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Samsung has unveiled its next high-performance NVMe 2280-sized M.2 drive, the 980 Pro. So far, it comes in three capacities shipping this month: 250GB for $89.99, 500GB for $149.99, and 1TB for $229.99. A 2TB model will arrive later this year, but Samsung didn't share a price. From a report: The standout feature of this drive is its compatibility with M.2 slots over the PCIe 4.0 interface. If you have a compatible motherboard, Samsung says the 980 Pro can go on a tear with sequential read / write speeds of up to 7,000MB/s and 5,000MB/s, respectively. It claims that this is two times faster performance than PCIe 3.0 SSDs and nearly 13 times faster than the more affordable but slower SATA SSDs. Of course, to get the best speeds out of this Samsung M.2 drive, you'll need a compatible motherboard with a PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot. Adoption of the tech is starting to ramp up, including mainstream computing products like AMD's third-generation Ryzen CPUs, its Radeon RX 5700 and 5700XT GPUs, and more recently, Nvidia's RTX 3080 graphics card. Sony and Microsoft are also using the technology for their custom SSD technologies in the PS5 and Xbox Series S / X consoles.

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Sam Newman speaks to devs at GOTOpia Europe

Sam Newman, a consultant and author specialising in microservices, told a virtual crowd at dev conference GOTOpia Europe that serverless, not Kubernetes, is the best abstraction for deploying software.…

Reliance Industries has asked local suppliers to ramp up production capacity in India so they can make as many as 200 million smartphones over the next two years, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter, a potentially enormous boost for the country's technology ambitions and a warning shot to rivals such as Xiaomi. From a report: India's most valuable company is in talks with domestic assemblers to make a version of its Jio phone that would run on Google's Android and cost about 4,000 rupees ($54), said the people, asking not to be identified since the plans are private. The inexpensive phones will be marketed with low-cost wireless plans from Reliance Jio, the parent company's carrier, they said. Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani is aiming to remake the country's smartphone industry much like he did in wireless services, where his aggressive prices and simple plans quickly made him the dominant force. The billionaire is also aligning himself with the Indian government's plans to build more domestic manufacturing, a possible boost for local assemblers like Dixon Technologies India, Lava International and Karbonn Mobiles.

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Also makes itself denser, in a good way, with N1 upgrade

Arm is taking another serious tilt at server silicon with new designs that incorporate the Scalable Vector Extensions (SVE) beloved of HPC and machine learning types.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: A whistle-blower at Boeing Co. is urging aviation regulators to add additional protections to the grounded 737 Max. Curtis Ewbank, who has previously raised concerns about the plane's design with congressional investigators, said in comments filed with the Federal Aviation Administration that a proposal to mandate fixes to the jet didn't address multiple hazards identified in the two fatal Max accidents and earlier incidents involving the 737. "Clearly more actions are required to revise FAA processes so that it accurately assesses airplane design and regulates in the public interest," Ewbank said in the comments, posted on the Regulations.gov website. The FAA has proposed multiple changes to the plane following the crashes that killed 346 people before allowing it to carry passengers again. The system that was driving the jet's nose down in both accidents would no longer activate repeatedly and various steps were taken to minimize the chances it would malfunction. The agency is also proposing to require multiple other revisions to the plane, such as an improved flight-computer system to improve its redundancy. Ewbank said the FAA and Boeing should do more to prohibit faulty readings from the sensor implicated in both crashes and improve the plane's warning systems. In addition, the agency should do a broader review of how pilots react to emergencies and do a more thorough redesign of the flight-control system, he said.

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You can only use it to weigh yourself now... how disgustingly low-tech

In 2015, German sportswear manufacturer Adidas acquired a plucky Austrian IoT startup called Runtastic, which, among other things, manufactured a $129.99 "smart" scale called Libra. Now that product is being discontinued, preventing owners from synchronising their data or even downloading the app required to use it.…

Fitness fans get more battery capacity in thinner case, and replacing it is doable for the brave

iFixit, terror of the tri-point, has pulled apart Apple's latest wrist job and found that the friend of the well-heeled fitness fanatic has retained the repairability of its predecessor.…

Yes, why not haul the system into the 21st century?

The UK's Ministry of Justice has put out market feelers for the second time in three months in what could amount to a £20m deal, this time for a new payroll system.…

Also: Rocket Lab rehearses for a US debut while Firefly fires up an Alpha

In Brief Mother Nature scuppered SpaceX's twelfth operational launch of its Starlink satellites, forcing the company to throw in the towel "due to severe weather in the recovery area."…

The US Department of Homeland Security is giving federal agencies until midnight on Tuesday to patch a critical Windows vulnerability that can make it easy for attackers to become all-powerful administrators with free rein to create accounts, infect an entire network with malware, and carry out similarly disastrous actions. Ars Technica reports: Zerologon, as researchers have dubbed the vulnerability, allows malicious hackers to instantly gain unauthorized control of the Active Directory. An Active Directory stores data relating to users and computers that are authorized to use email, file sharing, and other sensitive services inside large organizations. Zerologon is tracked as CVE-2020-1472. Microsoft published a patch last Tuesday. The flaw, which is present in all supported Windows server versions, carries a critical severity rating from Microsoft as well as a maximum of 10 under the Common Vulnerability Scoring System. Further raising that stakes was the release by multiple researchers of proof-of-concept exploit code that could provide a roadmap for malicious hackers to create working attacks. Officials with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which belongs to the DHS, issued an emergency directive on Friday that warned of the potentially severe consequences for organizations that don't patch. [The agency's statement can be found in the article.] CISA, which has authorization to issue emergency directives intended to mitigate known or suspected security threats, is giving organizations until 11:59pm EDT on Monday to either install a Microsoft patch or disconnect the vulnerable domain controller from the organization network. No later than 11:59pm EDT on Wednesday, agencies are to submit a completion report attesting the update has been applied to all affected servers or provide assurance that newly provisioned or previously disconnected servers will be patched.

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Once you're over the learning curve, it's a cross-platform all-rounder

Review When you think about iconic mechanical keyboards, the Happy Hacking is among the first to spring to mind. Its compact design is unusual if you're used to full-sized boards with the numpad, function keys, and arrow keys excised. The result is a keyboard that is unfathomably small, occupying little desk real estate.…

Decentralised app rolling out soon, but manual process remains problematic

In the absence of a working contact tracing app, the UK government has been forced to rely on manual data collection and human-powered tracing to identify potential cases of exposure to the Covid-19 virus. But, as Parliament’s cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights claims in a new report, this is just as problematic as the original centralized app, particularly when it comes to user privacy…

Single high-level impulse noise kicked in with morning cuppa. Owner vows never to use the set again

Turning off an old second-hand television has restored internet services to a village in Wales.…

Join us on September 29 – and get ready for 2020’s OWASP Top 10

Webcast OK, it’s only updated every three years or so, which means it’s not quite the same as breathlessly clustering around the radio to see whether Blur or Oasis have grabbed the top spot or whether Rhiannon’s Umbrella is still number one, or whether team Taylor will see off Perry.…

What strange magic is this? 41st release and sequel to version 3.38 will be called version 40

Popular open source desktop-and-more outfit GNOME has taught itself a new way to count.…

Airbus has announced plans for the world's first zero-emission commercial aircraft models that run on hydrogen and could take to the skies by 2035. The Guardian reports: The European aersospace company revealed three different aircraft concepts that would be put through their paces to find the most efficient way to travel long distances by plane without producing the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global heating. UK holidaymakers and business travellers could fly from London to the Canary Islands, Athens or eastern Europe without producing carbon emissions, should the plans become a commercial reality. All three of the aircraft concepts rely on hydrogen as a fuel because the only emissions produced when it is burned is water vapor, making it a clean fuel option for heavy vehicles such as planes, trains and trucks. The first of the Airbus concepts could carry between 120 and 200 passengers more than 2,000 nautical miles by using a turbofan design that includes a modified gas-turbine engine running on hydrogen, rather than jet fuel, which could be stored in tanks located behind the plane's rear pressure bulkhead. The second concept, a turboprop design, would also use a modified gas engine but could carry up to 100 passengers for 1,000 nautical miles on short-haul trips. The aviation giant's plans also include a plane with an "exceptionally wide" body that blends into the plane's wings to open up multiple options for hydrogen storage and the cabin layout. This plane could carry as many passengers as the turbofan design and travel as far too. [...] Airbus said hydrogen planes would also require airports to install hydrogen transport and refueling infrastructure, and government support to upgrade aircraft fleets to allow airlines to retire their older, less environmentally friendly aircraft sooner than planned.

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Ambitions to see the rise of a Brit equivalent to Apple is cool and all but that strategy must include safeguarding chip designer, says union

The UK government has been urged to add legal protections to the proposed £31bn sale of Brit chip designer Arm to Nvidia to protect jobs, protect its neutral business model, and make sure it remains headquartered in Cambridge.…

Branded tat and disrupto-talks could return - albeit nine months later than usual in Oz plague capital

Cisco has invited its faithful to travel abroad to a mass-attendance event in December 2021.…

Scumbag sobs in court as judge orders him to cough up $1.5m

The front man for the notorious Dark Overlord hacker gang, which threatened to leak stolen confidential information unless paid off, has been sentenced to five years behind bars in America.…

Court sends him into lockdown that’s not a whole lot nastier than some used to control a certain virus

An IT contractor has been found guilty of pinching his employer’s supercomputer to mine cryptocurrency.…