA BALATON bought an 8GB USB key to create a Windows 10 Recovery Drive only to find out 16GB was required. Mea culpa: Answer Line was partly to blame, as my former colleague wrote that Microsoft suggests (go.pcworld.com/w10recoveryfix) “at least a 4GB USB key.” It’s not his fault, though, as on this support page (go.pcworld.com/w10recoverydrive) Microsoft says in order to create a Windows 10 Recovery Drive you will need a, “USB thumbdrive with 4GB of space or more.” Confusing things further is this page from Microsoft (go.pcworld.com/wdwsrecoverydrive), where the company doesn’t even mention how much space you’ll need. Finally, on its support page for Windows 8 (go.pcworld.com/w8usbrecovery) Microsoft says the recovery image the software creates, “…is typically 3 to 6 GB in size.“ However, based on Atilla’s feedback I…

WE MIGHT BE in the age of Windows 10, but for longtime Windows users there’s nothing like some of the classic features of earlier versions. This tip helps bring an ancient relic to your Windows 10 desktop: the XP-era Quick Launch bar. These instructions are specific to Windows 10, but it will work on earlier versions of Windows as well. Why would I want that old thing? Look, I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince you of the Quick Launch toolbar’s worth. The fact is, ever since Windows 7 made it possible to pin your desktop icons to the taskbar, there isn’t a lot of need for Quick Launch. That being said, there are still good reasons someone would want this. If you’re coming…