Hi Folks,
Not the best ‘ju ju’ for starting the new year.
Apparently, I forgot to hit the record button. That means, even though we did our audio stream, we don’t has a recording for the podcast. Being frustrated I set this aside. Today I ‘picked it up’ while getting ready for today’s computer club meeting. I hope you guys find this info helpful:
- HP Laptops Bursting into Flames – check if your battery is on the list. more info [here].
- Apple’s ‘Battery-Gate’ – they’ve admitted to old phone slowdowns and are offering battery replacements for $29 (typically $79). more info [here].
- Meltdown & Spectre – this is a big one:
Speculative Execution (SE) is the problem, and it’s standard in many modern CPUs. Growing use since the 60s.
The vulnerability in SE was discovered in June, and has virtually been unheard of till now. Tech journalists have been under an embargo, so manufactures would have time have to work on patches, and are now pushing out those fixes.
These patches will slow down all processors (i.e., computer, tablets, phones, and internet servers). Pathes are required to practically all operating systems running on practically all CPUs. (side note: Not the RasberryPi – it doesn’t use Speculative execution.)
The only real fix to this problem is a new CPU design use different performance enhancing techniques.
For a good video covering how this vulnerability functions see YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syAdX44pokE
Well that covers most of last weeks meeting. Now I am going to concentrate on today’s meeting.
Thanks for all the interest!
#TechOn!
Scott, headNerd at International Computer Solutions (internationalcs.net)
Please leave a comment if you find any of this info useful.
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