By Paul Alcorn @ Tom’s Hardware

The online German computer magazine Heise.de is reporting that eight new Spectre-class vulnerabilities have been discovered. The vulnerabilities purportedly affect Intel and ARM processors, but the impact on AMD processors remain unknown. We reached out to Intel for comment, and the company provided this statement, which neither confirms nor denies the vulnerabilities:

Protecting our customers’ data and ensuring the security of our products are critical priorities for us. We routinely work closely with customers, partners, other chipmakers and researchers to understand and mitigate any issues that are identified, and part of this process involves reserving blocks of CVE numbers. We believe strongly in the value of coordinated disclosure and will share additional details on any potential issues as we finalize mitigations. As a best practice, we continue to encourage everyone to keep their systems up-to-date.

Much like the first round of Spectre vulnerabilities, these newly discovered vulnerabilities rely upon a side-channel attack on a processors’ speculative execution engine. As per normal and responsible reporting policies, the teams of researchers that discovered the attacks are not releasing details until processor vendors are given a reasonable amount of time to develop patches, which should help ward off exploits, at least for now.

Read more…

Source: Guru3D

AMD has finished up its patches for vulnerabilities that security company CTS Labs announced last month. The chip designer reports that the updates for, among others, Epyc chips are in the final phase of testing and should become available next month through a Firmware patch.

CTS Labs announced the bugs unexpectedly and without any warning a while ago, according to the security company, it would take many months to close the vulnerabilities. CTS recently once more contacted Toms Hardware to ‘express their concern about the lack of updates from AMD regarding these vulnerabilities’. The company said it believed many of the vulnerabilities ‘would take months to fix’. One of them, Chimera, would even require a hardware change.

Read on…

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA today released the GeForce 397.55 Hotfix drivers to address various issues that many users have been experiencing. Primarily, the drivers fix the pesky problem where a few GTX 1060 models would throw up a Code 43 error in Device Manager after driver installation putting users’ systems into an endless restart loop. The new drivers also contain fixes for occasional Netflix playback stuttering and the display driver being removed when a system has been idling during an extended period of time. Lastly, NVIDIA added support for Microsoft Surface Book notebooks.

You can download the new GeForce 397.55 Hotfix drivers from GeForce Experience and GeForce.com.

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• ADATA XPG Launches INFAREX K20 Gaming Keyboard
• Noctua Presents NF-A12x25 120mm Fan, 140mm Adaptor and Redux Line NF-P12
• DeepCool Intros New Ark 90 Electro Limited Edition Case
• Patriot Launches Ultimate TRINITY 3-in-1 Adaptive USB Flash Drive
• Sony Announces the SL-E USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C External SSD

Light Cruisers Join An Already Impressive Line-Up of Warships As Naval Forces Closed Beta Testing Approaches

Ahead of the upcoming launch of War Thunder’s Naval Forces Closed Beta, which will see the first reveal of the game’s early ship tech trees, developer Gaijin Entertainment presents a new class of warships to be added to the game – light cruisers. This class will feature the most powerful armament among all the ships in the game. Their sheer size and destructiveness will make them a centerpiece of any naval battle, entrusting their captains with great power and responsibility over the battle’s outcome.

The first two models of light cruisers presented are the British HMS Enterprise, an Emerald-class light cruiser, and the Italian Giussano-class light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni. The HMS Enterprise is capable of speeds up to 33 knots, boasts good armour, and is armed with seven 152mm main cannons, as well as anti-aircraft cannons, machine guns, and even torpedo tubes. The Bartolomeo Colleoni is slightly faster at 37 knots and surpasses the HMS Enterprise in armament, as it offers eight 152mm main cannons plus six additional 100mm long range cannons. Its protective capabilities, however, are considerably weaker, with only 24mm of hull armour in comparison to the 76.4mm offered by the British ship. Captains of the Bartolomeo Colleoni will also have to keep an extra eye on the sky, considering the noticeably weaker anti-air defense compared to the HMS Enterprise. The latter, however, still remains susceptible to attacks from daring torpedo bombers, given that the British ship will need more time to maneuver than the faster Italian vessel.

In War Thunder Naval Battles, light cruisers are well placed at distance from smaller enemy vessels, in such conditions, they can inflict severe damage on the enemy fleet while sustaining fire even from two destroyers simultaneously. In close combat, armour-piercing shells can deal devastating damage to light cruisers, and they always need to keep an eye out for enemy torpedo boats sneaking dangerously close. Played strategically, light cruisers protected by destroyers and patrol ships will be able to assert dominance over an entire sea sector, securing strategic positions and blocking enemies from advancing through an area of interest.

More information about the new class of warships in War Thunder and the progress of the Naval Forces Closed Beta is available on the game’s official website HERE.

THE BATTLE FLEET SERIES CONTINUES ON WITH EXPLOSIVE LAND BASED WWII TANK WARFARE – LAUNCH TRAILER RELEASED

Mythical City Games announced today that the tank based sequel of the popular turn-based military strategy game “Battle Fleet 2” is now available on Steam for PC and Mac. Battle Fleet: Ground Assault builds upon the Battle Fleet series unique turn-based strategic and tactical gameplay, by focusing on land battles this time instead of naval campaigns, adding destructible environments, armor, shell types, brand new single player campaigns and an intense multiplayer mode.

Mythical City Games has released a launch trailer for the occasion.

The Normandy invasion has started and it’s time to move your battalions of tanks off the beaches and into the battlefields of Europe. You are in command of each tank, all the way down to the angle and distance of each shot. Choose your shell type and take on the armored machines of the Axis powers, or switch sides and defend fortress Europe from the Allied invasion.

Features:

• Play the strategic single player campaigns, random skirmish mode, full cross-platform multiplayer, or even hotseat multiplayer.
• Build your army from 20 different tanks, each one unique to each faction, with different armor, guns, mobility, and hit locations.
• Choose between High Explosive or Armor Piercing shells to do the maximum damage to your enemy.
• Aim for different sides of a tank to maximize your chance of penetrating their armor.
• Utilize recon planes to reveal enemy locations or airstrikes to target dangerous tanks.
• Tank commanders gain experience with each Campaign battle.
• Battle across the Western Europe campaign with new campaigns coming later this year.
• Use artillery to protect your lines in campaign battles.
• Deploy Strategic Command Cards to surprise your enemies with special actions like laying mines, sabotage, enhanced aiming, airstrikes and more!
• Battle Fleet: Ground Assault features full 3D models of WW2 era tanks.
• VR Support for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality coming soon.

“Battle Fleet: Ground Assault has been in development for a couple of years now and we are happy to finally deliver this new installment of the franchise to the fans. While keeping the science and game design from Battle Fleet 2, using armored vehicles instead of vessels, enabled us to create an even more authentic battlefield experience,” says Mythical City Games CEO, Jedrzej Jonasz.

By Thomas Soderstrom @ Tom’s Hardware

ASUS invites overclocking enthusiasts to take a load off…their budgets with the Strix Z370-F Gaming. Nominally priced around $15 less than its Strix Z370-E Gaming, the -F version was typically available, when we wrote this, at up to twice that discount. Potential buyers must be willing to forgo the high-end 802.11ac/Bluetooth controller of its pricier sibling, but we’re hearing from many of you that you’d never use it anyway. (Like, ever.) And with up to $30 on the line, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable compromise.

Read the Review Here

By Chris Hoffman @ How-To Geek

Microsoft is ready to release Windows 10’s “April 2018 Update.” It was originally going to be called the “Spring Creators Update” and was codenamed “Redstone 4.” This is Windows 10 version “1803”, and it launches today, April 30, 2018.

You can download the April 2018 Update today, even if Microsoft isn’t providing it to you via Windows Update yet.

Find out what’s new in the Windows 10 “April 2018 Update” at How-To Geek.

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD has released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. Version 18.4.1 Beta adds initial support for the April 2018 update of Windows 10 (build 1803), (formerly referred to as “Spring Creators Update”). The drivers also fix issues with a number of games, such as water textures not appearing correctly in “World of Final Fantasy;” an application hang noticed on game loading screens of “Stellaris,” display corruption noticed on “Call of Duty: WWII” on some Radeon RX 400 series graphics cards, and flickering noticed in “Sea of Thieves.”

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.4.1 Beta drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• Cooler Master MasterBox K500L and E500L Chassis Launched
• Linksys Announces New Velop Dual-Band Mesh WiFi System
• NZXT Announces Limited Edition H700 PUBG Licensed Case
• TEAMGROUP Brilliantly Releases T-FORCE DELTA RGB SSD
• ASUS Intros Designo MX279HE Monitor
• HyperX Now Shipping Predator DDR4 RGB with Infrared Sync Technology
• Intel Retires Kaby Lake-X-Processors
• Intel Optane SSD 905P Appears Online: M.2, LEDs And A New Controller