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A voyage data recorder recovery capsule aboard a container ship. Some VDRs may be an easy target for hackers--or crew members who don't want what they've done to be recorded. (credit: Hervé Cozanet)

When the freighter El Faro was lost in a hurricane on October 1, one of the goals of the salvage operation was to recover its voyage data recorder (VDR)—the maritime equivalent of the "black box" carried aboard airliners. The VDR, required aboard all large commercial ships (and any passenger ships over 150 gross tons), collects a wealth of data about the ship's systems as well as audio from the bridge of the ship, radio communications, radar, and navigation data. Writing its data to storage within a protective capsule with an acoustic beacon, the VDR is an essential part of investigating any incident at sea, acting as an automated version of a ship's logbook.

Sometimes, that data can be awfully inconvenient. While the data in the VDR is the property of the ship owner, it can be taken by an investigator in the event of an accident or other incident—and that may not always be in the ship owner's (or crew's) interest. The VDRs aboard the cruise ship Costa Concordia were used as evidence in the manslaughter trial of the ship's captain and other crewmembers. Likewise, that data could be valuable to others—especially if it can be tapped into live.

It turns out that some VDRs may not be very good witnesses. As a report recently published by the security firm IOActive points out, VDRs can be hacked, and their data can be stolen or destroyed.

(credit: Zach Copley)

On Thursday, Thai authorities told reporters that they plan on extraditing Roger Thomas Clark, the Canadian man accused of being a top adviser to Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

"We caught and detained him and he is being held by immigration police in Bangkok," said Songpol Wattanachai, a deputy spokesman for national police, according to Reuters. "We are in the process of sending him back to the United States as America asked for him. We can send him back in about a month."

Clark, who was arrested last week in Thailand, has been criminally charged in the United States with one count of narcotics conspiracy and one count of money laundering conspiracy.

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For a game that's been in development for nearly three years, that Eve: Valkyrie's public appearances have been limited to little more than elaborate tech demos is a worry. Sure, they've been smooth and very pretty tech demos—and some of the best demonstrations of the nascent virtual reality platforms—but they've all been devoid of any sense of how the game might actually function as a game, let alone did they provide a convincing reason for fans to strap an expensive brick of plastic to their faces for an hour or two.

But, with the likes of the Oculus Rift—where Eve: Valkyrie will be bundled with pre-orders—HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR all due for release in the first half of 2016, Valkyrie has finally had a more complete outing. Officially, the game's in "pre-alpha," but it is largely feature complete.

There's been a lot of confusion and mixed messages regarding what's actually in Eve: Valkyrie, so here are the facts: Valkyrie is primarily a competitive, team-based multiplayer game, but PvE content is going to be available from the outset. That PvE content does not include any kind of campaign mode, although some light storytelling does exist.

Earlier today, Volkswagen held a press conference at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, to update the world about the automaker's ongoing emissions scandal. VW CEO Matthias Müller and chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch discussed the roots of the problem, VW's proposed fixes for some of the affected cars, and the company's reorganization plans.

In fact, VW has two separate emissions problems. The first came to light in September, when the US Environmental Protection Agency sent a notice of violation to VW informing the car maker that 500,000 diesel-engined cars would have to be recalled over "defeat device software" embedded in their engine control units. VW's four-cylinder EA 198 diesel engine contains code that detects when a car undergoes an emissions test and adjusts the engine tuning. This decreases the amount of NOx compounds produced in the exhaust to legal limits, allowing the vehicle to pass the test at the cost of reduced power (and therefore efficiency).

Before long, the scandal had grown beyond the 500,000 cars sold in the US to include up to 11 million vehicles worldwide. More recently, the EPA notified VW group that the 3L V6 diesel used by VW, Audi, and Porsche also has an illegal auxiliary emissions control device.