Wi-Fi gets quicker with 802.11ax, but buying early might offer few advantages By Glenn Fleishman

Wi-Fi networking is poised for a major update: The transition from 802.11ac to 802.11ax promises a modern networking hub that can cope with the burgeoning number and diversity of wireless devices that need access to your broadband connection.

At the dawn of the modern smartphone era in 2007, even a highly unplugged home might have only a handful of hardware connecting to its wireless router. Now—if you use tablets, smart-home devices, media streamers, smart TVs, gaming gear and security cameras—you could have 20, 30, or many more. And that number won’t get smaller in the future.

With 802.11ax, the IEEE engineering group that drives standards like wireless local area networking (WLAN) has pushed hard in several directions to make these complicated environments work. There are a lot of benefits for dense corporate networks that need massive throughput and could have tens of thousands of roaming and fixed Wi-Fi clients, but there’s no shortage of upsides for home users or small offices, especially when it comes to video streaming and file transfers.

[ Further reading: The best smart locks and deadbolts ]

Intel

802.11ax enables large numbers of clients on a home Wi-Fi network to operate simultaneously without degrading video-streaming and other devices that require lots of bandwidth.

Corporations also control the wireless networks in their buildings and throughout their campuses, while home users and small businesses can face several to dozens of networks within radio earshot.

Several techniques in 802.11ax will reduce the effects of interference and increase throughput in crowded urban and suburban environments, reducing typical frustrations that are hard to troubleshoot or fix.

The standard hasn’t been completed yet, but manufacturers are jumping the gun as they have with every new flavor of Wi-Fi for more 15 years. As a result, some equipment could be on the market as early as June, and more is coming later in the year. But the advantages of being an early adopter might pale in favor of waiting for a fully baked version that’s stable and is supported by the client adapters onboard phones, laptops, and other gear.

Table of Contents

• How 802.11ax makes gains

How 802.11ax makes gains

To explain the advantages of 802.11ax, we must drill down briefly to review how Wi-Fi works. The airwaves are regulated nearly everywhere in the world, and in the U.S. and in most countries, two chunks of frequencies are allotted to uses compatible with Wi-Fi: the 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) band and the 5GHz band. These bands are further divided into channels that have a set starting and ending frequency.

Senders and receivers, like a Wi-Fi router and laptop, agree to use the same channel to communicate back and forth, and dozens (or even hundreds) of devices can use the same channel at the same time to relay data via an access point. In cities and suburbs, dozens to hundreds of networks might also be contending for the same channel in relatively close proximity.

Way back in 1999, the 802.11a standard for 5GHz and 802.11b for 2.4GHz started the WLAN revolution, offering data rates of 54- and 11Mbps, respectively. These rates were always the maximum possible and included network overhead, so devices saw often 40- to 90-percent less throughput.

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Wi-Fi advanced through 802.11g (2.4GHz), 802.11n (2.4GHz and 5GHz), and two releases of 802.11ac (5GHz) Wave 1 and Wave 2. The 802.11ax standard improves performance in both spectrum bands, and will deliver potentially several gigabits per second of throughput to dozens of devices at once on a single channel. That’s incredibly helpful if you’re streaming compressed HD and 4K HDR video or transferring multi-gigabyte files around a network. An increasing number of people worldwide have 100Mbps to 1Gbps broadband connections, which can be constrained by slower Wi-Fi networks.

D-Link

D-Link's AX6000 will be one of the first 802.11ax routers to hit the market.

Each successive update to Wi-Fi has pushed data rates higher, but 802.11ax offers a huge boost by adding several varied techniques, each of which adds a unique advantage. Taken together, the maximum raw data rate across an 802.11ax base station (e.g., a Wi-Fi router) could be a whopping 14Gbps compared to just 3.5Gbps for the best similarly configured 802.11ac router. In practice, you will never see that maximum potential speed, but 802.11ax is still poised to offer multiple times the rates of 802.11ac, and will better meet solid requirements for video with many people streaming or transferring files at once.

Here’s a top-level rundown of how 802.11ax pulls this off:

Denser data encoding 

Wi-Fi encodes data into radio waves, and there are calculable limits to how much data can be carried at a given frequency. WLAN standards, however, are still working toward that upper maximum. Over time, the chips that process signals have become more powerful, allowing more efficient cramming of data into the same space, especially over very short distances between a base station and a receiving device, typically in the same room and with line of sight, which is perfect for video streaming.

National Instruments

OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) allows mingling data for different receiving devices across transmissions, like packing a truck full by combining palettes of boxes intended for different recipients.

802.11ac started down this path, allowing encodings with 33 percent more data than 802.11n; 802.11ax bumps that up another 25 percent. As an analogy, consider egg cartons made up of squares with an inset circle for eggs, arranged in rows and columns. Now, replace the square with a hexagonal grid with less cardboard between each egg. That might result in more broken eggs, just at these densely packed wireless signals can suffer some loss via error, but you typically wind up with many more eggs.

Adding 2.4GHz back into the mix

The 2.4GHz band is often given shorter shrift, because it’s crowded full of other so-called unlicensed uses that rely on wireless data—like baby monitors, wireless doorbells, cordless phones, and the like—that don’t play well with high-speed Wi-Fi networks. Many of those non-Wi-Fi uses have shifted to other bands or now rely on Wi-Fi. 802.11ax is the first standard in more than a decade that improves performance in 2.4GHz, which opens up as many as gigabits per second more data while also taking advantage of that band’s long wavelengths compared to 5GHz: longer wavelengths better penetrate solids objects, like walls, floors, and furniture.

This is especially useful for mesh networks, in which current mesh nodes typically have two radios, one for 2.4GHz and one for 5GHz, one of which is used to communicate among nodes. With much higher data rates on the better-penetrating 2.4GHz band, mesh networking with 802.11ax will result in better throughput across a whole network.

Talking and listening to multiple devices at once

The 802.11n standard added a spatial multiplexing technology known as MIMO (multiple in, multiple out). MIMO is a means of sending multiple streams of data across different physical paths, like playing billiards with radio waves. This required multiple sending and receiving antennas and the equivalent of additional radios for each stream. But many devices, especially small mobile and smart-home units, didn’t have multiple radios. A wireless router with MIMO thus wastes much of its potential bandwidth at any given time when it’s constrained to a single stream.

National Instruments

MU-MIMO allows Wi-Fi routers and access points to communicate simultaneously with multiple devices, reducing wasted parts of transmissions.

Starting with 802.11ac, routers gained the ability to talk simultaneously with different devices at the same time (multiple-user or MU-MIMO), improving efficiency. In 802.11ax, client devices can now also respond simultaneously. That’s extremely helpful for streaming media players, allowing more reliable audio and video playback to first pass from the player to the router, and then from the router to your viewing or listening device (e.g., your smart TV, media streamer, smartphone, or digital audio player). 802.11ax also doubles the number of possible streams from four to eight, but that feature is likely to be seen only on expensive enterprise equipment, not home devices.

Subchannels

Borrowing a trick from 4G LTE and a few earlier standards, 802.11ax adds a way to break a Wi-Fi channel down into as many as a couple thousand tightly spaced “subcarriers” or subchannels. Each of these subchannels can carry various combined payloads of data for different devices, and interference or noise in one subchannel is isolated from the rest, reducing the need to retransmit or slow down the entire conversation to a lower data rate that can be received clearly. (This tech is called Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access or OFDMA.)

Qualcomm

You could think of data traveling over your Wi-Fi network as if it were the cargo carried by big rigs. In some of the earlier Wi-Fi standards, each truck could carry only one type of cargo, even if the truck was only partially full.

You might think of this as the difference between having one giant truck with a single large packing container inside occupying an entire highway, and many smaller trucks with very thin dividers between lanes carrying a variety of boxes traveling on the same highway. Analysts and manufacturers say that in the right circumstances, OFDMA could allow four times the throughput as with current networks.

Qualcomm

Continuing with the big-rig analogy above, the 802.11ax standard allows each big rig to carry different types of cargo so that all of its capacity can be utilized

Better discrimination of other networks

In many cities and suburbs, dozens to hundreds of Wi-Fi networks overlap. 802.11ax includes a technique that will let the standard discriminate between the network you’re on and weakly received signals from other networks, which in turn allows greater throughput.

A host of smaller technical improvements

While the elements above might seem technical enough, a number of other small improvements add up, including letting 802.11ax break up data for a single destination into different sized chunks to fit into available slots, using longer runs of encoded data, and better focusing energy for “beamforming” to target receiving devices more exactly. 802.11ax is also better at avoiding conflicts where devices talk over one another, called contention.

Improved client battery performance

Here’s one more bonus that’s not related to speed: Various mobile-targeted improvements, including one that tells network client devices that put their Wi-Fi radios to sleep to conserve power when exactly to wake them up. This could dramatically reduce Wi-Fi-related power consumption, extending battery life.

The risks for early adopters

While the standard is still under development at the IEEE task group, some manufacturers are prepping for the near-term release of Wi-Fi routers that will be labeled 802.11ax, even though they’re using a preliminary version of the spec as interpreted by a single manufacturer or chipmaker. D-Link and Asus announced routers at CES in January, and as chipmakers get close to finalizing 802.11ax chipsets, we’ll see more manufacturers start to make their plans.

Asus

Asus intends to be early to the 802.11ax router market with its RT-AX88U Wi-Fi router.

Buying early could come with a cost. With the last few rounds of standards, changes were significant but constrained, and few routers had issues with obtaining updates to bring them into full compliance. 802.11ax, however, has so many substantive improvements and differences that it’s possible early routers won’t be as robust and compliant as ones created using later generations of chips.

Manufacturers and chipmakers sit on the IEEE committee making decisions and are part of the Wi-Fi Alliance that certifies products as interoperable, but it’s still a risk.

Few of 802.11ax’s advantages can accrue without new client adapters in phones, tablets, computers, and other devices, and those always come more slowly as new generations of equipment are introduced. While 2019 will likely be the year that 802.11ax starts to appear in hundreds of millions of new devices, it will still easily be two or three years before you have enough new equipment to take full advantage of the new technology.

Backward compatibility is always a concern for new generations of hardware, but the history of Wi-Fi has largely encompassed all previous standards without too much compromise. Routers that declare themselves as supporting 802.11ax will also seamlessly handle every previous 802.11 standard, typically back to 802.11g, the first version to support more modern network security methods. With few exceptions, you can keep using all the devices you used in the past.

You won’t need to configure anything special to enable backwards compatibility, although some routers may have modes you can turn on that disable older forms of Wi-Fi. Compatibility comes with an overhead cost, and turning off older modes can boost performance somewhat.

This story, "Wi-Fi gets quicker with 802.11ax, but buying early might offer few advantages" was originally published by PCWorld.

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13-inch MacBook Pro battery replacement program FAQ: What it is and how to use it By Michael Simon

It’s been a rough year for Apple’s batteries. After announcing a program to replace batteries in the iPhone 6 and 7 earlier this year, Apple has now launched a program to swap them out in the 13-inch non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro (affectionately known as the “MacBook Pro ESC” due to the presence of actual function keys). So if you have a laptop that’s been dying out mid-way through your day or just noticed some performance oddities, you might be able to get your battery replaced with a new one. Here’s everything you need to know about the new program:

Table of Contents

• What’s the reason for the program?
• That sounds bad. Is my laptop at risk?
• What models are included?
• How do I know if my MacBook is eligible?
• How do I find my serial number?

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What’s the reason for the program?

Apple has said that a component inside “a limited number” of 13-inch MacBook Pro units could fail, “causing the built-in battery to expand.” Apple did not specify which component was faulty or how it affects the battery.

That sounds bad. Is my laptop at risk?

Nope. While expanding batteries generally pose of risk of fire or explosion, Apple assures that this isn’t a safety issue.

What models are included?

A pretty small amount actually. First, only non-Touch Bar models manufactured between October 2016 and October 2017 are affected. And among that group, only some of the units manufactured during that time are affected by the issue.

How do I know if my MacBook is eligible?

You can check your serial number on Apple’s site here.

How do I find my serial number?

Click on the Apple logo at the top left of the menu bar and go to About this Mac. You’ll see your serial number in the window that appears. From there, you can copy it and paste it into the search bar on the support page.

IDG

You can find your MacBook Pro’s serial number in the About This Mac dialoge box. Don’t worry, yours will be legible.

OK, my MacBook is one of the affected units. Now what?

You’ll need to take it in far repair in one of three ways:

• Make an appointment at an Apple Store.
• Make an appointment at an Apple Authorized Service Provider. You can find a list of service providers in your area on Apple’s support site.
• Mail your MacBook to the Apple Repair Center.

As always, make sure to back up your data before sending your MacBook in for repairs.

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How long will it take?

Since the program is limited, wait times shouldn’t be nearly as long as they are with some iPhone 6 models. Apple estimates service time is 3 to 5 days, though it could be longer depending on the availability of batteries.

How much will it cost?

Nothing. However, Apple notes that if there is prior damage to your MacBook that “impairs the replacement of the battery,” the service technician may need to fix that problem first, resulting in a possible charge.

Will my warranty be extended?

Unfortunately, no.

How much time do I have to get it fixed?

Apple hasn’t put a specific expiration date on the program, but it does say that the program covers affected MacBook Pro models for five years after the first retail sale of the unit. So that means Apple will replace batteries until sometime in 2022.

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QLED vs. OLED TV: Similar names, totally different technologies By Gabriella Didio, Komando.com

Wondering which TV is right for you? While LG’s OLED and Samsung’s QLED may sound very similar, there are major differences at the core level.

OLED, which stands for “organic light emitting diodes,” is the top choice for most people. Its technology replaced the need for backlights - which are the lights that shine behind the LCD screen to illuminate them. With OLED, the LED bulbs emit light that creates the picture.

On the other hand, QLED stands for “Quantum Dot LED,” and can be compared to an LCD TV because it uses a backlight. When light reflects onto the quantum dots, they emit light. They also produce a more undiluted light than LEDs. TV experts may roll their eyes at the use of a backlight. But, if you’re in the market for a new TV, here’s what both of them have to offer.

Price

As new technologies hit the marketplace, they are priced at a premium. In time, these electronics become more accessible to the public and the price begins to drop. Today, OLED TVs are pricey but cheaper than when they first debuted. You can purchase an LG 55-inch 2017 OLED B7 and C7 for under $2,000. If you are after a steal, the QLED is the friendlier option for your wallet.

Image Quality

When TV shopping, most of us focus on two things: image quality and the black levels or brightness. The OLED outperforms the QLED because it delivers images with a deeper black tone. The QLED advertises that it has stronger colors than the OLED on screen. While the color may be brighter, the drawback is that when critics tested the Samsung Q7 QLED - especially with HDR material- it underperformed OLED.

Display

OLED and QLED TVs come with added features that can enhance your viewing experience. The LG OLED has Dolby Atmos and DTS Audio. These features create the feeling of surround sound. Four types of high dynamic range are offered: Technicolor, HLG, Dolby vision and HDR 10. And the Alpha 9 Processor creates high-quality images with less movement when the images are not moving.
Samsung QLED features include Ambient mode, which disguises large displays and blends seamlessly into the wall behind it. Also, rather than having the HDMI and USB Ports built into the TV itself, Samsung keeps them in a separate box and then they are connected to the TV through a slim chord. This design element is great for those who want a cleaner and sleeker look to their TV. HDR10+ and HDR Elite create a good picture quality.

Size and Viewing Angle

The OLED can be purchased with a screen size of up to 88 inches. The LCD screen operates with less limitation. So, you can find a wider array of screen sizes with the QLED. The QLED offers screens of up to 100 inches. But, the more aesthetic-centric user will love the thin size of the OLED TV. It’s also lighter and uses less power than the QLED.

The viewing angle refers to how the picture quality remains when you watch the TV from another spot in the room. LG is tough to beat because its IPS Panel has an accurate viewing angle that keeps its picture quality and color.

You can capture the best picture when you sit directly in front of the QLED. But, Samsung has added an updated panel design and anti-reflexive coating to its top of the line models. These two features make up for the dwindled richness and difference in color.

When purchasing your new TV keep these tips in mind, and check back for updates.

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Atlanta spent at least $2.6 million on ransomware recovery By Zack Whittaker for Zero Day

Atlanta spent more than $2.6 million on recovery efforts stemming from a ransomware attack, which crippled a sizable part of the city's online services.

The city was hit by the notorious SamSam ransomware, which exploits a deserialization vulnerability in Java-based servers. The ransom was set at around $55,000 worth of bitcoin, a digital cryptocurrency that in recent weeks has wildy fluctated in price.

But it's understood that the ransom was never paid -- because the portal used to pay the ransom (even if the city wanted to) was pulled offline by the ransomware attacker.

According to newly published emergency procurement figures, the city spent around 50 times that amount in response to the cyberattack.

Between March 22 and April 2, the city spent $2,667,328 in incident response, recovery, and crisis management. (Hat tip to Ryan Naraine for tweeting out the link.)

Among the costs, Atlanta spent $650,000 on hiring local security firm Secureworks for emergency incident repsonse services, and an additional $600,000 on advisory services from Ernst & Young for cyber incident response.

The city also spent $50,000 to hire Edelman, a public relations firm specializing in crisis response management -- in other words, trying to make things look less bad than they actually are.

It's not known if additional, unreported costs were involved in the ransomware clean-up.

When reached, a spokesperson for the city did not immediately respond to several questions we had. If that changes, we'll update.

Last month we reported that Atlanta narrowly missed out falling victim to another cyberattack in 2016, when the now-infamous WannaCry ransomware attack spread across the globe.

Speaking to ZDNet at the time, Jake Williams, founder of cybersecurity firm Rendition Infosec, said that the city's networks were left unpatched for weeks -- making them vulnerable to ransomware attacks.

He found that at least five internet-facing city servers were infected with the NSA-developed DoublePulsar backdoor in late April to early May 2017. That was more than a month after Microsoft released critical patches for the exploits and urged users to install.

Based on his data, he said that the city "had a substandard security posture" at the time.

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7 awesome things you forgot your Mac could do by Francis Navarro, Komando.com

Do you own a Mac computer? You probably know that Apple's feature set for its macOS always grows steadily with every update, adding functions and options that make our computing lives so much more convenient and efficient.

As such, there are features that you may have missed but could make a big difference in your everyday tasks. From text messages and printer sharing to sending files instantly, there's probably that little essential option that you haven't used but it's there all along. You just need to look at the right place!

Here are seven great features that you may or may not know that your Mac can do.

1. Send and receive texts on your Mac

Apple's iMessage has long allowed you to message other iPhone users from the iMessage app on your Mac but you can also send and receive any kind of SMS text messages right from your Mac. So when friends text you, regardless of what brand of phone they are using, you can now read and reply from your Mac as well as your iPhone.

All the messages that appear on your iPhone now show up on your Mac, too, so your conversation is up to date on all your devices. You can also start an SMS or iMessage conversation on your Mac just by clicking a phone number in Safari, Contacts, Calendar, or Spotlight. Group chats are now enabled, as well. Click Details to name a group chat, add or remove someone, and see friends who’ve shared their location on a map.

Just sign into your Mac with the same iMessage account that also has your phone number linked then turn on Text Message Forwarding for your Mac under Settings >> Messages on your iPhone.

2. Use Split Screen view

Sometimes one screen just isn't enough, but you don't have to resort to shrinking the size of your windows to display two applications on your screen at once.

Here's a quick way you can try to manage multiple windows on your Mac. This is great for juggling two tasks at the same time.

Left-click on the window's green maximize button (on the upper-left hand side), hold it, drag it either to the left or the right of your screen then pick another window to pair it with for the perfect split screen view, with both windows sitting side by side.

3. Take screenshots instantly

Do you need a quick snapshot of just about anything on your Mac's screen? Do it with these handy shortcuts!

To take a screenshot of your entire screen, just press Shift, Command and the number 3 at the same time.

To capture a specific area of the screen, press Shift, Command and the number 4 and a cursor will appear. Just left-click and drag that cursor over the area you want to screenshot.

To capture a specific window, press Shift, Command and the number 4 then hit your spacebar. A camera icon will appear then simply left click on the window you want to capture.

Note: On a Touch Bar-enabled MacBook Pro, you can press Shift, Command and the number 6 to take a snapshot of OLED Touch Bar itself.

4. Convert units instantly in Spotlight

It's easy to overlook the little magnifying glass that's perched in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. When you need to find a file quickly, you might remember it's there. But did you know this search tool does much more than help you locate things? For example, you can do conversions within Spotlight!

When you type in a dollar amount, measurement, etc., Spotlight will bring up some instant conversions. It makes its best guess as to which conversion you're looking for, but you can always adjust your search by making things more specific. For example, when you start by typing "12 feet," Spotlight automatically calculates a conversion to meters. However, if you type "12 feet to inches" you'll find exactly what you're looking for.

5. Airplay your Mac's sound and screen

If you have an Apple TV or Airplay-enabled speakers, you can stream your Mac's audio wirelessly to them. And with iTunes, you can stream audio to multiple AirPlay speakers simultaneously.

Simply click the Airplay icon on iTunes and you can select all the Airplay-enabled speakers and gadgets that are available on your network.

Newer Macs (2011 and newer) can also mirror their screen to an Apple TV wirelessly, great for presentations, video or a secondary monitor. Just click the little Airplay icon on the menu bar then select an available Apple TV.

6. Share your printer with other Macs

Do you have multiple Macs and just one printer? Don't worry, you can simply connect it to one Mac then share wirelessly throughout your network! No need to move it around.

To share your printer, open System Preferences >> Sharing then check Printer Sharing. From here, you can specify which printer to share and to whom to share it with.

7. Use Airdrop to instantly send files

Do you find email or network sharing a bit cumbersome for sending files? Well, with Airdrop you make file sharing so much simpler.

AirDrop is an Apple protocol that lets you instantly send and receive files between nearby desktop Macs and iOS gadgets like iPad, iPhone or iPod touch via Bluetooth.

To use AirDrop from a Mac, just right-click on a file in Finder, select Share >> Airdrop. Your Mac will then search for nearby gadgets that it can Airdrop with.

This includes Mac computers with OS X Lion or later installed, and iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices with iOS 7 or later.

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What Is Blockchain in Simple Terms and How Does It Work? by Dann Albright

Bitcoin has become a staple of the modern internet—and with it, the blockchain. People say that blockchain technology will cause a fundamental shift in how the internet works, how businesses function, and just about everything else.


But what is blockchain?

Let’s cut through the marketing speak, technical jargon, and confusing explanations to figure out what blockchain really is.

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What Is Blockchain? The Simple Answer

A blockchain, in the most simple terms, is a distributed ledger.
To understand what that means, we’ll first look at its opposite: a centralized ledger. Because blockchain technology got its start in finance, we’ll use the example of a bank.
Here’s what happens when you use your debit card:

1. You swipe your card for a purchase at a store.
2. The merchant sends a bill to your bank for the amount agreed upon.
3. Your bank verifies that it’s likely you who authorized the purchase.
4. The bank sends the money to the merchant.
5. Finally, the bank makes a record of this information in its ledger.

There’s a lot of technology involved here, but that’s basically it. That final step is important—the bank keeps a record of all the transactions made by its customers. This ledger goes all the way back to the very first transaction the bank made.

That ledger is kept, maintained, and regulated by the bank. You might be able to read it in your online bank account, but you can’t change it. The bank is in complete control. If it decides to make a change, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Crucially, if a hacker gets access to the bank’s ledger, they can cause a lot of problems. They could change account balances, make it look like certain transactions never happened, and so on.

Which is why a distributed ledger is so cool.

If a bank operated on a distributed ledger, every member of the bank would have a copy of the ledger going back until the beginning of the bank’s existence. And whenever any member of the bank made a purchase, they’d tell every other member of the bank.

Each member would verify the transaction and add it to the ledger (the added record is called a “block”). This has some serious benefits, as there’s no centralized authority that could manipulate the record. And hackers getting access to one ledger wouldn’t be a huge problem, because the other ledgers could easily verify it.

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On the other hand, it would take a ton of work. This second system is, in a nutshell, the blockchain (at least in a financial scenario).

What Is Blockchain? The More Detailed Answer

As we saw above, a blockchain is a decentralized list of transactions. If I send James .02 Bitcoin, I’d send a message to everyone in the network saying “I’m sending James .02 Bitcoin” and they record the transaction.

But the transaction must be validated. And that’s where blockchain technology becomes a bit more complicated. Every Bitcoin wallet (we’ll get to that in a second) has a public key and a private key.

You use the private key to send a transaction request to the other members of the network, and they verify that you have the cryptocurrency in your account. If you do, they allow the transaction to register on the ledger.

The mechanics of the public/private key system are complex, but what it all comes down to is that each transaction is both verifiable and secure.

The entire system, however, is computationally expensive. Everyone updating the ledger needs to have a lot of power to verify transactions and modify the ledger. That’s where mining comes in. The people who verify and modify use their own computational resources and are rewarded with small transaction fees every time they do so.

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And they’re using a huge amount of electricity to do it. According to Digiconomist, Bitcoin mining consumes about as much electricity as all of Colombia.

Image Credit: Digiconomist

In this way, every transaction gets verified and added to the ledger, and the people doing the verification and modification get paid. It’s an elegant system.

It’s also very secure. To change a single block, you’d have to change every block that follows it. And after all that work, verification would fail, because the other copies of the chain would show that someone had tampered with one.

Someone could do it, but it would be astronomically difficult.

The Difficulty in Defining a Blockchain

While the mechanics behind blockchain technology aren’t always intuitive, it seems like it’s not too difficult to explain what a blockchain is. But what we’ve described here is only the traditional definition.

We can use this particular type of blockchain for a wide number of applications; cryptocurrency, sharing medical information, sending secure messages, and so on. But more blockchain-like technologies are in development for other uses.

For example, a company might use an internal blockchain to manage issue tracking in software. Each block on the chain could represent an issue, and users could post updates to the network. But is that a blockchain? The ledger isn’t public in this case—it’s only visible within the company.

Some people would say that makes it not a blockchain.

Other blockchain-like technologies aren’t encrypted. Are they still blockchains? What if it’s centrally managed, but uses other blockchain characteristics? What defines blockchain technology at the lowest level?

There’s no agreement on these matters.

What Is a Blockchain Wallet?

You’ll usually hear people talk about Bitcoin wallets, Ethereum wallets, and other cryptocurrency-specific wallets. But wallet technology could be used for any system using a blockchain.

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A wallet is a piece of software or hardware that “holds” your cryptocurrency. But it doesn’t actually hold anything—it’s simply a place that your public and private keys are stored. That information allows you to access the currency that the public ledger says you own.

The wallet is the only record of your keys. So if you lose it, you’ll no longer have access to your cryptocurrency.

Will Blockchains Change the World?

The decentralized nature of blockchain technology has many people talking about the democratization of the internet. And these claims might have some merit. But will blockchain fundamentally change how we communicate, do business, and run our lives?

We’ll find out someday. In the end, the technology simply lets us verify transactions without running the risk of a centralized ledger.
We’ll find out someday. In the end, the technology simply lets us verify transactions without running the risk of a centralized ledger.

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Nest x Yale Lock review: Nest’s first smart lock is a solid effort, but it needs refinement By Christopher Null

With its Nest x Yale Lock, Nest Labs takes another step toward complete smart home control by moving into the smart lock space. Nest isn’t going it alone this time, however; the Google company has partnered with old-guard manufacturer Yale, founded in 1868. I’ve reviewed three of Yale’s smart locks to date, and none have been among my favorites.

Cosmetically, this deadbolt borrows nothing from Nest’s upscale design sensibility. In fact, it pretty much looks like any other Yale smart lock. The exterior escutcheon features a compact but industrial panel bearing nothing but a touchscreen. On the inside of the door, a two-tone design dominates, with the entire escutcheon clad in metal, with a large black panel covering the electronics and battery bank. The lock is available in satin nickel, bright brass, and rubbed bronze finishes.

In an interesting move, this panel is not attached by a screw. Rather, it is removed by pushing a large pin (or a straightened paperclip, when you inevitably lose the pin) through a hole in the top, which pops off the panel. I’m not sure whether this method is more or less convenient or secure than a regular screw.

[ Further reading: The best smart locks and deadbolts ]

Nest Labs

The interior side of the Nest x Yale smart lock isn't the prettiest we've seen.

Installation is largely in line with other smart locks, though it can be tricky to get the cover of the interior escutcheon properly seated. Once you do get it attached, the lock feels stable and solid, and it’s easy to keep it from listing to one side, a frequent problem found with other locks. The locking mechanism is smooth and reasonably quiet, though there are plenty of chimes and beeps to alert you to various stages in the process.

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After the batteries are installed, voice prompts—a helpful Yale deployed in its first generation of Yale Real Living smart locks in 2011—guide you through initial setup, including setting a master PIN code. This doesn’t last long, though, as you are quickly shunted over to the Nest app to continue your setup (which overwrites that PIN code anyway).

Christopher Null / IDG

Trouble abounds with the lock setup…

At this point, you’ll need a Nest Connect device, which is a small hub that plugs into wall power near your lock (within 40 feet), creating a bridge between the lock and your Wi-Fi network. Nest sells the lock together with the bridge for $279. (If you have a Nest Secure system, you won't need the Nest Connect.) To set up the lock with the Nest app, you first scan a QR code on the back of the Nest Connect, configure it to connect to your Wi-Fi network, then scan a QR code inside the lock itself to finish the job.

Both these steps gave me a considerable amount of trouble, which was a big surprise, throwing out error after error, refusing to connect to the network. I was about to give up on the Connect but gave it one last try after a short prayer, and at last it finally worked.

Nest x Yale appears in the Nest app as a separate device, and management is fairly intuitive. As noted above, the app will walk you through setting a new master PIN, overwriting the one you set on the lock upon initial hardware configuration. My initial experiences with the app were rocky, much like the initial setup. The app would hang, requiring a force quit and restart, or crash alt together during locking or unlocking.

Christopher Null / IDG

…and sometimes in use, too.

That’s unfortunate for an app that is supposed to replace your keys; in fact, you even activate “privacy mode,” which disables the keypad altogether, making you completely reliant on the app to open the lock from outside. Early quibbles aside, over time, the app finally settled down and its early stability problems vanished.

As with most Nest products, the Nest x Yale lock is designed to be simple in use. Advanced options like an auto-locking system are limited and, for the most part, easy to understand. If you want to give full access to another user, they’ll need an account on Nest and a copy of the app installed on their phone.

While that’s probably fine if you’re trying to set up different codes for your family, it might be overkill for an Airbnb user or someone else with temporary access needs. For these folks, you can set up additional numeric PINs within the Nest app; these can be used without a Nest account (or a phone). These PINs can be set to expire at a certain time, or open the door only on certain days or at certain hours; anyone with app-level access has full control over the lock.

All told, Nest x Yale covers almost all the expected features of a modern smart lock—there’s even a 9-volt emergency terminal so you can get in if the batteries die—but its lackluster design and setup headaches keep me from recommending it fully at this point. As well, given the hefty price tag, I’d be inclined to wait for version 2.

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At a Glance

• Nest x Yale Lock
  $249.00

  See it

  on Nest Labs
  Nest’s first smart lock is a somewhat buggy Yale product with Nest features, not the other way around.

  Pros

  • Integrates well with the Nest ecosystem
  • All the expected features are front and center
  • Sturdy hardware

  Cons

  • Not terribly attractive, particularly inside the house
  • Considerable trouble during setup
  • Expensive, especially if you also need to buy a Nest Connect

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Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Which budget smartwatch is right for you? By Michael Simon

After three years, Apple Watch finally has some competition. Fitbit's new Versa is on sale today, and if you're in the market for a smartwatch that costs less than $300 and up, it's worth considering, even if you're a staunch Apple user. Let's take a look at how it stacks up against Apple's Series 1 Watch.

Table of Contents

• Fitbit Versa vs. Apple Watch Series 1: Design
• Fitbit Versa vs. Apple Watch Series 1: Size
• Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Display
• Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Bands
• Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Apps and clock faces

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Fitbit Versa vs. Apple Watch Series 1: Design

Michael Simon/IDG

Versa has decidedly softer aesthetic than Ionic, which should appeal to a broader range of buyers.

With a square, aluminum body, Fitbit's Versa is inevitably going to be branded as a rip-off of Apple Watch's design. But it's easy to forget that Apple Watch wasn't the originator of the square smartwatch design—Pebble was. And Fitbit just so happens to own Pebble. But no matter who can claim ownership of the rights to pioneering the square, the fact of the matter is it's the only shape that makes sense for a smartwatch and it works great on both watches.

Shape aside, the Versa is a nicely designed watch, with an aesthetic that's similar but not exactly like Apple Watch. Where Apple's wristwatch has curved edges, Versa's sides are chamfered and more aggressive. There's also no crown on the Versa, with Fitbit opting for a trio of buttons (two on the right and one on the left) instead.

[ Further reading: How to calibrate your TV ]

Both Versa and Apple Watch Series 1 are available in silver and black aluminum, while Versa adds a rose gold color.

Winner: Even

Fitbit Versa vs. Apple Watch Series 1: Size

Michael Simon/IDG

Versa is shorter and wider than the 42mm Apple Watch.

One of the most important things to consider when buying a smartwatch is whether it will fit your wrist. Apple makes one of the only watches that comes in two sizes to accommodate smaller wrists, with 38mm and 42mm varieties. Fitbit's Versa only comes in a single model, but it's closer in size to the smaller 38mm Apple Watch than the 42mm one, a rarity in connected wearables:
Apple Watch Series 1 (38mm): 38.6 x 33.3 x 10.5mm
Apple Watch Series 1 (42mm): 42.5 x 36.4 x 10.5mm
Fitbit Versa: 39.4 x 37.7 x 11.2mm

Fitbit's Versa strikes a nice balance between Apple's two watches, with a wider frame that's only slightly taller than the 38mm Apple Watch and will look good on all but the smallest of wrists. And keep in mind that Apple charges a few dollars more for the 42mm watch.

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Winner: Versa

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Display

Michael Simon/IDG

Without an OLED screen, Versa's boundaries are quite visible.

All three watches have very similar displays, with mere millimeters separating them, but the Versa is the smallest of the lot:
Apple Watch Series 1 42mm: 1.65 inches
Apple Watch Series 1 38mm: 1.5 inches
Fitbit Versa: 1.34 inches

But while the screen size isn't something you're likely to notice in regular use, the quality of the display is. While both have enough pixels to be considered retina, Apple Watches use OLED tech, so the black background on most screen blends into the body of the watch, giving it an edge-to edge feel. With the Versa's LCD screen, you can plainly see where the screen ends at all times, which makes the bezels feel much bigger than on Apple Watch.

Winner: Apple Watch Series 1

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Bands

Michael Simon/IDG

Versa's band-switching mechanism isn't as elegant as Apple Watch's, but it does the trick.

A brand new Apple Watch Series 1 comes in just two flavors: silver with a white sport band and black with a black sport band. Versa also pairs its black watch with a black band, but you'll get a gray one with the silver model and a peach-colored one with the rose gold color. There are also two special edition models with woven bands in charcoal (with a graphite aluminum case) or lavender (which is paired with a rose gold watch).

Like Apple, Fitbit is selling a variety of bands for Versa. While there are only 14 to choose from so far—as compared to dozens for Apple Watch—they're quite a bit cheaper, ranging in price from $30 to $99. Apple's bands start at $49 and can cost as much as $450 for a stainless still link bracelet.
Swapping out the bands is easy enough on Versa, with a quick release mechanism that pulls the pin back. However, if you're going to be swapping out bands often, Apple's press-and-slide method is far superior.

Winner: Apple Watch Series 1

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Apps and clock faces

Michael Simon/IDG

There are lots of clock faces in the Fitbit store, including this one inspired by Thor: Ragnarok.

Apple has slowly expanded its watch face offerings, but there's still only a handful to choose from and developers can only create complications, not full custom faces.

On Versa, anyone can create a custom clockface and there are dozens of mostly free ones to choose from in the store. And Fitbit says many more are on the way, so a Pebble-sized library is definitely in the making. If customization is your main reason for wanting a smartwatch, Versa is the way to go.
Apps are another story. While Apple's store has many to choose from, some of the bigger names—Twitter, Instagram, eBay, etc.—have stopped making Apple Watch apps for various reasons. Fitbit's store is far less populated than Apple's, but there are some good ones available, including The New York Times, Philips Hue, and Starbucks. However, with either watch, you're probably going to be spending more time with the watch face than the apps.

Winner: Versa

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Battery

Michael Simon/IDG

Versa's fits a big battery in its small frame.

If you don't mind charging your smartwatch every night, either watch will do, but if you're looking for multi-day use on a single charge, Versa is the clear winner. While Apple Watch Series 1 will comfortably get you through a day of use, Fitbit promises up to four days of use with Versa, and in our testing, those estimates were accurate. That means you can sleep, shower, and run with it for the better part of a week before you'll need to take it off for charging.

Winner: Versa

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Water resistance

Michael Simon/IDG

Even with a metal band, Versa can withstand a dunking.

For swimmers, there's no competition here. Apple Watch Series 1 is merely "splash resistant," with an IPX7 rating for up to 1 meter of submersion, while Fitbit Versa is water resistant up to 50 meters for tracking laps in a pool. In short, you don't need to worry about it unless you're going deep-sea diving.

Winner: Versa

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Fitness tracking

Michael Simon/IDG

Fitbit Versa is still a fitness tracker at heart.

With the Fitbit name, Versa is obviously a top-notch fitness tracker, but Apple Watch Series 1 is no slouch. Both watches feature an array of sensors to keep track of your movements, including:

• 3-axis accelerometer
• 3-axis gyroscope
• Optical heart rate sensor

Versa also includes an altimeter for tracking elevation, a sensor that is limited to Apple Watch Series 3. Neither Apple Watch Series 1 nor Versa includes a dedicated GPS chip, so both rely on a phone connection for tracking distance. However, Fitbit has a greater selection of apps for fitness, with on-screen workouts, coaching, and numerous exercise modes. You can also check your daily stats just by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

Winner: Versa

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Compatibility and connectivity

Michael Simon/IDG

Versa pulls its info from the Fitbit app on iOS, Android, or Windows.

Like Fitbit's other devices, Versa works with iOS, Android, and Windows Phones, while Apple Watch requires an iPhone 5s or newer. Apple also includes support for Siri on Apple Watch, while Fitbit has no AI assistant or voice control.

Both watches will alert you to incoming calls and notifications, but Apple Watch's integration with iPhone is much stronger than Versa's, allowing you to respond to messages and texts, and answer calls. Versa will only tell you that you have an alert. You'll need to go to your phone to answer it. However, Fitbit is promising support for Android quick replies in a future update.

Both Apple Watch and Versa have NFC chips for making payments through Apple Pay and Fitbit Pay, but you'll need to spend an extra $30 on the higher-priced special-edition Versa models to get it. Both watches include support for 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and neither has an LTE chip.

Winner: Apple Watch Series 1 for iPhone users, Versa for everyone else

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Price

Michael Simon/IDG

Versa is a whole lot cheaper than it looks.

If none of the above categories are a deal-breaker for either watch, price will probably push you into buying Versa:
Apple Watch Series 1 38mm: $250
Apple Watch Series 1 42mm: $279
Fitbit Versa: $200
Fitbit Versa Special Edition: $230
Even if you opt for the special edition model with NFC, you're still paying less for Versa than the 38mm Apple Watch Series 1. Granted this isn't taking deal into account—earlier this month Walmart was selling both sizes of Apple Watch Series 1 for $100 off—but all things being equal, Versa is the better deal.

Winner: Versa

Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Verdict

It's not a clean sweep, but for most people, Fitbit's Versa

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makes more sense than Apple Watch Series 1. It has a better collection of watch faces, is small enough to fit on most wrists, works with an array of phones and OSes, and has excellent battery life. Not to mention it's cheaper.

This story, "Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 1: Which budget smartwatch is right for you?" was originally published by Macworld.

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