The really interesting reason why ATM PINs have a 4 digit code

You walk into your friendly neighborhood ATM kiosk and swipe your card. You then punch in a 4 PIN code to authenticate yourself and proceed to withdraw money. You may have been doing this mechanically since the day ATM was introduced but have you given a thought why ATM PINs have a 4 digit code?  No! Then read on.

Automated Teller Machines (ATM) were first introduced in 1967 and now have emerged as a best option to disburse cash. Instead of visiting your bank and waiting in a long queue to withdraw money, you just have to swipe your ATM card, punch in your secret 4 digit PIN and take away the money you require.

But if someone was to find or steal your card, the only barrier protecting your money is your 4-digit ATM PIN. Ever wondered why most PINs have only 4 digits? Given that an ATM dishes out money wouldnt the manufacturers of ATMS have been wiser to introduce a longish PIN say six digit or eight digit one. Isn’t that why our email passwords are also expected to be 6 letters or more?

You see there is a bit of story behind it. ATM was invented by a wellknown Scottish inventor John Adrian Shepherd-Barron, the man who pioneered the development of the ATM machine. Barron was born in Shillong and was son to a Wimbledon ladies doubles champion, Dorothy Barron. When testing out his invention, Barron had also proposed a 6-digit PIN.

However, the first person to use his invention was his wife, Caroline. We all know that behind every successful man is a woman, and Caroline apparently rejected the idea of using a six code PIN for her husband’s invention because she could only remember the numbers up to four.

When Barron came up with the idea when he realised that he could remember his six-figure army number. But he decided to check that with his wife, Caroline.

“Over the kitchen table, she said she could only remember four figures, so because of her, four figures became the world standard,” he laughs.

Reportedly, 6 numbers stringed together were too much information for her to recall.

Although, there are many banks nowadays that offer 6 digit PINs for security purposes, shouldn’t those of us using 4 digit PINs be thanking Caroline? It gets tough to recall those 4 digits at times, imagine what 6 or more would do to us?

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Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14905 for PC & Mobile

Here’s what’s new in Build 14905 for Mobile

We are introducing a newly refined sound set in this build, uniting the best of our past and present. We aspire to set a new bar for mobile sound set quality, and are trying to make the soundscape of technology more beautiful and harmonious. This also helps align with new sound design direction of the Windows platform as a whole, so that mobile sounds will family with desktop and tablet and be feel instantly familiar to all Windows users. We will continue to evolve – head to Settings > Personalization > Sounds to see the updated list of available sounds and let us know what you think!

Improvements and fixes for PC

We have fixed an issue causing a large blank space to appear between the address bar and web content after the address bar moves back to the top when opening a new tab in Microsoft Edge.

We have updated Narrator Scan mode for table navigation to now support CTRL + ALT + HOME to go to the beginning of the table CTRL + ALT + END to go to the end of the table.

Microsoft Edge now supports the CTRL + O keyboard shortcut for setting focus to the address bar.

We fixed an issue resulting in Sketchpad and Screen Sketch crashing after trying to change the ink color twice in a row when the ruler was visible.

Improvements and fixes for Mobile

Missed call notifications are now more actionable, with inline options to call back, text or remind yourself to do something about it later.

We fixed an issue where videos played in Windows Phone 8 apps might not pause when an incoming call was received.

We fixed an issue where, if “Show my caller ID” is set to “My contacts”, the contact being called might still see a blocked caller ID.

We fixed an issue where the Lock screen might fail to update to the new time after a time zone change.

We fixed an issue resulting in music not resuming after a call was finished, if Turn-by-Turn directions were being read out from the Maps app when the phone call came in.

Known issues for PC

Support for kernel debugging over 1394 has been removed, but will be available in an upcoming kit release. A work-around will be posted to the Debugging Tools for Windows Blog shortly.

Adobe Acrobat Reader crashes when you try to launch it.

Cortana’s text to speech capabilities is not working in this build. For example, Cortana won’t be able to read text messages out loud for you, tell jokes, sing, or give verbal prompts.

When clicking on the power button on the Start menu, it closes the Start menu without opening the flyout with restart/shutdown options appearing. As a workaround – you can right-click on the Start button (or WIN + X) and choose to shutdown via this menu instead.

Apps such as Yahoo Mail, Trivia Crack, Google and the Skype Translator Preview app will crash in this build due to a compatibility issue from a recent platform change.

The Settings app may crash on certain editions of Windows 10 when navigating to different settings pages due to a missing .dll file. We are working on getting this fixed soon.

Known issues for Mobile

If you move apps between a SD card and internal storage (either direction), those apps will get stuck in a pending state. The workaround to get your apps working again is to uninstall the app through Settings > System > Storage (apps cannot be uninstalled from All apps list). Then you can re-install the app from the Store.

Cortana’s text to speech capabilities is not working in this build. For example, Cortana won’t be able to read text messages out loud for you, tell jokes, sing, or give verbal prompts.

A few months ago, we set out to design a new T-shirt for the Windows Insiders Program – and what better source for ideas than Windows Insiders themselves! So, we organized a design competition with a few simple rules:

1. Come up with a design that reflected the innovative spirit of the Windows Insider Program

2. Include the Windows logo and a call out to Windows Insiders.

In just a few weeks, we received some absolutely amazing designs from around the world. After a long – and often heated – selection process (including a vote by the Windows Insider community), our judges narrowed it down to five finalists before picking the ultimate winner: a beautiful design concept by E. Bautista from the United States. The final design below (zoom in to see the finer details) will soon be available on the eCompanyStore. We’ll let you know when it’s ready. Thanks to everyone for participating and congratulations to our finalists – and ultimate winner!

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Google will soon rank some mobile sites with pop-ups lower in search

Google will soon rank sites with clumsy interstitials ads lower than those which are more responsible, the company announced today.

The change will affect mobile sites, and only those which have ads that take up an entire screen or otherwise block content wholly. Ads that try to trick you into thinking it’s part of the content (like leaving the article header in place with ads below it) are also being pinged.

Some full-screen interstitials won’t be affected. Easily dismissed banners, age verification and login boxes are okay by Google’s standards.

Google is also dropping the ‘mobile-friendly’ label from search results. It found that roughly 85 percent of webpages meet the criteria for mobile, so it’s dropping the search tag entirely.

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Google buys Orbitera, a platform for cloud marketplaces, for $100M+

Google today announced another acquisition that will help the company improve how it competes against Amazon’s AWS, Salesforce and Microsoft in the area of enterprise services, and specifically selling enterprise services in the cloud: it has acquired Orbitera, a startup that developed a platform for buying and selling cloud-based software.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed but our sources close to the deal tell us it’s just north of $100 million.

This is an acquisition of talent, technology, and existing business. The CEO Marcin Kurc (tellingly) is an alum of AWS. And Google notes that some 60,000 enterprise stacks have already been launched on Orbitera. These include the likes of Adobe, Oracle and Metalogix, who all resell cloud services from third-party vendors as part of their larger enterprise businesses.

“This acquisition will not only improve support of software vendors on Google Cloud Platform but also provides customers with more choice and flexibility in today’s multi-cloud world,” Google said in a statement provided to media.

Kurc notes in his announcement that Google will keep everything running as is, “at this time.”

The startup says its focus is on providing four (end-to-end) aspects of building cloud marketplaces: Packaging and Provisioning, Billing and Cost Optimization, Marketplace and Catalogs, Trials and Lead Management.

It looks like Google will continue to operate that business on behalf of existing users, and maybe to help out its own marketplace for cloud services on its own cloud platform.

“Looking to the future, we’re committed to maintaining Orbitera’s neutrality as a platform supporting multi-cloud commerce. We look forward to helping the modern enterprise thrive in a multi-cloud world,” writes Nan Boden, head of global technology partners at Google.

As Google has grown well beyond its earliest roots as a search company, its reached an interesting relationship with companies that are at turns friends and rivals to its own business interests.

Buying a platform company that works with so many of these in the area of cloud services is an interesting development for Google, and one that it’s keen to try to tread carefully in making.

In this case, Google is trying to reassure customers that even as it sells a platform to sell products, it recognises that the ultimate repository of those products might not be Google itself.

(Whether or not that is the case longer term is another question — in other areas like ads, Google has walked an impartial line and then changed course — but for now there is a viable enough business for Google in remaining a neutral party.)

“We recognize that both enterprise customers and ISVs want to be able to use more than one cloud provider and have a way to conduct product trials and proofs of concept before building a full production deployment, all using their trusted SIs (System Integrators), resellers and normal sales cycles,” Boden notes.

“Orbitera has built a strong ecosystem of enterprise software vendors delivering software to multiple clouds. This acquisition will not only improve the support of software vendors on Google Cloud Platform, but reinforces Google’s support for the multi-cloud world. We’re providing customers with more choice and flexibility when it comes to running their cloud environment.”

Orbitera was co-founded by Firas Bushnaq and Brian Singer, who came up with the idea for the company to fix some of the “transactional and operational challenges associated with selling software” that they encountered while founding and working at previous tech companies.

Based out of West Hollywood, CA, Orbitera had raised some $2 million in funding from angels like Hiten Shah and Arjun Sethi, Double M Partners and Resolute.

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IBM unveils Apple app centre in Bengaluru

IBM on Thursday unveiled a centre in Bengaluru that develops enterprise apps for Apple's iPhones and iPads. Called MobileFirst for iOS Garage, it's the fifth such centre in the world and is also the only facility that encompasses the full suite of apps functionality from designing and development to testing, and finally helping enterprises with integration and implementation.

The IBM programme, which has 500 developers across the five centres, is looking to double its headcount by end of this year, said Mahmoud Naghshineh, general manager, Apple partnership at IBM.

The iOS Garage programme is part of a partnership that IBM entered with Apple two years ago. IBM has generated more than $1 billion in revenue through this programme. It has worked with clients for over 2,000 such projects developing over 100 enterprise apps across 15 industries. "The India team has had a big role in developing and implementing those 100 apps," Naghshineh added.

The four other centres are in Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago and Cupertino (inside the Apple campus).

The apps are developed based on client requests and requirements. The developers use Apple's Swift language and Naghshineh said the company sees plenty of Swift developers in Bengaluru. IBM and Apple also train the engineers at the centre.

"We see the conversation shifting from wanting a single app to cultivating a broader business transformation led by mobile. Our global network of MobileFirst for iOS Garages are a key accelerator for our clients and a significant differentiator for IBM," Naghshineh said. IBM is also planning to open such centres in China, Brazil and Romania soon to serve clients in those respective regions.

There are 22 interdisciplinary teams working in the Garage in Bengaluru. The centre can develop most apps within 6-8 weeks. "We work to mask the complexity in the legacy systems being used by our clients. The final product will have simple user interface and experience to make employees happy," said Naghshineh.

Kalyan Jewelers, one of the leading jewelers in the country, is a client. IBM has also developed for the airline industry an app that helps flight attendants to help passengers with new flight bookings in case of delays or cancellations.

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Android apps are now available on Chrome OS beta channel, still limited to three devices

Android apps arrived on Chromebooks with Chrome OS 53 in June, but as we noted during our initial hands-on, the developer channel was still quite buggy and not recommended for use as a daily driver. While the Play Store is still limited to three Chromebooks, version 53 has entered the beta channel with some much needed stability.

After Chrome OS has updated, the Play Store will immediately launch and ask users to agree to terms and conditions. Users will be asked to sign into the Google Account they’d like to use the Play Store with. Most apps, including those from third-party developers, perform just fine, but all are still prone to occasional crashes and lag.

I noticed a few bugs, but the browser part of Chrome OS feels more stable. Android apps and the Play Store are still only available on the Acer R11, Asus Flip, and 2015 Chromebook Pixel. To be on the safe side, I would still caution those who use their Chromebook for daily work to avoid Android apps until the final stable version, expected later this year.

Other changes coming as part of Chrome OS 53 include a new Material overview mode that places windows in cards and provides better labeling. Additionally, the search functionality is more visible, as is the ability to use the arrow keys to navigate around windows. Other changes include a new, more detailed storage manager in Settings.

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Happy 10th birthday to Intel’s Core 2 Duo

Ten years ago July 27, Intel launched the Core 2 Duo. The company’s then-new 65nm Conroe core set new records for efficiency and high performance. It gave Intel a serious response to AMD’s Athlon 64 family, which had spent nearly three years making hash of the Pentium 4 — and it set the stage for Intel’s ultimate dominance of the x86 CPU market.

The Core 2 Duo wasn’t Intel’s first dual-core — that was Smithfield, the Prescott P4 chip that debuted the previous year — but it was the first CPU from Intel to show the promise of the dual-core approach that AMD had already debuted. It’s hard to remember now, but back then the cost difference between a single-core and dual-core system was enormous.

The roots of the Core 2 Duo go back much farther than 2006, though, to the P6 (Pentium Pro) architecture that Intel launched in 1995. Pentium Pro begat Pentium II, which begat Pentium III (Klamath, Coppermine, and Tualatin). After the P3, Intel made the decision to switch to the Netburst architecture and leapt from 2GHz CPUs in January 2002 to 3.2GHz (with Hyper-Threading) on June 23, 2003. That’s a 60% clock speed jump in less than two years, with the addition of simultaneous multi-threading on top of that. AMD, meanwhile, was still flogging the original Athlon core — and while K7 had competed extremely well against early iterations of the P4, Intel’s 130nm Northwood refresh had pumped a heck of a lot of gas into the Pentium 4’s proverbial tank.

But Intel didn’t just lean on its market position — it invested in a long-term engineering program that became the future of its CPU efforts. At every step, Intel focused on building a power-efficient CPU that evolved and became more powerful without sacrificing its intrinsically better power efficiency or execution capabilities. When it became clear that Prescott would never hit its performance or power targets, Intel was caught flat-footed in the short-term — the Pentium M wasn’t ready to take over on the desktop yet. By July 27, 2006, Conroe was — and benchmarks show just how potent the new core was.

Anandtech has a deep dive into the Core 2 Duo’s architecture and capabilities that I highly recommend reading if you want to brush up on how Intel evolved the P6 core and what the long-term ramifications were. Conroe didn’t just sweep the Pentium 4’s performance out of the market — it kicked off a chain of events that left AMD unable to compete against Intel in raw CPU performance.

In retrospect, Core 2 Duo was the herald of difficult things to come. The signs had been there for years — in late 2004 I wrote an article about using Dothan on a desktop and warned that if AMD didn’t pay attention to the performance Pentium M could put on the board it would leave K8 in a world of hurt. Even so, I didn’t expect C2D to be the beginning of a trend that would leave AMD flatly unable to compete with its rival for nearly half a decade.

Hopefully Zen will be the beginning of reversing that trend, but the graph from Anandtech above shows one other problematic fact — AMD is fighting its way back from the deepest competitive trough that’s ever existed between the two companies. The gap between the top-end Athlon 64 X2 and the top-end Core 2 Duo is much larger today than it ever was back in 2006.

Apple sold its billionth iPhone last week

 It would have been a nice piece of information to share during July 27, 2016 earnings report, but Tim Cook and Co. were clearly too preoccupied with service revenues and R&D. And hey, no better way to kick off a midweek meeting than a little positive news — particularly if you can carry some of yesterday’s expectation-beating positivity into the following day to help rally the troops.

iPhone sales may have declined for the quarter, but Apple’s still posting big numbers in the smartphone arena. During an employee meeting in Cupertino this morning, Apple’s CEO announced that the company moved its one-billionth phone last week.

“We never set out to make the most, but we’ve always set out to make the best products that make a difference,” Cook said, holding number one billion aloft for the crowd, during a not especially understated address. “Thank you to everyone at Apple for helping change the world every day.”

The news comes a little over two years after Apple was reported to have sold iPhone number 500 million — a milestone it passed without much notice nearly seven years after the launch of the company’s first handset.

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