Category: Uncategorized

VirtualBox 7.0 Released

Oracle has released VirtualBox 7.0, available now from the VirtualBox downloads page.

– Virtual machines can be fully encrypted now, including the VM config logs and saved states (CLI only for now)
– OCI: Cloud virtual machines can be added to Virtual Machine Manager and controlled as local VMs
– OCI: Cloud networks can now be configured via Network Manager tool same way as it is done for Host-only and NAT networks
– GUI: Added a new utility similar to “top” or “resource monitor” which lists peformance statistics (CPU usage, RAM usage, disk I/O rate, etc.) of running guests
– GUI: Reworked the new vm wizard to integrate the unattended guest OS installation and to have a more streamlined work flow
– GUI: Added a new help viewer widget which enables the user manual to be navigated and searched
– GUI: Adding new notification center unifying most of running progresses and error reporting around the GUI
– GUI: Improved theme support on all platforms. Linux and macOS use native engine while for Windows host it is separately implemented.
– GUI: Large icon update.
– Audio recording: Now using Vorbis as the default audio format for WebM containers. Opus is no longer being used.
– Audio: Added “default” host driver type to make it possible to move VMs (appliances) between different platforms without the need of changing the audio driver explicitly. When the “default” driver is selected, the best audio backend option for a platform will be used. This is the default for newly created VMs.
– Guest Control: Implemented initial support for automatic updating of Guest Additions for Linux guests
– Guest Control: Implemented ability to wait for and/or reboot the guest when updating Guest Additions via VBoxManage
– VBoxManage: Added Guest Control “waitrunlevel” sub-command to make it possible to wait for a guest to reach a certain run level
Windows hosts: Added experimental support of running autostarted VMs in session 0, to allow running VMS even when a usser is not being logged in (disabled by default, please consult the manual)
macOS host: Dropped all kernel extensions. VirtualBox relies fully on the hypervisor and vmnet frameworks provided by Apple now. At the moment the implementation lacks “Internal Networking” functionality. This will be provided at a later date.
– macOS host: Providing a Developer Preview package for systems with an Apple silicon CPU. This is unsupported work in progress, and is known to have very modest performance.
– Linux Guest Additions: Reworked guest screen re-size functionality, added basic integration with some of guest Desktop Environments
– Devices: Implemented new 3D support based on DirectX 11 (and DXVK on non Windows hosts)
– Devices: Added virtual IOMMU devices (Intel and AMD variant)
Devices: Added virtual TPM 1.2 and 2.0 devices
– Devices: The EHCI and XHCI USB controller devices are now part of the open source base package
– EFI: Added support for Secure Boot
– Debugging: Added experimental support for guest debugging through GDB and highly experimental support for guest debugging through KD/WinDbg

Haider Warraich on the History of High Blood Pressure

Fascinating detail from an interview with cardiologist Haider Warraich on the history of high blood pressure,

When they first discovered blood pressure, physicians thought that high blood pressure was necessary for blood to reach the most remote or the most difficult-to-reach parts of the body.

It was actually the insurance companies who, in millions of their beneficiaries, are collecting data showing that high blood pressure was associated with more people dying. Yet, none of this information was ever followed by the scientific, the cardiology experts of their time.

It took almost decades of almost missionary zeal, not only from the insurance companies, but also from the researchers, to convince the established cardiology community that in fact treating high blood pressure was the right thing to do. Famous cardiologists like William Osler were almost militantly opposed to lowering blood pressure.

At one point, around the second World War, one in two Americans died of high blood pressure, but at that time the leading voices in cardiology actually felt that lowering blood pressure would do more harm than good. It wasn’t until the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s when this mind-set was fully changed.

Wikipedia describes the history of high blood pressure in the 20th century thusly,

However, while the menace of severe or malignant hypertension was well recognised, the risks of more moderate elevations of blood pressure were uncertain and the benefits of treatment doubtful. Consequently, hypertension was often classified into “malignant” and “benign”. In 1931, John Hay, Professor of Medicine at Liverpool University, wrote that “there is some truth in the saying that the greatest danger to a man with a high blood pressure lies in its discovery, because then some fool is certain to try and reduce it”. This view was echoed in 1937 by US cardiologist Paul Dudley White, who suggested that “hypertension may be an important compensatory mechanism which should not be tampered with, even if we were certain that we could control it”. Charles Friedberg’s 1949 classic textbook “Diseases of the Heart”, stated that “people with ‘mild benign’ hypertension … [defined as blood pressures up to levels of 210/100 mm Hg] … need not be treated”. However, the tide of medical opinion was turning: it was increasingly recognised in the 1950s that “benign” hypertension was not harmless. Over the next decade increasing evidence accumulated from actuarial reports and longitudinal studies, such as the Framingham Heart Study, that “benign” hypertension increased death and cardiovascular disease, and that these risks increased in a graded manner with increasing blood pressure across the whole spectrum of population blood pressures. Subsequently, the National Institutes of Health also sponsored other population studies, which additionally showed that African Americans had a higher burden of hypertension and its complications.

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