The Category5.TV Newsroom

Here are the stories we're following for the week of Wednesday November 9, 2016

Tesco Bank halted online payments on Monday after money was taken from 20,000 accounts.

Tesco bank's chief executive Benny Higgins said about 40,000 accounts saw suspicious transactions over the weekend, of which half had money taken.

Tesco customers were still able to use their cards for cash withdrawals, chip and pin payments, and bill payments.

However, the bank blocked customers from making online payments using their debit card, although transfers between accounts and to other people were still allowed.

On Monday the bank confirmed some accounts "have been subject to online criminal activity, in some cases resulting in money being withdrawn fraudulently".

Mr Higgins also apologised for the "worry and inconvenience" that customers have faced.

The bank has more than seven million customer accounts and 4,000 staff, based in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle.

Source: www.bbc.com

Sent to us by: Roy W. Nash

Samsung has explosive deals on washers. Oh wait, sorry, I read that wrong: Samsung washers are exploding.

The company responsible for the infamous exploding Galaxy Note7 is now recalling a whopping 2.8 million of its top-loading washing machines, for... well, exploding.

The decision to recall the products came after reports that 730 washer units had exploded, leading to nine injuries.

Elliot Kaye, chairman of the U.S. Product Safety Commission said on Friday, "We’re talking about... a very serious hazard of the top of these washing machines completely blowing off."

The recall affects 34 different Samsung top-loading models sold from March 2011 to November 2016.

Samsung is offering consumers three options to help remedy the situation. The first? Free in-home repair of the machine, which includes reinforcement of the washer’s faulty top along with a free one-year extension of the manufacturer’s warranty.

The company is also providing consumers with the option to receive a rebate applied toward the purchase of a new washing machine — whether it's a Samsung unit or not. This will include free installation of the new washer and removal of the old one.

Finally, consumers can receive a full refund if they purchased their washing machine within the past 30 days of the recall announcement.

Source: mashable.com

Sent to us by: Jeff Weston

Mythbuntu is dead.

The Mythbuntu Linux OS that paired the MythTV Home Theatre PC software with an Ubuntu Linux base is being disbanded.

The remaining Mythbuntu crew announced tonight, "It's been a long and fun ride from 7.10, but it's time to turn in our badge...Mythbuntu as a separate distribution will cease to exist. We will take the necessary steps to pull Mythbuntu specific packages from the repositories unless someone steps up to take these packages over. MythTV packages in the official repositories and the Mythbuntu PPA will continue to be available and updated at their current rate."

Mythbuntu is ending since there are only two developers left (from ten before) and the effort is too overwhelming for the resources left. Those wanting MythTV on Ubuntu can at least continue installing the MythTV Ubuntu/Debian packages atop a vanilla installation.

Source: www.phoronix.com

Sent to us by: Sr_Wences

As it turns out, Nintendo NES Classic is basically a mini Linux computer with 30 ROMs.

Nintendo’s NES Classic is, at its core, a Nintendo-approved NES emulator that comes with 30 ROMs.

It feels very similar to the sort of thing people have been building for ages by running Linux on a Raspberry Pi — with the main difference from a conceptual standpoint being that the NES Classic is considerably less legally questionable.

It turns out the differences pretty much end there. If you take apart an NES Classic — like GameSpot’s Peter Brown did — you’ll see that Nintendo builds its retro emulators a whole lot like the rest of us do.

Inside the NES Classic is a quad-core Linux computer with 256MB of RAM and 512MB of flash memory for storage. In other words, it runs off a standard off-the-shelf circuit board with some custom software. It seems that the best way to build an emulator, whether you’re messing around with a development board or a multi-billion dollar console producer, is to just drop a bunch of ROMs into a custom version of Linux.

And while the specs may seem low when compared to today’s modern consoles and computers, it still provides more than enough power for emulating the finest 30 games the 1980s had to offer.

Those hoping to crack apart the NES Classic and take advantage to its open software to add more games are out of luck, as the flash memory is soldered to the motherboard — so if you’re looking to play more than Nintendo’s chosen 30 games, RetroPie may still be a better option. But while the NES Classic may be lacking in customizability, it does still has one major advantage over a Raspberry Pi: style.

Source: www.theverge.com

Sent to us by: Sr_wences

KDE has a nice looking Mobile OS gearing up to replace Android on your smartphone.

While Ubuntu Phone continues to stew, bereft of new devices and with little developer interest, other efforts to create a fully-fledged Linux smartphone are picking up pace. Chief among them is KDE Plasma Mobile.

KDE itself needs little introduction. It’s one of the most popular Linux desktop environments around, and recently celebrated it’s 20th birthday.

Plasma is the name of its graphical user interface (GUI), and you’ll probably know it best in its desktop guise.

But KDE community has its sights set beyond the desktop. It has ambitions to run on a much broader set of devices, including tablets and, more interestingly, smartphones.

The aim is a create a truly customisable UI ‘built with modularity from the ground up’. Plasma Mobile also touts a heavy emphasis on user privacy.

Plasma Mobile aims to be a hackable, flashable ROM for existing (popular) Android phones. It can even dual-boot with Android, and is able to run on both ARM and Intel-based devices.

Plasma Mobile currently supports the Nexus 5 and the OnePlus One, as well as Intel-based devices.

You’ll need to be prepared for many limitations as Plasma Mobile is under development, and not aimed at end users.

But the device can do the essentials of a dumb phone, like make calls, send texts and snap photos, and a small set of apps are available.

For more information head over to the Plasma Mobile website: plasma-mobile.org

Source: www.omgubuntu.co.uk

Sent to us by: Roy W. Nash