First look at Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1—a free update to Windows 8—is coming later this year, and a prerelease version is available now for you to try. Windows 8.1 has new ways for you to personalize your PC and includes a wave of awesome new apps and services.



How to install Windows 8.1 Preview from an ISO file 

To install Windows 8.1 Preview from an ISO file, you must first convert the ISO file into installation media stored on a DVD or a USB flash drive.

If you're using Windows 8, follow these steps to install Windows 8.1 Preview from an ISO file:

• Download the ISO (.iso) file.


• Double-tap or double-click the ISO file.


• Double-tap or double-click setup.exe and follow the steps.

Download:-

Product Key: NTTX3-RV7VB-T7X7F-WQYYY-9Y92F

Important: Windows 8.1 Preview isn't currently supported on some tablets and PCs with newer 32-bit Atom processors. Get the details

Language		Link to download		SHA-1 hash value
English 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.8 GB)		0xD8076E029292FBC933792D215793045031255FF6
English 32-bit (x86)		Download                                     (2.8 GB)		0x447CCD24EB3DC6CFD9A42E62A5F6418B578E3CBF
Arabic 64-bit (x64)		Download (2.8 GB)		0x15C3DD68E53C6B4602D06E2CAC577480D2E9331E
Arabic 32-bit (x86)		Download (3.8 GB)		0xC76BBB780893851892739768019EB8B9F235DF2A
Chinese (Simplified) 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.9 GB)		0xA34B8F71DCE39303F81402E2B44DA17117BB8970
Chinese (Simplified) 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.9 GB)		0xF394D21EB655867E455B2DCAAEC37A4160F6F812
Chinese (Traditional) 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.9 GB)		0x8A8F583D23B55F8D0BD1E3F6F3B3376F60A6498B
Chinese (Traditional) 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.9 GB)		0xF394D21EB655867E455B2DCAAEC37A4160F6F812
French 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.8 GB)		0x77B998037F5117A0339E3C575DC575812186A36B
French 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.8 GB)		0x938EAAF0CED4A4D80A4619945D22AECD8368F360
German 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.8 GB)		0xD36DCEB20A734905D45FCC8A29CAFAEB83D8821F
German 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.8 GB)		0xB59B03B978C9B9C79937E77F4FD86E6D4B3F605B
Japanese 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.8 GB)		0x90550D4CF6084177F4D8B15FF1935F04E02A8C91
Japanese 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.8 GB)		0x39AC35DC262DE7BA1E4FA76D22840A135F98C383
Korean 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.8 GB)		0x42334C1334A3A5F3AF7D7BDBACA328ABA24E4514
Korean 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.8 GB)		0xE15BB0ACD03AF0B034BC9C9C35F20C56D7702F97
Portuguese (Brazil) 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.7 GB)		0xFC163AB555EE347C3D70C608DFBC6860C48F1FCD
Portuguese (Brazil) 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.8 GB)		0x8EE8EE031C656AE547E4076540562CEC132F741C
Russian 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.7 GB)		0xD23B862AE7FA349BBE84FCE4833CAF6EBE524104
Russian 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.8 GB)		0xB2804B267B131C100E030B68EA826CC5328BDAFB
Spanish 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.8 GB)		0x83D93447997167F5DF1C37C1BE5DC897DAC28096
Spanish 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.8 GB)		0xE397E9B50FE449BFB3EBD68793CDE8B8C92E9036
Swedish 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.7 GB)		0xEE699B6D8B1B010E2F7AE56CF8A07683E3E077B2
Swedish 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.7 GB)		0x46830490C8A9D8B92FB5C1EB123915D55AB6C973
Turkish 64-bit (x64)		Download (3.7 GB)		0xF82792BD5629FE04CCD67EDA64E03DB1AFD2B7C7
Turkish 32-bit (x86)		Download (2.7 GB)

Google's 'Magic Ring' Could Kill the Password

Google is researching a way to kill the password, this time with a magic ring.

No, it isn’t a weird metaphorical movie plot. The idea is to use a trinket that plugs into the USB slot on a computer and authenticates the user.

At the RSA Security conference in San Francisco, Mayank Upadhyay, a principal engineer at Google who specializes in security, said the experience of logging on to a computer or website should be as simple as using an ATM machine, which is why the company is looking into the USB technology as an alternative to passwords.

Overall, passwords don’t work well for many people. That’s because people either have too many and need to write them down — violating rule number one of password security — or they have one that they use in several places, increasing their security risk.

Carrying a token could make authentication easier, because a person wouldn’t have to remember all those passwords.

Google’s prototype is a USB drive mounted on a ring or other small piece of jewelry that uses a piece of digital information knows as a cryptographic key. It’s a bit of software that serves as the encoding and decoding method for secret communications. Cryptographic keys used in computer systems are based on complicated mathematical algorithms, but their purpose is simple: encode a message so that it’s unreadable to anyone else but the intended recipient and read a coded message that’s meant only for you.

Here’s how it would work. Let’s say you want to access your checking account information from your bank’s website. First, you must register your cryptographic key with the bank. That would involve inserting the USB drive into your computer, logging onto the bank’s website and walking through a couple of authentication prompts, similar to how creating a new account works already.

During this process, two software keys get generated: one public and one private. The public key gets sent to the bank’s website for use later. The other remains stored on the USB drive.

Later, if you want to transfer money from your checking account to your savings, you visit the website with your USB key inserted in your computer. At the bank’s website, a login screen would pop up, but instead of entering your username and password, you would click a button that said “authenticate” — or even skip that step altogether. The bank uses the public crytopgraphic key created during registration to encode a message that it sends to your USB drive. That message is a mathematical “challenge” that can only be solved by the private key stored on your USB drive.

This kind of public-private key encryption is common; it relies on the fact that some mathematical operations are hard to reverse. For instance, multiplying 3 and 18 is easy to do, but factoring out the result — 54 — into the smallest possible prime numbers (1, 3, 3, 3, and 2) is harder, because you have to do more mathematical steps. Encrypting a message with the public key is like multiplying the two numbers, and the decryption process is like factoring the result and looking for two specific numbers. If you want to decode the message without the key, you don’t know if the numbers you want are 2 and 3, 3 and 3, or 1 and 3, or possibly some other combination like 6 and 9. That’s what makes this kind of cryptography work so well — a big number has billions of possible combinations of factors.

Because a user is not typing in a password, she is safe from hackers who may be using  software that records keystrokes to steal her login information. And a cryptographic key also deals with “man in the middle” hacks, which involve someone monitoring the digital communications between a user and a website and stealing that information to be used later.

A magic ring certainly deals with the problem of password hacks, but it doesn’t necessarily address what happens if the user loses the USB drive. Of what happen if an unscrupulous person got a hold of the ring, he’d most likely be able to access secured websites, assuming he had enough information such as the user’s name. On the bright side, in this sense it is similar to losing your house or car keys — if someone finds your house keys, they can’t break into your home without knowing the address.

It does offer some neat ideas for a modern take on the “Lord of the Rings” movie, though. Would it involve a quest to drop a USB ring into an incinerator?

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Via Technology Review

4K resolution

4K is a resolution standard in digital cinematography and computer graphics. The name is derived from the horizontal resolution, which is approximately 4,000 pixels (this designation is different from those used in the digital television industry, which are represented by the vertical pixel count). There are several different resolutions that qualify as 4K. YouTube is the only video hosting service that allows 4K videos to be streamed as it allows a resolution of up to 4096 x 3072 (12.6 megapixels).

4K resolution movie sample -

Google Unveils Ultrafast Web Service

THE GIST

• Google unveiled an ultrafast Web service along with an Internet television subscription.


• The service offers one-gigabyte per second speeds -- about 100 times faster than currently available..

enlarge

Google Fiber superfast broadband network will be available starting in September.  Click to enlarge this image. John Lund / Getty Images

Google on Thursday unveiled an ultrafast Web service along with an Internet television subscription in the Kansas City area as part of a pilot project to boost broadband speeds. The Google Fiber superfast broadband network will be available starting in September, with one-gigabyte per second speeds -- about 100 times faster than most current Internet subscriptions.

The wired home project will allow people to replace cable television and Internet with a single subscription to be controlled by a Google tablet computer, which will be offered for free.

"Google Fiber is 100 times faster than today's average broadband," Google vice president Milo Medin said.

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"No more buffering. No more loading. No more waiting. Gigabit speeds will get rid of these pesky, archaic problems and open up new opportunities for the web. Imagine: instantaneous sharing; truly global education; medical appointments with 3D imaging; even new industries that we haven't even dreamed of, powered by a gig."

The packages offered will include not only Internet but "regular TV, the kind you could only get from your cable provider," as well as on-demand programs, Medin told the kickoff event.

Google said it was offering a full ultrafast Internet and television package for $120 a month, with waived installation fees and a free tablet. It also will offer Internet only for $70 a month.

     DNEWS VIDEO: COOL JOBS: HACKER

It will also offer free Internet at the current speed of five megabytes per second but will charge an installation fee.

Google asked residents to register to determine the neighborhoods where the project will be introduced in Kansas City, Kansas, and neighboring Kansas City, Missouri.

It was not immediately clear when or if Google would expand the project to other US cities.

Google announced its plan to build an experimental high-speed Internet network two years ago, saying the United States had fallen behind other major nations in broadband speed and access. "Fast is better than slow. On the web, nobody wants to wait for a video to buffer or a website to load," Medin said.

ANALYSIS: Are the Boonies Getting Broadband?

"Abundance is better than scarcity. There's a plethora of rich content available online -- and it's increasingly only available to people who have the speeds and means to access it." Federal Communications Commission chief Julius Genachowski praised the Google effort.

"For the United States to remain globally competitive, we need to keep pushing the boundaries of broadband capabilities and foster testbeds of broadband innovation," he said in a statement.

"Abundance in broadband speeds and capacity -- moving from megabits to gigabits -- will unleash breakthrough innovations in healthcare, education, business services, and more."

Li-Fi ,the next generation Wi-Fi.

Li-Fi is the term some have used to label the fast and cheap wireless-communication system, which is the optical version of Wi-Fi.The term was first used in this context by Harald Haas in his TED Global talk on Visible Light Communication.

The technology was demonstrated at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas using a pair of Casio smartphones to exchange data using light of varying intensity given off from their screens, detectable at a distance of up to ten metres.

In October 2011 a number of companies and industry groups formed the Li-Fi Consortium, to promote high-speed optical wireless systems and to overcome the limited amount of radio-based wireless spectrum available by exploiting a completely different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The consortium believes it is possible to achieve more than 10 Gbps, theoretically allowing a high-definition film to be downloaded in 30 seconds.

Li-Fi has the advantage of being able to be used in sensitive areas such as in aircraft without causing interference. However, the light waves used cannot penetrate walls.

Later in 2012, VLC, a firm set up to commercialize Li-Fi, will bring out Li-Fi products for firms installing LED-lighting systems.