Month: December 2015

Deals on gaming hardware this good don't come along that often. (credit: Gamestop)

Last week, we tried our best to navigate the competitive world of console gaming in order to make a recommendation for which current system should sit under your TV. For some gamers, though, it's almost physically painful to pick just one console and miss out on all of the exclusive content available on the other two.

For those gamers, GameStop has an online deal that means you don't have to choose. The new Pre-owned Next Generation Hardware Bundle offers used and "refurbished" editions of the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U for a total of $569.98. That's a nearly 30 percent savings from the price you would pay for all three pre-owned systems separately at GameStop, and 40 percent off the $950 you'd have to pay to get those systems brand new (though the new systems would include a few bundled games, as well). The deal looks even better when you consider that, two years ago, a brand new Kinect-bundled Xbox One and a single game would run you $560 all by itself.

You might be understandably wary of purchasing consoles that have been subjected to unknown horrors by previous owners, but all of GameStop's used consoles go through the company's impressive refurbishment center where they're tested and refreshed for new owners (those centers have even been able to fix the infamous Xbox 360 red ring of death since 2009). GameStop also offers a seven-day money-back guarantee on its pre-owned hardware and a 30-day return period where you can exchange the console for an identical one, no questions asked. After that, it's caveat emptor.

(credit: Andrii Degeler)

Wireless chargers using standards like Qi have been on the market for a while; IKEA even includes them in some of its furniture these days. But if you think about it, there's not that much difference between wired and wireless charging of this kind. After all, the charger still needs to be plugged into a wall socket, and you still need to leave the phone in a designated place to charge.

What would be a significant improvement, however, is charging a smartphone just by hanging around in the same room as a wireless charger.

XE, a Ukrainian startup working in semi-stealth mode since 2014, claims to have found a safe and reliable way to transfer electricity to a device that's up to five meters (16ft) away. The commercial version of the technology will consist of a base charging station of about 15×15×40cm and a 3mm thick smartphone case.

(credit: Mike Mozart)

Amid an ongoing E. coli outbreak investigation at Chipotle Mexican Grill, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday announced that it is joining the effort to investigate what may be a second wave of illnesses linked to the chain restaurant. The new illnesses are caused by the same type of E. coli found in the previous cases—Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O26 (STEC 026)—but with a different, rare genetic variant.

To investigate this second wave, the FDA has combined forces with state and local authorities, plus the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which on Monday first announced an investigation into five cases of the variant E. coli infections. Those cases included one in Kansas, one in North Dakota, and three in Oklahoma. The sickened people from Kansas and North Dakota reportedly ate at the same Chipotle restaurant in Kansas before falling ill. The three sickened in Oklahoma were separate cases, but all three reportedly ate at the same Chipotle, the FDA reported.

The new cases, if confirmed, would bring the new E. coli outbreak numbers to 58 sickened and 12 states affected. The other states linked are California (3 cases), Illinois (1), Maryland (1), Minnesota (2), New York (1), Ohio (3), Oregon (13), Pennsylvania (2), and Washington (27). All of the cases involve some form of the STEC 026 bacteria.

The Australian government has repeatedly called for citizens to turn off two-factor authentication (2FA) at its main digital government portal, myGov. The portal's Twitter account has recently been updated several times with cute pictures encouraging holidaymakers to "turn off your myGov security codes" so that "you can spend more time doing the important things."

The portal is the place where Australian citizens can use and manage a number of governmental services, including health insurance, tax payments, and child support. In case of myGov, two-factor authentication is implemented by sending users text messages that contain one-time codes to complement their usual passwords.

A number of people on Twitter pointed out that, while downplaying security isn't a good idea in general, it could be even more dangerous when citizens go abroad:

Federal prosecutors announced charges today against 23-year-old Alonzo Knowles, a Bahamas resident who stands accused of hacking into the e-mail accounts of celebrities and entertainment studios, then trying to sell off unreleased scripts, audio tracks, and personal information that he obtained.

Investigators lured Knowles to the US, where he had been hoping to sell purloined movie scripts along with scripts for six episodes of a TV series. Instead, once Knowles asked an undercover officer for $80,000, he was arrested.

Prosecutors say Knowles had other information from celebrity hacks as well, including the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of "at least 130" entertainment, sports, and media figures. In one exchange, Knowles sent the undercover agent the passport, Social Security number (SSN), and other personal identification "of a particular film actor." Another time, Knowles offered to sell sexually explicit photos and videos from a celebrity account. At one point the complaint says he tried to sell "a very popular A-list celebrity SSN along with 30 unreleased tracks towards their upcoming album."