America's onetime innovation icons are wrestling over their biggest remaining piles of money. From a report: The HP 63 Tri-color ink cartridge retails for $28.99 at Staples. Stuffed with foam sponges drenched in a fraction of an ounce of cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes, this bestseller, model No. F6U61AN#140, can spray 36,000 drops per second in the Envy printers made by HP. The 63 Tri-color cartridge may not look like much, but that ink, which needs a refill every 165 pages, is ridiculously valuable. HP's printer supplies business garnered $12.9 billion in sales last year, and the printer division overall represented 63% of the company's profits. Here in the year 2020, proprietary ink cartridges remain important enough to spark a fight worth at least $35 billion.

With backing from Carl Icahn, Xerox has been trying to buy the much larger HP for what the target says is a laughable bid. On Monday, HP Chief Executive Officer Enrique Lores moved to protect his hold on F6U61AN#140 and its toner brethren. During his report on the company's latest quarterly earnings, which met Wall Street's expectations, Lores announced that HP would triple its share buyback program to $15 billion over three years as part of an effort to fend off the hostile takeover. While Lores said he was open to exploring new merger frameworks, he dismissed the size and technology of Xerox Holdings Corp. and stressed that HP already had a winning strategy. "I am pumped up," the CEO tells Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview shortly after the earnings call. "We have a great plan." Lores, who's spent three decades at HP, has survived his share of existential threats. Before he took over as CEO in November, he'd led the printer business to a streak of revenue gains after even his bosses had left it for dead. But last year also saw HP's share price fall by a third from a February high. The company announced thousands of employee layoffs as it struggled to compete with cheaper ink cartridges from Asia. That public floundering has left HP freshly vulnerable to activist investors such as Icahn, who owns 11% of Xerox and 4% of HP.

Icahn snarked in December that HP appears in danger of following "the road to the graveyard." For decades, HP and Xerox ranked among the most powerful forces of invention in Silicon Valley. Now they're arguing over who has the superior vision to acquire competitors, jettison workers, and jealously guard the tech specs of their aging intellectual property. It's unclear whether either company's leaders will be able to repeat the miracle Lores's team managed a few years back. Consumer and office printers still churn out an estimated 3.2 trillion pages a year, according to market researcher IDC, but Toni Sacconaghi, a tech analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, warned in a client note that the "traditional printing and copying business is slowly collapsing." Recalling the image that critics deployed in 2002, when HP tried to acquire its way out of trouble in the PC business by buying Compaq, Sacconaghi wondered if the company is facing another deal that looks an awful lot like "two garbage trucks colliding."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: General Motors is resurrecting the Hummer, best known as a gas-guzzling, military-style SUV, as an all-electric "super truck" with massive horsepower, acceleration and torque. The Detroit automaker confirmed the plans Thursday and released three online teaser videos for the "GMC Hummer EV" pickup ahead of a 30-second Super Bowl ad for the vehicle featuring NBA star LeBron James. The spot is scheduled to air during the second quarter of Sunday's game.

The Hummer EV pickup, according to GM, will feature 1,000 horsepower; 0 to 60 mph acceleration of three seconds; and 11,500 pound feet of torque. It didn't announce a price. The Hummer EV pickup is expected to go into production in the fall of 2021 at a plant in Detroit, followed by sales starting toward the end of the year. The teaser videos detail the specifications and preview the front of the pickup, which features a new iteration of Hummer's well-known slotted grille with "HUMMER" backlit across the front of the truck.

A Twitter user's complaint last week in which he produces photo evidence of HP warning him that his ink cartridges would be disabled until he starts paying for HP Instant Ink monthly subscription service has gone viral on the social media.

Ryan Sullivan, the user who made the complaint, said he only discovered the warning after cancelling a random HP subscription -- which charged him $4.99 a month -- after "over a year" of the billing cycle. "Cartridge cannot be used until printer is enrolled in HP Instant Ink," Sullivan was informed by an error message.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Jeffrey Katzenberg insists that his new video-streaming service Quibi isn't competing against Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, or any of the other streaming services that have launched or are launching soon. Katzenberg and Quibi CEO Meg Whitman, who is best known as the CEO of HP and eBay, are publicly announcing Quibi at CES -- but not quite unveiling it -- after having raised $1 billion on the promise of a roster of Hollywood stars and supposedly revolutionary video-streaming technology that delivers portrait and landscape video at the same time. Everything on Quibi is designed for viewing on a phone, on the go, in 10 minutes or less. These chunks of video are called "quick bites" -- hence, "Quibi."

When Quibi arrives on April 6th of this year, it'll cost $5 a month for an ad-supported version or $8 a month for an ad-free experience. Katzenberg and Whitman formulated this idea nearly two years ago and have been relentlessly signing up the biggest names in Hollywood to be a part of it. And while there have been bumps along the road, including a raft of executive departures, everyone working with Quibi at CES talks about it as though it has already created the future of video -- like it already has millions of users. Training Day director Antoine Fuqua, who is executive producing a show called #Freerayshawn, says Quibi, before it has even launched, has created a "new language of cinema." It's like that.

China has ordered that all foreign computer equipment and software be removed from government offices and public institutions within three years, the Financial Times reports. hackingbear writes: The government directive is likely to be a blow to US multinational companies like HP, Dell and Microsoft and mirrors attempts by Washington to limit the use of Chinese technology, as the trade war between the countries turns into a tech cold war. The Trump administration banned US companies from doing business with Chinese Chinese telecommunications company Huawei earlier this year and in May, Google, Intel and Qualcomm announced they would freeze cooperation with Huawei. By excluding China from western know-how, the Trump administration has made it clear that the real battle is about which of the two economic superpowers has the technological edge for the next two decades. This is the first known public directive from Beijing setting specific targets limiting China's use of foreign technology, though it is part a wider move within China to increase its reliance on domestic technology.

New submitter AllHail writes: HPE SAS solid state drives are affected by a firmware problem which causes these drives to stop working after 32768 power-on hours (3 years and 9 months). If these drives are not flashed with updated firmware before the failure, the drives and the data on them become unrecoverable at that time. If several of these drives are installed and operated together in a RAID, they are going to fail almost simultaneously. Patch or assume the risk of failure, says Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Taiwan's MediaTek has announced a partnership with U.S. chipmaking giant Intel to supply future Intel-powered PCs with fifth-generation networking modems from the start of 2021. From a report: The agreement marks a small step toward a big change in the way computing is done, as 5G promises to revolutionize both the speed and availability of cellular networks, creating dense coverage with bandwidth comparable to current Wi-Fi standards and beyond. Mobile computers stand to benefit greatly from this upgrade, and U.S. PC vendors Dell and HP have both been named by MediaTek among the likely first customers for the 5G-enabled, Intel-powered laptops that are to come. In July, Intel agreed to sell its cellular modem business to Apple for $1 billion, which the Cupertino, California company will use to speed up and improve design efforts around a 5G chip for its 2020 iPhones.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Xerox is considering making a cash-and-stock offer for HP (Source paywalled; alternative source), which has a market value of about $27 billion. From the report: There is no guarantee Xerox will follow through with an offer or that one would succeed. HP, which installed a new chief executive just last week, is more than three times the size of Xerox and any bid would be at a premium to its current stock price, the people said. Working in Xerox's favor: It expects a $2.3 billion windfall from a deal to sell stakes in joint ventures with Fujifilm Holdings Corp., which was announced Tuesday along with the dismissal of a $1 billion-plus lawsuit filed against Xerox by the Japanese technology company. Xerox has also received an informal funding commitment from a major bank, known as a "highly confident letter," the people said.

A deal would join two household names with storied pasts that have been scrambling to retool their businesses as the need for printed documents declines. Both companies are in cost-cutting mode and a union could afford new opportunities to shed expenses -- to the tune of more than $2 billion, the people said.

Microsoft today announced a new initiative to combat threats specifically targeted at the firmware level and data stored in memory: Secured-core PCs. From a report: Microsoft partnered with chip and computer makers to apply "security best practices of isolation and minimal trust to the firmware layer, or the device core, that underpins the Windows operating system." Secured-core PCs will be available from Dell, Dynabook, HP, Lenovo, Panasonic, and Surface. Microsoft hasn't released a full list of Secured-core PCs, but two examples include HP's Elite Dragonfly and Microsoft's Surface Pro X.

Firmware is used to initialize the hardware and other software on the device. The firmware layer runs underneath the OS, where it has more access and privilege than the hypervisor and kernel. Firmware is thus emerging as a top target for attackers since the malicious code can be hard to detect and difficult to remove, persisting even with an OS reinstall or a hard drive replacement. Microsoft points to the National Vulnerability Database, which shows the number of discovered firmware vulnerabilities growing each year. As such, Secured-core PCs are designed for industries like financial services, government, and healthcare. They are also meant for workers who handle highly sensitive IP, customer, or personal data that poses higher-value targets for nationstate attackers.

Microsoft today announced Windows 10X, a new flavor of Windows 10 designed for dual-screen PCs. Windows 10X will power dual-screen PCs from Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and of course Microsoft. From a report: But we won't see them until holiday 2020. Microsoft teased the Surface Neo running Windows 10X at its event today. Lenovo unveiled what it called "the world's first foldable PC" earlier this year. Windows 10X will support devices that have either two different panels with a hinge or one foldable piece of glass. The only requirement is that the device's two screens must each measure more than 9 inches diagonally. Windows 10X devices available next year will come with varying screen sizes, but the smallest will be 9 inches. Dual-screen PCs aside, Microsoft has been working to modularize Windows 10 for years. After all, the company's HoloLens, Surface Hub, and Xbox One all run a form of Windows 10. Adding support for the dual-screen PC form factor into Windows 10 has also been a multi-year journey. Further reading: Microsoft Announces the Surface Duo, a Dual-Screen Android Phone.

Consumer VPN specialist ExpressVPN has announced a tie up with HP to have its software pre-installed on the company's consumer PCs. From a report: As part of the deal selected machines will come with ExpressVPN's Windows app pre-installed to help protect customers' privacy and security on public Wi-Fi networks. HP consumer customers will also receive an exclusive free 30-day trial of the VPN service. The Spectre x360 13 will be the first of HP's consumer PCs to have ExpressVPN pre-installed, so customers can encrypt network data and secure their internet browsing experience with a single click.

Robert Heaton: Last week my in-laws politely but firmly asked me to set up their new HP printer. I protested that I'm completely clueless about that sort of thing, despite my tax-return-job-title of "software engineer." Still remonstrating, I was gently bundled into their study with an instruction pamphlet, a cup of tea, a promise to unlock the door once I'd printed everyone's passport forms, and a warning not to try the window because the roof tiles are very loose. At first the setup process was so simple that even a computer programmer could do it. But then, after I had finished removing pieces of cardboard and blue tape from the various drawers of the machine, I noticed that the final step required the downloading of an app of some sort onto a phone or computer. This set off my crapware detector.

[...] It was a way to try and get people to sign up for expensive ink subscriptions and/or hand over their email addresses, plus something even more nefarious that we'll talk about shortly (there were also some instructions for how to download a printer driver tacked onto the end). This was a shame, but not unexpected. I'm sure that the HP ink department is saddled with aggressive sales quotas, and no doubt the only way to hit them is to ruthlessly exploit people who don't know that third-party cartridges are just as good as HP's and are much cheaper. Fortunately, the careful user can still emerge unscathed from this phase of the setup process by gingerly navigating the UI patterns that presumably do fool some people who aren't paying attention.

Exactly 28 years ago today, a 21-year-old student named Linus Torvalds made a fateful announcement on the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix.

i-Programmer commemorates today's anniversary with some interesting trivia: Back in 1991 the fledgling operating system didn't have a name, according to Joey Sneddon's 27 Interesting Facts about Linux:

Linux very nearly wasn't called Linux! Linus wanted to call his "hobby" project "FreaX" (a combination of "free", "freak" and "Unix"). Thankfully, he was persuaded otherwise by the owner of the server hosting his early code, who happened to prefer the name "Linux" (a combination of "Linus" and "Unix").

One fact I had been unaware of is that the original version of Linux wasn't open source software. It was free but was distributed with a license forbidding commercial use or redistribution. However, for version 0.12, released in 1992, the GPL was adopted making the code freely available.
Android Authority describes the rest of the revolution: Torvalds announced to the internet that he was working on a project he said was "just a hobby, won't be big and professional." Less than one month later, Torvalds released the Linux kernel to the public. The world hasn't been the same since...

To commemorate the nearly 30 years that Linux has been available, we compiled a shortlist of ways Linux has fundamentally changed our lives.

- Linux-based operating systems are the number-one choice for servers around the world... As of 2015, web analytics and market share company W3Cook estimated that as many as 96.4% of all servers ran Linux or one of its derivatives. No matter the exact number, it's safe to say that the kernel nearly powers the entire web...

- In Oct. 2003, a team of developers forked Android from Linux to run on digital cameras. Nearly 16 years later, it's the single most popular operating system in the world, running on more than 2 billion devices. Even Chrome OS, Android TV, and Wear OS are all forked from Linux. Google isn't the only one to do this either. Samsung's own in-house operating system, Tizen, is forked from Linux as well, and it's is even backed by The Linux Foundation.

- Linux has even changed how we study the universe at large. For similar reasons cars and supercomputers use Linux, NASA uses it for most of the computers aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts use these computers to carry out research and perform tasks related to their assignments. But NASA isn't the only galaxy studying organization using Linux. The privately-owned SpaceX also uses Linux for many of its projects. In 2017, SpaceX sent a Linux-powered supercomputer developed by HP to space and, according to an AMA on Reddit, even the Dragon and Falcon 9 run Linux.
"Without it," the article concludes, "there would be no science or social human development, and we would all still be cave-people."

Longtime HP veteran Enrique Lores, who runs the $20 billion printer business, is succeeding Dion Weisler effective November 1. Weisler, who was named CEO in late 2014 after the computing behemoth was split into two companies, is returning to Australia for a "family health matter." He will remain on the company's board. MarketWatch reports: Lores, a native of Spain who started his 30-year career as an intern, vowed to "simplify" and "evolve" the company's business model during a conference call with analysts following the earnings release. The executive change comes amid wrenching changes -- and turmoil -- in the PC market, raising the question of where the market is headed for the rest of the year.

Intel's new generation of processors is nigh upon us, and it promises to be a doozy in several respects. VentureBeat: The Santa Clara chipmaker today launched 11 new 10-nanometer 10th Gen Intel Core processors (code-named Ice Lake) designed for slim laptops, 2-in-1s, and other high-end mobile form factors. In addition to capable new integrated graphics and enhanced connectivity courtesy Wi-Fi 6 and Thunderbolt 3, the chips feature tweaks intended to accelerate task-specific workloads like AI inference and photo editing, as well as gaming. Intel expects the first 35 or so systems sporting Ice Lake-U and Ice Lake-Y chips to ship for the holiday season. Several that passed the chipmaker's Project Athena certification were previewed at Computex in Taiwan, including the Acer Swift 5, Dell XPS 13-inch 2-in 1, HP Envy 13, and Lenovo S940.

No matter which processor in the 10th Gen portfolio your future PC sports, its four cores (eight logical cores) paired with a 6MB or 8MB cache will support up to 32 GB of LP4/x-3733 (or up to 64GB of DDR4-3200), and they'll sip 9W, 15W, or 28W of power while clocking up to 4.1GHz at maximum Turbo Boost frequency. Each chip has 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes for external use, and their memory controllers allow for idle power states for less intensive tasks. With respect to AI and machine learning, every laptop-bound 10th Gen processor -- whether Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 -- boasts Sunny Cove cores with Intel AVX-512-Deep Learning Boost, a new instruction set that speeds up automatic image enhancements, photo indexing, media postprocessing, and other AI-driven tasks.

The invasion exploited weaknesses in those companies, their customers, and the Western system of technological defense, Reuters reported on Wednesday. From the report: Hacked by suspected Chinese cyber spies five times from 2014 to 2017, security staff at Swedish telecoms equipment giant Ericsson had taken to naming their response efforts after different types of wine. Pinot Noir began in September 2016. After successfully repelling a wave of attacks a year earlier, Ericsson discovered the intruders were back. And this time, the company's cybersecurity team could see exactly how they got in: through a connection to information-technology services supplier Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Teams of hackers connected to the Chinese Ministry of State Security had penetrated HPE's cloud computing service and used it as a launchpad to attack customers, plundering reams of corporate and government secrets for years in what U.S. prosecutors say was an effort to boost Chinese economic interests.

The hacking campaign, known as "Cloud Hopper," was the subject of a U.S. indictment in December that accused two Chinese nationals of identity theft and fraud. Prosecutors described an elaborate operation that victimized multiple Western companies but stopped short of naming them. A Reuters report at the time identified two: Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM. Yet the campaign ensnared at least six more major technology firms, touching five of the world's 10 biggest tech service providers. Also compromised by Cloud Hopper, Reuters has found: Fujitsu, Tata Consultancy Services, NTT Data, Dimension Data, Computer Sciences Corporation and DXC Technology. HPE spun-off its services arm in a merger with Computer Sciences Corporation in 2017 to create DXC.

Dell, HP, Microsoft and Intel have opposed U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to include laptop computers and tablets among the Chinese goods targeted for tariffs. From a report: Dell, HP and Microsoft, which together account for 52% of the notebooks and detachable tablets sold in the United States, said the proposed tariffs would increase the cost of laptops in the country. The move would hurt consumers and the industry, and would not address the Chinese trade practices that the Trump administration's office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) seeks to remedy, the four companies said in a joint statement posted online. [...] In a separate statement, Microsoft, along with video game makers Nintendo of America and Sony Interactive Entertainment said the tariffs on video game consoles could stifle innovation, hurt consumers and put thousands of jobs at risk.

Slashdot reader Meg Whitman shares a report from The Register: A "highly skilled IT professional" has lost his fight to be paid his unused vacation days as well as a non-trivial bonus, after a judge stuck to a law he admitted was outdated. Matthew White joined Hewlett-Packard in 2013 and left in July 2015, just months before the company split into HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). After quitting, he was stunned when the U.S. mega-corp, citing HPE's new policies, refused to hand over extra pay he felt was contractually due. Hewlett-Packard had enticed White with a sweet contract that offered a signing bonus, base salary, regular bonuses, and a benefits program. But after he quit, he was left without his unused vacation pay and a $10,000 bonus he felt he was entitled to. [...]

HPE decided that, under the law, White could only get hold of the relevant policies if he turned up, in person, to the company's official human resources headquarters -- which is on the other side of America in California, roughly 2,500 miles away. White felt this was ridiculous given that HP, sorry, HPE is not only a massive organization with HR people all over the United States, but that it was a technology company with countless employees working across the world, often at home, and that the policies are likely readily available in an internal cloud. The judge had some sympathy for that view. "This part of the statute may indeed need reworking for today's world where cloud-based digital records are replacing physical file folders located in a physical location, where employees work at home -- sometimes remotely from any head office or regional office -- and where worldwide companies like HP assign HP personnel for an entire country or region, or even outsource various HP responsibilities." Yet the judge still decided against the techie.

Spielberg's After Dark horror series will only be able to be streamed when it's dark outside. It'll be available exclusively on Quibi (short for "Quick Bites"), a new streaming platform dedicated to short-form video, created by former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and former HP CEO Meg Whitman. Variety reports: Spielberg had an unusual request however: He wanted viewers to only be able to watch the program after midnight. Given that phones can track where it is at the moment -- and keep tabs on when the sun rises and sets in its area -- Katzenberg and Whitman challenged their engineers to come up with an idea for how to view the show when it's spooky out. The result: A clock will appear on phones, ticking down until sun sets in wherever that user is, until it's completely gone. Then the clock starts ticking again to when the sun comes back up -- and the show will disappear until the next night. According to the report, Quibi is planning for an April 2020 launch, and is "hoping to trigger a 'third generation of film narrative,' following movies and TV."

"At launch, Quibi will offer a two-week free trial period, and have eight 'super premium' productions (which Katzenberg still called 'movies') ready to view," reports Variety. "After that, there will be 26 more 'lighthouse' (read: signature projects) productions that will roll out, every other Monday, for the first year."

From a report: Don't trust everything you see on LinkedIn. We created a fake LinkedIn profile with a fake job at a real company. Our fake profile garnered the attention of a Google recruiter and gained over 170 connections and 100 skill endorsements. Everyone is talking about fake accounts on Facebook and fake followers on Twitter. LinkedIn hasn't been part of the conversation, but Microsoft's social network also has a big problem. We created a fake profile and connected it to a real company. Sadly, it isn't hard. LinkedIn doesn't ask for any proof or confirmation of anything. Instead, LinkedIn runs on a sort of honor system.

You can say you work for a large company and give yourself an impressive job title. It worked for us. Our fake profile (John) "works for HP" as an Innovation Technologist. You may think that's a job title we made up on the spot, but it's a real position we found in HP's job listings. We also gave John previous jobs at Exabeam and Salesforce to round out his resume. You might imagine that HP or someone else would notice and stop us. But that's not how it works. LinkedIn doesn't notify companies about new employee profiles. We didn't steal anyone's identity or even use a real photo for our fake profile. See that photo of John? That's not a stock photo of a real person. Instead, the image came from thispersondoesnotexist.com. Simply put, it's a fake photo of a non-existent person generated by a computer algorithm.