By Kevin / Tech News / • / 0 Comments

Where is the Samsung Gear S4?

Heard some folks taking about how Samsung hasn’t released a new watch in awhile so I thought I would look into it. While other wearable manufacturers are following closer to the ridiculous cellphone market (releasing a new model every year) Samsung is waiting to release the new Gear. Knowing them they are going to wait for the perfect time to release it, before the holiday season, and spend this time perfecting it. The article linked below has some info on the new watch!

https://www.wareable.com/smartwatches/samsung-gear-s4-price-specs-release-date-features-3228

By Kevin / Tech News / / 0 Comments

Samsung’s massive SSD

These days Solid State drives are the new hit in computers. Yes, they do not have as much space as traditional hard drives and they are expensive comparably, but all of that is made up for with speed. They are fast. A properly configured computer with a solid state drive, or SSD, can boot up in seconds. Usually a SSD is 256GB to 512GB with more expensive ones being around the 1000GB (1TB). Samsung has just announced a 30TB SSD! That’s ~30,000+ GB! Needless to say this is going to be expensive. Very expensive. I think I may wait awhile before looking into one of these since it is going to be the price of a new car. Check out the CNet article for more info.

Samsung 30TB SSD

By Kevin / Alerts • Tech News / / 0 Comments

Bad Rabbit Ransomware

For those of you that are unfamiliar with ransomware it is a type of malware that takes over your computer. It usually encrypts your hard drive and requires you to pay to have it restored, which usually never happens after you pay, and you are left with a mostly unusable computer.
Last week a new ransomware virus called Bad Rabbit was discovered in western Asia. It seems to have spread to eastern Europe before it was discovered. According to news articles, cyber security experts claim that it has been stopped.
The big thing with these ransomware viruses is that usually you need to let them into your computer. You basically click on something infected to get it. Bad Rabbit has been seen to disguise itself as a fake Adobe Flash update. If you ever see a pop up for a flash update it is best to go to Adobe.com. There you can check to see if you actually need an update and get update directly from them.
The big takeaways are make sure you have good quality antivirus software that is up to date and your computer is fully updated. Also, there are so many pop ups out there these days. They can be very annoying. Before you hastily click anywhere on a pop up to close it check it over first. You can always close your browser and reopen it if you are unsure about clicking a popup. Even the “X” to close it can be compromised. As always contact KES Tech Services if you have any questions or concerns!

BBC News – Bad Rabbit

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High Sierra

With Apple’s release of their new iOS scheduled today the new OSX release is just around the corner. On Sept 25th the new Apple OSX named High Sierra is scheduled for release. From what I’ve seen is looks like this update is tailored to performance improvements. From graphics to file system management. Some of these improvements are being put in place for the expansion of the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) craze that is going on through the tech world. A lot of that is also seen in the phone/mobile market these days with many VR/AR apps popping up all over the place.
One important tip is to make sure you take a backup of your computer or phone before upgrading just in case something goes wrong. This is technology we are talking about after all…
As always if you need any help with backups, installs, upgrades, etc please email KES Tech Services to schedule an appointment!
The link to the official Apple High Sierra page is below.

Apple OSX High Sierra

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It’s iOS Release season again

It is that time of year again. Apple is planning on a mid September release of the new iOS 11 operating system for iPhone & iPad. There are a lot of new features as always. From drag and drop to enhanced features for the pencil. There is a link below to the TechRadar report and info on the new iOS as well as the link to the official Apple website. Email KES Tech Services to schedule an appointment if you need any assistance upgrading to this new operating system!

Tech Radar Link

Apple iOS Page

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Intel i9 & i7X Processor Family

Coming soon to a computer supplier near you…. The new Intel i9 and i7X series processors. These new processors can have up to 18 cores (36 threads). Definitely looking forward to their release to get some good honest reviews. Of course with all new Intel products they will not be cheap. Prices can be up to $2K for the biggest processors in the family. They are still cheaper than some Xenon server processors which is good. The only downside I see right away besides the expected prices is that they require a new motherboard. To use these new processors you will need to purchase a Socket R4 (LGA2066) motherboard. Surprisingly the prices were not too bad looking online. Link below to the PC World article for more info. Can’t wait to see one of these in action!

PC World Intel Core i9

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Vulnerability in Windows Defender

Yet another reason to make sure you have up to date commercial anti-virus software!
Granted all anti-virus software has vulnerabilities from time to time, but paid companies like McAfee and Norton have teams of people dedicated to constant testing and zero day patches (getting vulnerabilities fixed and patched as soon as they are discovered). Microsoft seems to be working quickly to get this hole in their system resolved since it was discovered by Google’s Project Zero. As stated in the article linked below, Defender is on most Windows operating systems that are out there these days. If you are someone that is running only windows defender (not recommended) Microsoft will be releasing a patch soon. If you are running commercial anti-virus such as Norton or McAfee, you should be fine. As always if you have any concerns regarding the security of your computer please feel free to reach out to KES Tech Services anytime!

Click Here for the Arstechnica article on the issue.

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Android 7.0

Android’s new operating system version 7 aka Nougat is being rolled out to supporting Android devices. It looks a bit different and like all major Android releases they moved things around in places like settings and the top menu bar. It’s not bad so far on my Samsung Galaxy Note 5. There are a few bugs with some apps that haven’t been updated by their developers properly and I have run into a battery issue or two, but that’s about it. See below for for a link to the official Android page!

Android 7.0 Nougat

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Gooligan Ransacks Androids

I’ve been seeing many devices lately that the user has not been performing regular updates to (Apple, Android, Windows, Mac, etc.). Yes they can be inconvenient and may change the way things look or work, but they are very important to perform. Here is a reason why…

A malware program has been found to hijack Google accounts on Android devices. Most people are secure, but make sure you have taken all updates to Android because they contain very important security updates. According to the article below Android 4&5 users are at a higher risk of this malware. If you need assistance updating your device or you have any concerns about your Google account please reach out to KES Tech Services!

 

More than 1 million Google accounts have been breached by Android malware dubbed “Gooligan,” Check Point reported Wednesday. The malware roots infected devices and steals authentication tokens that can be used to access data from various Google apps including Gmail, Google Docs, G Suite and Google Drive. It potentially affects devices running Android 4 and 5.

Link: TechNewsWorld Gooligan article