Three important security features arriving with Windows 10

Page 1 of 2Introduction and authentication Windows 10 boasts a number of major new security enhancements

Every new Microsoft operating system release is both a cause for celebration among IT folks and a cause for serious consternation and concern. New features tend to resolve persistent problems and make things a little easier for end-users. We already know the new Start menu is going to make workers more productive, and there will be a clearer divide between desktop and touch users (the OS will know which one you are using).

Thankfully, in terms of security, there's always a few new features to protect not only employees from would-be hackers but to protect the company from a data breach. Still, there's always a possibility that the new OS will provide new attack vectors, especially related to phishing and viruses, that are as yet unknown.

With Windows 10, it's clear Microsoft wants to bolster security without opening up any new holes. For the most part, after testing the preview build, it's clear most of the changes are related to usability and solving that Start menu issue for end-users. The tech giant is not trying to reinvent the wheel again with a dramatically new UI, which is good news for security pros.

Brenden Vaughan, a threat research manager at Webroot, says it's a big step in reducing security threats. "With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft is introducing a number of security improvements that should make the world of computing a significantly safer place. All things considered, the security improvements Microsoft is making for Windows 10 sound very promising. Much of it still relies on IT admins and end-users to use the tools at their disposal correctly, but Windows 10 should provide hackers fewer weaknesses to exploit."

In examining the features in the preview build for Windows 10 and the early Microsoft reports about features, the experts agree that the security upgrades look like a major win for those who worry about data breaches. Here are the top new enhancements to ward off hackers.

We already know that Microsoft will add new methods of authentication. IT analyst Charles King says the most important change is that the user will have a few flexible and workable options. For example, if you use a Microsoft Windows phone, you can enable a feature that requires the device to be connected over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in order to gain access. (This feature has already been available on HP laptops for some time, but now it's baked into the OS).

King says the other options include the requirement to have a biometric device such as a fingerprint reader used as a second authentication in addition to a password. As we've already seen with enhancements to Mac and iOS devices, having a second form of authentication can radically change how easy or hard it is to break into a device. Having these features baked into the OS means it will be easier to deploy and manage them.

Page 1 of 2Introduction and authentication

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Samsung: Smart homes arriving 'at speed we can barely imagine'

In Samsung's smart-home vision, screens will provide recipes, notifications, and reminders as well as entertainment. Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Today, you might think of Samsung as the company that made your phone, your TV, or your washing machine. Tomorrow, if it gets its way, it'll be the company that gave some electronic brains to your entire home.

In a speech at the IFA electronics show here, Samsung Electronics Chief Executive Boo-Keun Yoon predicted the coming era of the smart home. It'll figure out when you wake up and start the coffee; it'll prompt you to take your medicine; it'll turn out the lights when you nod off; it'll suggest recipes that use up ingredients before they go bad; it'll give your daughter across the country a virtual place at the dinner table.

"For many, it's still just a vision. But change is coming, and coming fast," he said. "Remember how quickly, in just a few years, smartphones and tablets have changed our lives. "I'm certain the home of the future will be woven into the fabric of our lives just as fast."

Samsung Electronics CEO Boo-Keun Yoon speaks at IFA 2014. Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

That could be a stretch. It's easy to buy a discreet device that slips into your pocket or purse. It's much harder and more expensive to remodel your kitchen with a giant transparent screen to show recipes; to make a wall into a giant electronic display that provides scenery for your in-house treadmill jogging; to connect all the doors and windows into a security system; to buy a refrigerator that keeps track of what's inside. And it's even harder to get all these disparate devices to work as one unified system.

Yoon thinks all these new devices will blend seamlessly into our lives "so you don't notice the technology at work." No doubt he hopes Samsung shareholders will notice as the company taps into a major new revenue source.

Analyst firms project that in 2018, people will spend $100 billion on smart-home technology and there will be 45 million smart-home systems in use. It's a major part of the concept known as the Internet of Things, which links not just computers and phones to the Net, but also countless doors, cars, traffic signals, security cameras, and sensors.

Samsung's ideal smart home, here embodied by a virtual robot image, will prompt people to exercise. Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Yoon is in a better position than most to overcome the difficulties. He leads one of the world's biggest electronics companies -- and Samsung makes appliances too, not just consumer electronics. Last month, Samsung acquired SmartThings, a startup whose technology lets people control their smart-home devices.

Although Samsung has much to gain from the spread of electronics into every corner of people's homes, it will use open technology that means other companies' products will fit in, Yoon said.

Samsung's vision of a smart home includes having dinner with a distant friend or relative who makes a video appearance. Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

SmartThings uses open technology that lets dozens of companies' products connect. And Samsung is involved in at least two groups working on Internet-of-Things standards, the Open Interconnect Consortium and the Thread Group, which also counts Google's Nest and Yale Security as members.

Yoon said people will demand three things of their smart homes: "show me, know me, and tell me." He elaborated on the idea:

First, it makes complex data useful so you can make better choices. It will show you when to take your medicine, alert you to air pollution, or give you choices for saving energy.

Second, it learns your needs and recognizes your lifestyle. The home knows when your day starts. It'll turn on the lights and a coffee pot just in time.

Third, it proactively adjusts to your needs and provides suggestions without being asked. Imagine a home that tells you there are leftover ingredients to use up.

The technology is on the brink of quick adoption, Yoon added. "It will come at a speed we can barely imagine," he said.

It's a compelling vision, and Samsung isn't the only one who sees it. The challenge now is to develop the technology so it becomes unobtrusive and easy to use -- and to convince consumers that it's worth paying for.

A smart home's exercise room will provide scenery while jogging on a treadmill and statistics about the run afterward in Samsung's view. Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

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4K Blu-ray discs arriving in 2015 to fight streaming media

Blu-ray Disc Association

Much of the world is shifting to streaming video delivered over the Internet, but don't count out optical discs just yet.

The Blu-ray Disc Association is most of the way done defining a version of its optical disc technology that can handle high-resolution 4K imagery, the group said Friday at the IFA electronics trade show here. It will start licensing the technology in the spring or summer of 2015, and the first 4K Blu-ray players should arrive by the holiday-shopping season of that year, said Victor Matsuda, chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association global promotions committee.

Using physical media instead of relying on fallible and often limited Internet connections means Blu-ray discs can provide the best possible image quality, he said. But there's more to 4K Blu-ray than just four times the number of pixels as in today's prevailing 1080p video, he added.

The new specification also will improve color gamut dramatically and offer a higher dynamic range so details in shadows and highlights are visible. The new format also will be able to show 4K video at 60 frames per second, he said.

"The packaged media and that enclosed, stable environment -- that's part of being the best of the best," Matsuda said.

It's not clear exactly now much of the market wants the best of the best, though: people have flocked to streaming services despite difficulties with bandwidth and image quality. With services from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Google, and others, people can watch the video they want immediately rather than having leave the house to get a disc. And subscription services offer access to a library of titles so people can watch as much as they want -- and try new TV shows or movies without having to decide whether it's worth the per-show price tag.

Streaming media is also becoming more convenient with players from Apple, Roku, Amazon, and Google. As of the second quarter of 2014, 17 percent of Internet-connected households have streaming-media players, NPD Group said.

But Matsuda believes a lot of the world will continue to use optical discs. Blu-ray is a force to be reckoned with. In the US, 72 million households -- about 62 percent -- had a Blu-ray player of some sort in 2014, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. Many people move to new technology slowly, and outside the US, there's another lag of six to 12 months.

Format changes that offer better quality are often a pain for consumers -- especially those who pick the wrong one, as was the case when the Betamax videotape format famously lost out to VHS, or when HD DVD lost out to Blu-ray. Consumers don't have to worry so much about formats with streaming media.

The new format works on existing Blu-ray discs with 50GB capacity, said Ron Martin, vice president of Panasonic's Hollywood lab and a member of the Blu-ray Association's task for for next-generation Blu-ray development. It stores data in a different way, though, moving from the H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding) compression technology to the newer H.265/HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) successor. HEVC takes more processing to use when encoding videos but compresses them more compactly -- or alternatively viewed, lets more pixels be sent across a given amount of data-transfer capacity.

The new 4K Blu-ray drive players will be able to extract data from discs at a rate of 50 or 60 megabits per second, and perhaps up to 100Mbps, Martin said. "That's roughly double the current Blu-ray," he said. Doubled data-transfer rates plus doubled compression efficiency means the new technology will be able to handle the quadrupled pixels required moving from 1,920x1,080 pixels to 3,820x2,160 pixels.

The new technology also will get updated digital rights management (DRM) technology for preventing unauthorized copying, Matsuda said.

Although 4K Blu-ray doesn't require larger disc capacity, they would benefit from it -- and that's something else the association is working on. "The roadmap says we have the capability to do that -- to increment to 66GB or maybe 100GB. those things are under study," Martin said.

For each frame of 4K Blu-ray video, the association expects significant image-quality improvements. Many experts are skeptical that people watching TV at ordinary TV viewing distances have sharp enough vision to tell the difference between today's 1080p HD video and 4K video -- also called Ultra HD or UHD. Matsuda, though, believes he can based on side-by-side comparisons, and certainly the TV industry is gradually moving that direction.

Matsuda and Martin expect other improvements than in spatial resolution, though.

First is better dynamic range. The 4K format will increase the bit depth for each pixel from 8 to 10, meaning that a greater range between bright and dark can be recorded for video that's been produced to take advantage of that.

Currently, "with fireworks or flashbulbs or looking at the sun, you get the level of brightness as with anything else white in the scene," Martin said. "Now we have 100 percent more signal range to capture those highlights to make a visible difference."

Second is a broader range of colors. A new color-recording technology called BT.2020 allows a wider gamut, Martin said.

"The existing 709 color encoding system shows 30-35 percent of the visual color spectrum," Martin said. BT.2020 can "render about 70-80 percent. As TVs migrate you'll be able to detect those colors," he said. Blu-ray players will be able to detect BT.2020 support and use the better color gamut if it's available, but today's TVs don't yet have the feature, he said.

The Blu-ray contingent has one more advantage on its side, too: Hollywood. Consumers who've bought copies of the same movie in VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray aren't necessarily going to buy another version in Blu-ray 4K, and movie studios aren't necessarily going to go to the trouble of remastering existing movies to take full advantage of the new format. But for new movies, already often produced in 4K versions, the decision to support the format is a lot easier.

The Blu-ray Disc Association counts big studios as board members, including Disney, Warner, Fox, and Sony -- which makes both Blu-ray players and runs its Sony Entertainment studio. Also members of the association are Lionsgate, Universal, and Paramount.

"At one level or another all Hollywood is on board," Matsuda said.

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