We’ve already had our new Nintendo WiiU consoles for some time now, and on a Nintendo Direct 40 minute presentation we were offered a glimpse at the next generation of games for it. Mostly first party offerings of their classic game titles, including a personal favourite: Super Smash Bros.

But lets face it, the real buzz came from the Sony and Microsoft events. Both companies released a great deal of information about their new gaming platforms, and the difference between them has quite a few people a bit staggered and dumbfounded.

Sony and Microsoft individually have managed to create a gaping chasm of a differential between themselves. Below you can see the main points and biggest differences between the two monster companies.

Retail price of $399	Retail price of $499
$5 / month subscription for Playstation Plus services (such as online multiplayer, game discounts, 1 hour free trials of full version games, beta access, 3+ for PS3 per month, 3+ for PS4 per month, and 1+ for PS Vita per month. Additionally, your PS Plus membership on your PS3 carries over to the PS4).	$15 / month subscription for XBox Live services (such as online multiplayer access, access to apps that are free on most of the other platforms, some game discounts, beta access, and you’ll get 2 free games a month).
DRM-Free platform. Allows unlimited offline gaming, no online connectivity required.	DRM binds games to your account. You (and up to nine members of your home) can play your game any time, on any Xbox, no disc required. However Xbox One also requires an internet connection to periodically call home before allowing you to play even single player games.
Plays BluRay.	Plays BluRay and Interfaces with your Cable television provider allowing for intuitive and quick access to TV stations via voice control.
15 Exclusive 3rd party titles on launch	16 Exclusive 3rd party titles on launch
8GB GDDR5 RAM	8GB DDR3 RAM
AMD 8-core Jaguar/Kabini x86-64 CPU, with a Radeon 7870-derived GPU onboard	Modified x86 AMD 8 core processor with graphics processing onboard.

Now overall, the consoles don’t vary widely on hardware, though PS4 definitely has an advantage with the higher speed RAM. The big points for PS4 come in on price tags, free stuff offerings, and subscription fees. Not to mention you can play on your console without the need for internet.

At first glance, it seems easy to say that the PS4 is the clear winner. I in face believe it is, but the hard-core XBox fans and the exclusives cannot be entirely discounted from the equation. And to be fair to Microsoft, they’ve made a great system for home entertainment as well. The Xbox One’s features for the living room are fairly impressive. However, TV and movies does not make a great gaming console.

And well, as for Nintendo. I was extremely disappointed in their presentation, and therefore they only get an honourable mention. Some good new 1st party titles, but nothing mind blowing and certainly nothing that will get me to buy one.

There have been many rumours as to what Windows 8.1, formerly codenamed Windows Blue, is going to be exactly. Many people feared it was a new version of Windows, or a paid update, or something along those lines. Fortunately though, Windows 8.1 is nothing more than a new naming convention for something we’re all used to from previous versions of Windows; a service pack.

Much like Windows 7’s service pack 1, which rolled up a ton of security updates and new features, Windows 8.1 is going to be a free download which you install just like any other update. And while that’s all good and dandy, what’s in store for us?

Well Microsoft finally gave us a demo of the new changes to our Windows 8 environment courtesy of a video posted to YouTube and the Microsoft blog. Give the new video a quick look below:

The first thing we’re given a glimpse of is the new lock screen; that is to say that it displays lots more pictures than just what you set it to. Essentially pure fluff that no one really cares about

The Start Screen’s new bigger and smaller tiles, as we’re shown in the preview, will definitely help make managing the Start Screen better, but there is definitely a better way to deal with all those programs. I think we all know what I’m talking about here (cough start menu cough). Sorting the ‘all apps’ screen and changing how you get to it just doesn’t cut it.

But wait there’s more, we can pick whatever colours we want for the Start Screen? That’s amazing, and not at all available in every other version of Windows ever (read that part with a tone dripping of immense sarcasm). Oh and let us not forget the moving backgrounds (ahem, live wallpapers). Obviously ground breaking work going on over at Microsoft.

Now all joking aside, one highlight of this preview I did appreciate was the new search functionality. I use my Start Screen much like Mac lovers use spotlight. I don’t go digging for the tile I need, nor do I open a web browser when I want to find something. I just start typing on the Start Screen and let my computer do all that extra work. With the new curated search results page inside Windows,it gives a beautiful and elegant layout of everything you’re looking for without digging.

The internet, and networking in general has become such an integral component of our daily computer use, it’s good to see that next generation operating systems like Windows 8 will be incorporating the most generally used and basic parts of the internet right into your operating system, rather than limiting it to programs such as Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Outlook.

Now let’s be honest here, Mac OS X and older versions of Windows have been doing it for some time now; I had previously mentioned Spotlight for instance. For those of you who don’t use a Mac, spotlight is a little button in the top right hand corner of a Mac’s screen that brings up anything you type into its little text box. It lists everything related on your computer. Microsoft Windows Vista and 7 had something similar on the Start Menu (ever notice that little text box at the bottom of it) which essentially did the same thing. So this isn’t an innovation in any way, but it is definitely an improvement to a great feature.

Most of the other stuff mentioned in this preview to me is just more fluff. Though an honourable mention here is the fact that if you have a bigger screen, you can have multiple apps running side by side rather than the previously limited number of two.

Interestingly but unsurprisingly, Microsoft left some key features out of this preview, the main one being the return of the Start Menu. And the reason why is simple; they don’t want it back in there, nor do they actually care about it. They’re only returning it to hopefully quieten some voices of dissent who simply cannot deal with the change in interface.

Once upon a time, of course, as people are so willing to forget the Start Menu didn’t exist. Back in the days of Windows 3.1 there wasn’t even a task bar. Technology and how we interface with it is rapidly changing even daily, and so too will the way we interface with it. Maybe Microsoft jumped the gun a bit with getting rid of the Start Menu overnight, but it was only a matter of time.

So is Windows 8.1 really all that it’s cracked up to be? We won’t really know until we have it in front of us, but to me there’s more fluff than function in this update. Of course, this preview is only a few of the features offered with the new update, so we here at Tech Squad will hold judgement until we have the chance to use it.

Heard this one before? So have many Calgarians, and people all around the world. These calls have been going out to many of our clients for some time now. And though there’s recently been a lull in their attacks, they are continuing to occur consistently and even in some cases evolving.

The above example is only part of the story. You see, the above mentioned woman, received a different sort of call before hand. The classic one that many of you have heard before: Representative calls, says there’s viruses on your computer and offers to remove them for a fee.

So not only did they already try to get her, but when she decided she wanted no part in their activities they called back with a shock tactic style. But the goal isn’t to make her say yes to the Windows Security person in this case, it is to get her to call back (which in this case she was given a phone number, traced back to an anonymous VoIP service) the original gentleman and say yes to the cleaning, instead of having to buy a new license.

Over at the esteemed anti-malware company, MalwareBytes.org, Jerome Segura got one such call and chronicled the whole affair in his blog. You can check out the original article by him here if you want. I would suggest doing so, as he recorded the whole conversation in audio format and chronicles it in detail.

However, they indeed pulled another trick out of their hat on Segura. He explains a trick along the same lines, but one a bit different then what we usually hear from our clients, using the system utility MSCONFIG.

You see, MSCONFIG displays a list of different components of Windows called ‘services’. Each of these has a different task inside Windows. Here’s where it gets tricky though, check out the graphic below from my own personal laptop. The very one I am writing this article on in fact.

See above there where it says BitLocker Drive Encryption Servce? Notice how it is stopped? According to scammers this is a symptom of a severe malware infection.

Is it really? Not even remotely. The service in the above example is simply a component of Windows that makes BitLocker, something that encrypts your hard drive, work. If you don’t encrypt your hard drive (or in my case use an alternative method like TrueCrypt), of course the service isn’t going to be running.

Services are only run if the functionality they provide is necessary. And many of the components of Windows are geared towards supporting businesses, exotic hardware, and communication methods across the board. So for the home user, there’s ALWAYS going to be a few services stopped.

However, once this so called ‘technician’ had been allowed access to Segura’s system using Team Viewer, the tech seems to have reacted rather rashly when he realized that the payment that he expected to get wasn’t coming, deleting files and trashing the ethernet driver, effectively trashing the Internet connection.

Of course, in this case, Segura was using a virtual machine so he really didn’t damage anything. Segura noted that he “wasn’t going to play tricks on them or make fun of them. I just wanted to see for myself how the scam was conducted and learn more about it.” But in this case the scammer must have assumed that Segura was deliberately wasting his time (as so many people have taken to doing), and wanted to get some sort of revenge.

Either way it seems that the cold calling scam rampage continues on albeit a little more cautiously.

The moral of the story: Microsoft doesn’t care about you enough to EVER call you. So if Windows, Microsoft, Windows Security, or any variation thereof shows up on your phone, do what I do: Make fun of them and laugh in their faces until they hang up. Some of the rage fits they have are worth the inconvenience of the call.

The next generation console by Microsoft, was unveiled in a massive black tent displaying a brazen sign touting the quote “A New Generation Revealed”. But is it really going to live up to this proud proclamation of greatness?

The first interesting feature that Microsoft has brought to the table is voice control. In the demonstration, Ysuf Medhi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, uses simple natural speech commands to manipulate the Xbox.

While natural speech controls and voice dictation are not something new to the market, past offerings have been lacking. Glitchy even in the best of situations, it will be interesting to see how well Microsoft has pulled this off in real world applications.

Another feature shown off was the new Xbox One Guide, which lets you just tell your XBox the name of a channel or TV show on your cable TV and it will go straight to it. No more memorizing channels just to find the show you want.

Honestly, this should have been invented a long time ago. Too little too late for someone like myself, who doesn’t even watch cable TV anymore because if its terrible limitations. But for those who still do use cable television, its definitely a cool idea.

But the most intriguing thing we heard yesterday was the announcement of an interactive Halo television series. Seems to me like they’re trying to go for a more definitive version of Defiance. Steven Spielberg will be behind the series, so we can expect it to be visually stunning at the very least.

All in all, there were tons of new features, quite a few new title games, and a whole lot of home entertainment focus. Microsoft is most assuredly attempting to bring the Xbox to the center of your entertainment system by making it responsible for everything you use your TV for.

Whether that’s for the better or worse, guess we’ll see. The console is said to be going on sale later this year (Read: Probably during the holiday season and they won’t ship enough). So we still have some time before we’ll be playing with this in our living room. But if all the bells and whistles they’ve added to this thing work as well as advertised, it really could be the next gen console.

But then again, we’ve all used Windows Media Center right? Exactly.

And yes, Gianna’s dad is a Doctor who got a leading manufacturer of heart devices to admit that Apple’s shiney tablet can interfere their implants. And the rest of the medical community is taking the high school freshman from Stockton, Calif., quite seriously. She will be speaking in front of 8,000 doctors at a Heart Rhythm Society meeting in Denver on the topic according to Australian paper The Age.

“The research offers a valuable warning for people with implanted defibrillators, which deliver an electric shock to restart a stopped heart,” said John Day, head of heart-rhythm services at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah.

The idea came to Chien, because she knew, like many laptops and small electronics, that the iPad 2 is filled with magnets (30 in total), all of which help hold its case in place. Her father, a cardiac electrophysiologist, helped her round up 26 volunteers with defibrillators. And what she discovered was that in 30 percent of cases, resting the iPad on the patient’s chest caused their defibrillators to go into what’s called “magnet mode,” which turns off the devices.

Apple has not responded to Chien’s request for comment. But Medtronic, the leading manufacturer of defibrillators, did. And while it said that it hadn’t found any problems with the iPad when used to its specifications, it does warn against patients holding any device that uses magnets against their chest.

She told The Age that despite the success of her study she does not want to become a doctor like her dad; she’d rather become a novelist.

Presented by our Central location’s neighbour; Balbi & Company Legal Centre, the event encourages us to ditch the car for the day, hop on our bikes, and ride the paths and roads of Calgary.

Their website explains it best:

Calgary’s Bike to Work Day is presented by Balbi & Company Legal Centre each year to provide a fun way for you, your friends and colleagues to join in cycling to work. Bike to Work Day Calgary celebrates and promotes cycling as a healthy, convenient, efficient, low-cost and socially responsible means of transportation which contributes to a reduction of inner city traffic congestion and pollution.

The Energy Pit Stop Stations are sponsored by bike shops around the City of Calgary. These Stations will be open from 6:00 am – 9:00 am. For more information on Energy Pit Stop Stations please visit the Energy Pit Stop Station page of our website.

A free pancake breakfast will also be served on the morning of the event to Bike to Work Day participants at Eau Claire Market between 6:30am and 9:30am.

No registration is necessary, and the event is completely free to all who wish to participate. For more information, check out their website at www.bikecalgary.ca. And on Friday, toss those car keys back on the dresser and ride!

What most people don’t realize is the environmental impact of all our electronic gadgets. Not only the impact in their creation, but the resource requirements for breaking them back down afterwards. When you’re dealing with electronics; recycling the device should be your absolute last option rather than first. Consider this: last year over 1.75 billion mobile devices were sold to people all over the world. Projected numbers for 2013 already say that another 240 million tablets and 207 million PCs will be released into the world.

The thing is, that screen you’re reading this article on, the phone in your pocket, all of these things are designed and produced using earth elements from deep within our planet, things like lead, copper, gold, nickel, cadmium, and so on. And well, the planet doesn’t really like to give those elements up easily.

And as electronics come down in price day by day, more people will gain access to these devices, which will increase the demand for these materials. Need some perspective? In the last 10 years, iron ore production has increased by 180%, cobalt by 165%, and lithium by 125%.

Even worse, the more we mine these resources, the deeper into the Earth these mines have to go. Not only is this detrimental to our planet but the amount of waste material created by these mining operations is staggering, For instance, mining and producing just a single ounce of gold creates 80 tons of waste, and the copper ore deposits of the modern era are only a tenth of the purity as ore mind a hundred years ago.

One thing you can count on, despite the marketing materials and advertisements that say otherwise, no electronic device is green. Green electronics simply do not exist, at least not yet. And worse yet they are so extraordinarily short lived.

Think about it this way, how long does your average cell phone last you. For me its usually a year, maybe a little over. The cell phone industry rates the average life span of a cell phone as only 18 months, so sounds about right. Lithium Ion based batteries in laptops, can start losing max charge capacity in as little as a year.

As we develop the newest and flashiest devices, our addiction to the latest technology only worsens the situation. Fun fact, your average laptop will consume 70% of its total life time energy use simply in the manufacturing process. So when that computer heads to the shredding pile, all that energy, and many of the rare elements and materials mentioned earlier is completely wasted. A great many of the more important elements that make up your system simply cannot be recovered by recycling. Because of this, as well as how fast our technology is advancing and changing, you simply cannot make a new laptop out of all the components of an old one.

But at least the components that are recoverable will return to the laptops right? Well sure, but its not as simple as that. Those minerals return to new laptops, but they are of a lesser quality and as systems made with them will be less durable, and more likely to fail, which sends that new system to the recycling pile sooner.

So what should you do instead? Well simply put, add a 4th r to the mix; reduce, repair, reuse, recycle. Repairing those old electronics, is a hundred times better than recycling, and even if you can’t use them anymore or don’t want to, someone out there will. Try selling it online, or offering the device for free or cheap to friends and family. Do whatever you can to keep that away from the recycler’s hands for as long as possible.

One older device staying in use longer, means one new device less that needs to be sold, and the Earth will thank you for it.

In a blog post on the 11th, Dustin Childs, the group manager of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing stated:

We are aware that some of our customers may be experiencing difficulties after applying security update 2823324, which we provided in security bulletin MS13-036 on Tuesday, April 9. We’ve determined that the update, when paired with certain third-party software, can cause system errors. As a precaution, we stopped pushing 2823324 as an update when we began investigating the error reports, and have since removed it from the download center.

This isn’t the first time the software giant has had problems with a Windows update, but in this case it is unique in that it only affects people with specific software installed on their computers after-market.

Childs said the system errors does not affect all Windows PCs and does not cause any data loss. However, he advised all people who installed the update to uninstall it by following the steps outlined in a Knowledge Base article published after the problem was discovered.

With the update pulled from distribution though, you probably don’t have to worry. If you were affected by the update, you would likely know it by now. If you’re computer is still running smoothly, just keep your Windows installation fully up to date with Windows Update and you should be fine.

The software in question isn’t very widely used here in Canada either, as such the chances of a user being affected are pretty slim.

“The problem is mostly confined to users in Brazil that have the banking security plugin ‘G-Buster’ installed,” Qualys Chief Technology Officer Wolfgang Kandek posted in a blog on Friday. “G-Buster is locally developed in Brazil by the company ‘GAS Tecnologia’ and is widely installed in Brazil. Given the number of complaints in Brazil, it is clear that Microsoft does not have this particular combination of Windows 7 and G-Buster plugin in its QA setup.”

The update repairs a fairly dangerous security hole, but the hole requires the attacker have physical and direct access to the computer in question, rather than just an internet connection to the computer. So skipping the update on your home computer likely won’t hurt much for consumers anyway.

The nasty little package known as Trojan.Win32.Jorik.IRCbot.xkt connects itself to a Germany-based server to acquire more instructions, then sets to work mining bit coins for its owner.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoins are a virtual online currency that is created from some pretty complex mathematics and cryptography. It creates more currency to release into its economy through a process dubbed “mining”. Those who participate in this process essentially use the processing power of their computer to generate 64 digit numbers to match a predefined pattern posted by Bitcoin. Find a number that works, and you as well as anyone else helping to find that specific number will share a payout of 25 Bitcoins to do whatever you want with.

How does this Malware work?

Well, as stated above, Bitcoin mining takes the full processing power of your computer to generate new numbers. In fact, it takes so much processing power to find a matching number, that it often maxes out your CPU, no matter how good or fast it is.

That makes the chances of you actually discovering a matching number by yourself difficult at best, so you likely will not be claiming the bounty for that particular number exclusively.

The Malware itself, hijacks the targeted user’s CPU capabilities to help with the mining. The more computers that are infected, the better chance the hacker has of getting the number before anyone else, and the fatter their Bitcoin wallet gets.

According to The Next Web, the malware, which as of April 6th was still undetectable by some anti-malware programs, spikes one’s CPU use to maximum in order to perform as much mining as possible. This is one of the primary ways to tell whether your infected. And an infected computer with its CPU maxed out constantly is nearly impossible to use.

So next time you jump on Skype, remember the cardinal rule, DO NOT click on ANYTHING from anyone you don’t already have in your contact list. And even then, confirm with the person sending that link via some other method (email, phone, text message) that the link they are sending is legitimate and safe.

The above simple steps can save you a lot of trouble, and maybe even a trip to see us.

On July 20^th zombies will be taking over the Cochrane Agricultural Society arena in an event called Zombie Survivor. Zombie Survivor is a 5 km race, with a twist; you will have to overcome obstacles and survive the zombies. You can even sign up to be one of the zombies and the people at Zombie Survivor will do your zombie make up.

Each runner in Zombie Survivor will have 5 flags (or lives) to complete the race with. Perhaps you are sitting there, thinking to yourself, “But I don’t want the zombies to eat my brains”. Well, you don’t need to worry this event is just for fun and contact between the zombies and runners is strictly prohibited the zombies will only be trying to get your flags. Even if you lose all of your flags you can still finish the race but you will have to live with the knowledge that you didn’t survive Zombie Survivor.

When I first heard about the event I was wondering will these zombies be fast like zombies from 28 Days Later or will they be slow zombies like the ones from Dawn of the Dead. These zombies will be similar to the zombies from The Walking Dead. You may run into hoards of zombies, or even some faster zombies, most of the zombies will be slow moving classic zombies.

I have already signed up for this event and I think that this is probably going to be one of the best things I will be doing all summer. We all know how predictable Calgary’s weather is but regardless of the weather this event will still take place. A portion of the proceeds will be going to a local charity. The charity has not been picked yet but you can suggest one by sending an email to charity@zombiesurvivor.ca.

If you are going to sign up for this event well I have a treat for you. Use the promo code “zombiedan” and you will get 5% off. You can sign up at http://www.zombiesurvivor.ca/event-registration/ spots are filling up quickly.

I hope to see you there.

Check out this video I made about the event.