Intel's Sales and Marketing Group (SMG) has announced a 35% reduction in costs as the company looks to streamline operations and adapt to challenging market conditions. The cuts, revealed during an all-hands meeting on August 5th, will impact both jobs and marketing expenses within the SMG. Intel has directed the group to "simplify programs end-to-end" by the end of the year, a directive that comes on the heels of the company's announcement that it would lay off 15% of its global workforce to save $10 billion in operating expenses. "We are becoming a simpler, leaner, and more agile company that's easier for partners and customers to work with while ensuring we focus our investments on areas where we see the greatest opportunities for innovation and growth," Intel said in a statement to CRN. The company emphasized that this restructuring is about "building a stronger Intel for the future," with partners integral to its plans.

The job cuts within the SMG are expected to target overlapping responsibilities, such as account managers and industry-focused teams, which can confuse customers navigating Intel's complex organization. Additionally, the company plans to significantly reduce its marketing budget and simplify programs, aiming to save at least $100 million in the latter half of 2024 and an additional $300 million in the first half of 2025. The impact will also be felt in Intel's market development fund (MDF), a crucial tool for supporting OEMs and other partners through events, training, and more. An ex-Intel executive warned that the MDF had become vital as the company's product leadership waned, allowing it to maintain valuable relationships with partners. As Intel navigates these changes, its partners are bracing for the impact, with one CEO describing the situation as everyone "hunkering down and just waiting to hear something." Another partner executive expressed concerns about Intel's ability to maintain the level of service and support its customers have come to expect.

Cyberattacks are an existential risk, with 89% of organizations ranking ransomware as one of the top five threats to their viability, according to a November 2023 report from TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group, a leading analyst firm. And this is just one of many risks to corporate data—insider threats, data exfiltration, hardware failures, and natural disasters also pose significant danger. Moreover, as the just-released 2024 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index states, as the generative AI market becomes more established, it could trigger the maturity of AI as an attack surface, mobilizing even further investment in new tools from cybercriminals. The report notes that enterprises should also recognize that their existing underlying infrastructure is a gateway to their AI models that doesn't require novel tactics from attackers to target.

To help clients counter these threats with earlier and more accurate detection, we're announcing new AI-enhanced versions of the IBM FlashCore Module technology available inside new IBM Storage FlashSystem products and a new version of IBM Storage Defender software to help organizations improve their ability to detect and respond to ransomware and other cyberattacks that threaten their data. The newly available fourth generation of FlashCore Module (FCM) technology enables artificial intelligence capabilities within the IBM Storage FlashSystem family. FCM works with Storage Defender to provide end-to-end data resilience across primary and secondary workloads with AI-powered sensors designed for earlier notification of cyber threats to help enterprises recover faster.

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel Corporation, has outlined future performance expectations for the company's Core range of processors. In a recent fourth quarter 2023 earnings call he declared: "The Core Ultra platform delivers leadership AI performance today with our next-generation platforms launching later this year, Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake tripling our AI performance. In 2025 with Panther Lake, we will grow AI performance up to an additional 2x." Team Blue's Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" mobile processors arrived right at the tail end of last year, as a somewhat delayed answer to AMD's Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" APU series—both leveraging their own AI-crunching NPU technologies. Gelsinger believes that the launch of Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake Core product lines will bring significant (3x) AI processing improvements over Meteor Lake. He seemed to confident in a delay-free release schedule for the new year and beyond: "We are first in the industry to have incorporated both gate-all-around and backside power delivery in a single process node, the latter unexpected two years ahead of our competition. Arrow Lake, our lead Intel 20A vehicle will launch this year."

He proceeded to gush about their next node advancement: "Intel 18A is expected to achieve manufacturing readiness in second half 2024, completing our five nodes in four year journey and bringing us back to process leadership. I am pleased to say that Clearwater Forest, our first Intel 18A part for servers has already gone into fab and Panther Lake for clients will be heading into Fab shortly." Industry experts posit that Core "Panther Lake" parts could borrow elements from the next generation Xeon "Clearwater Forest" efficiency-focused family—possibly the latter's "Darkmont" E-cores, to accompany "Cougar Cove" P-cores. The Intel CEO is quite excited about the manufacturing outlay for 2025: "I'll just say, hey, we look at this every single day and we're scrutinizing carefully our progress on 18A. And obviously the great news that we just described those Clearwater Forest taping out, that gives us a lot of confidence that 18A is healthy. That's a major product for us. Panther Lake following that shortly."

Researchers at the Technical University of Berlin have published a paper called "faulTPM: Exposing AMD fTPMs' Deepest Secrets," highlighting AMD's firmware-based Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is susceptible to the new exploit targeting Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors. The faulTPM attack against AMD fTPMs involves utilizing the AMD secure processor's (SP) vulnerability to voltage fault injection attacks. This allows the attacker to extract a chip-unique secret from the targeted CPU, which is then used to derive the storage and integrity keys protecting the fTPM's non-volatile data stored on the BIOS flash chip. The attack consists of a manual parameter determination phase and a brute-force search for a final delay parameter. The first step requires around 30 minutes of manual attention, but it can potentially be automated. The second phase consists of repeated attack attempts to search for the last-to-be-determined parameter and execute the attack's payload.

Once these steps are completed, the attacker can extract any cryptographic material stored or sealed by the fTPM regardless of authentication mechanisms, such as Platform Configuration Register (PCR) validation or passphrases with anti-hammering protection. Interestingly, BitLocker uses TPM as a security measure, and faulTPM compromises the system. Researchers suggested that Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs are vulnerable, while Zen 4 wasn't mentioned. The attack requires several hours of physical access, so remote vulnerabilities are not a problem. Below, you can see the $200 system used for this attack and an illustration of the physical connections necessary.

Computex is Asia's largest high-tech event and will run from June 4th to to 8th, 2013 in Taipei, Taiwan and BIOSTAR will be showcasing their embedded/IPC solutions and graphics cards products as well as their line of Intel and AMD based motherboards in the Nangang Exhibition Hall at Booth M0402. The theme of their exhibition this year is their Hi-Fi Puro integrated products, including Intel's next generation Haswell based boards and their FM2 motherboards that support AMD's new Fusion "Richland" CPU. Continuing the tradition of their own in-house audio technology called "Puro Hi-Fi Technology"; Biostar is going to present the 2nd generation of this technology, called "Hi-Fi 3D".

Targeting audiophiles, HTPC enthusiasts and high-end gamers alike, Puro Hi-Fi features an integrated independent audio power design with a built-in amplifier. The technology utilizes audio components with an independent power delivery design for a significant reduction in electronic noise producing superb sound quality. The unique noise-blocking multi-layer PCB layout is conducive for an exceptionally clean signal. That design feature, together with a sampling rate of 192 kHz/24-bit, delivers high quality audio through an analog connection to your home theater system, multi-channel speakers or high-end headphones, allowing you to enjoy true high-definition 7.1-channel surround sound.

DisplayLink, the leading provider of USB Graphics technology, today announced plans to show the latest solutions for Wireless and USB Docking at Interop 2013. Targeting Ultrabook and Tablet expansion and connectivity for business users, DisplayLink will feature wireless WiGig Docking, Enterprise Class USB Docking, and the latest Mac drivers, with demonstrations to be held at the Interop Expo.

Introducing the latest solutions, John Cummins, VP Sales and Marketing for DisplayLink said, "IT Managers are struggling with BYOD. At Interop 2013, DisplayLink will showcase our customer's products, including monitor-docks for tablets with touch screen and integrated Webcams, WiGig Docks for wireless graphics and peripheral expansion, and Enterprise-Class USB Docks with multiple display connections for both Windows and Mac. These products solve problems and enhance productivity."

Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia technologies company, is now shipping its Caustic Series2 PC boards, the R2500 and R2100, which accelerate PowerVR OpenRL applications including the Caustic Visualizer viewport plug-ins for Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max and the Neon viewport in Rhinoceros 5 from Robert McNeel and Associates.

The Caustic Series2 is the first family of high performance ray tracing accelerator PC boards using Imagination's unique ray tracing technologies in the world's first chipset dedicated to high performance, fully interactive ray tracing in a workstation environment.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced its new additions for the high-end SMB market segment with two 16-drive 3U rackmount Turbo NAS models with up to 64TB storage capacity using 4 TB drives. The TS-EC1679U-RP and TS-1679U-RP, powered by the Intel Xeon processor and the Intel Core i3 processor respectively, are the highest capacity and highest performing NAS products ever developed by QNAP. Both models feature optional 10GbE networking and 6Gb/sec SATA interfaces, achieving incredible 2,000 MB/sec and 200,000 IOPS throughput; delivering sustained ultra-high performance suitable for demanding data center & high-end SMB environments. The new models feature cable-less disk drive backplanes, hot-swappable power supply, and cooling fan modules for maximum reliability and uptime.

Do you want a really small PC that fits in the palm of your hand? Well, if you do, then VIA Technology have got you covered with their new ARTiGO A1150. As you can see from the pictures, it has a high 'cuteness' factor, due to its diminutive size of just 5.7" x 3.9" x 2". For processing, it sports a 64-bit VIA 1.0 GHz dual core Eden X2 CPU and a VX900H media system processor supporting the latest HD video codecs including H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2/4 at up to 1080p. Interfaces include HDMI and VGA ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, five USB ports including one USB device port, three audio jacks with optional wireless IEEE 802.11 b/g/n and SD card reader modules.

Target uses include the usual home/office environments, use as a super space-saving desktop PC, a home server, media streaming and surveillance applications. Of course, the real question is what kind of performance can one expect out if it, given that it's targeted at the desktop PC market, so one hopes that it can run Windows 7 at a decent performance level. Oddly, the VIA press release doesn't say anything about the RAM, so it's not clear how much can be fitted, which type and what speed grades are supported.

While the ESRB may have allowed Rockstar games to sell Manhunt 2, retail stores can still choose whether or not they want to sell it. In a move that will please parents everywhere, Target is refusing to sell Manhunt 2 in any of their store locations. They will continue to not-sell-it until all the gore is removed instead of just hidden away, to be unlocked like it was for the PSP. In Target's exact words...

Target strives to provide merchandise that will appeal to a wide variety of guests. We also want guests to be comfortable with the purchasing decisions they make at Target. All video games and computer software sold at Target currently carry ratings by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB)--from early childhood through mature audiences. While Manhunt 2 was given a Mature rating by the ERSB, we received additional information that players can potentially view previously filtered content by altering the game code. As a result, we have decided not to carry the game