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Intel announces more processor flaws that could leave room for cyber attacks, Walmart’s online stores post their best sales in a decade and Amazon may be coming to a big screen near you.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Friday August 17th and I’m your host Meagan Simpson.
First, trending on Google: Intel has revealed that more of its processors have flaws that could leave the door open for attackers to steal information from your computers or cloud systems. But not to worry Intel has already released updates that should protect users. Researchers informed the tech giant the vulnerabilities back in January and in a Tuesday blog post Intel said that newly released updates combined with updates from earlier in the year should solve two of the three vulnerabilities. The third which affects a subset of users for example data centres, apparently requires additional steps to be taken, though the blog didn’t mention what those steps might be. These flaws are separate from the Meltdown and Spectre issues that Intel faced earlier this year. They affect Intel’s Software Guard Extensions feature or (SGX) for short. Intel’s system security researcher Daniel Genkin told Wired that “SGX was mostly spared by Spectre, so it was the logical next step to look at.” Since Meltdown and Spectre Intel has doubled down on its efforts to stay ahead of security concerns and has been working with researchers to discover problems such as this.
Next from LinkedIn: Walmart is reporting its best sales in more than a decade thanks in-part to a nice jump in online sales. U.S. sales on Walmart’s website climbed 40 per cent during the past quarter. It is attributing its successful quarter to robust sales in grocery and apparel, which it invested money into in another attempt to compete with Amazon. The big box retailer has made a large e-commerce push lately, redesigning its website in an attempt to compete with Amazon. And Reuters reported earlier this month that Walmart has also acquired FlipKart, an Indian based e-commerce market, calling it another way for the company to further beef up its competition against Amazon. Walmart’s brick and mortar stores also played a big part in sales, with the company reporting that more shoppers went into its stores and spent more money.
Finally also from LinkedIn: Amazon – coming to a theater near you, well that’s what the e-commerce slash tech giant is hoping to achieve anyway. Amazon is one of the companies making a bid to buy Landmark Theatres, according to a report from Bloomberg. The theatre company is the United States’ largest chain of theatres dedicated to independent and foreign films. It currently has 50 theatres in 27 markets in the United States, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. This is just the latest in a number of moves that Amazon has made, expanding its reach in TV, movies and music. Amazon Studios is the company’s arm that produces and acquires movies and TV shows. It has seen box office success with movies like The Big Sick. Amazon was also the first streaming service to win Oscars, for Manchester By the Sea and The Salesman which won best foreign film. We shall have to wait and see if this movie deal goes through, giving Amazon more chances to dominate the big screen.
