Researchers discover a security flaw in password managers; Qualcomm releases 2nd-gen 5G modem; Google may offer game streaming service.
Password managers save us the pain of having to remember passwords that must be more than eight characters in length, have an upper and lower case letter, a number, and a special character. But a recent report supplied by Independent Security Evaluators suggests that password managers may not be as secure as they seem. After testing popular password managers including 1Password, Dashlane, KeePass, and LastPass, researchers found that the master password for unlocking the vaults can potentially be extracted from RAM. Nonetheless, experts still recommend using password managers, as the attacker would need physical or remote access to the computer to pull this off.
Who’s ready for 5G? Apparently Qualcomm is. The network equipment manufacturer announced the Snapdragon X55 5G modem yesterday, bringing the theoretical maximum cellular data rate to 7Gbps. The Snapdragon X55 modem now also holds a 4G LTE modem for multi-connection mode, meaning the device can connect to 4G and 5G at the same time. Alongside the new modem, Qualcomm also announced the QTM525 antenna modules with full support for mmWaves. The antenna module is much thinner than its predecessor, which allow it to better integrate into thinner smartphones. There’s no rush to market, however, as Qualcomm plans on releasing the Snapdragon X55 towards the end of 2019.
It looks like Google wants to dip its hands into the gaming scene. In a cryptic invite to a Game Developer’s Conference event on March 19th, Google drew a poster with a light at the end of a tunnel and captioned words “gather around”. The internet speculates that this alludes to a game streaming service, likely using Project Stream, a platform Google has been testing for several months. Game streaming services run games server-side and enable low-end PC to play triple-A titles. The only caveat is that you’ll need at least a 25Mbps download connection as you’ll essentially be playing through a video stream.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Please also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. I’m your host Tom Li. Thanks for listening!