Month: March 2016

The US government isn't saying whether it will divulge to Apple the method it used to access the locked iPhone seized by one of the San Bernardino shooters. The iPhone has been at the center of a bitter dispute between Apple and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But that legal battle—in which a judge last month had ordered Apple to write code to assist the authorities in unlocking the phone—came to a seemingly abrupt halt late Monday when the government said it "successfully accessed the data" on the phone without Apple's assistance.

A federal law enforcement official requesting anonymity told reporters in a conference call Monday that the US government would not discuss whether it would reveal the method.

"We cannot comment on the possibility of future disclosures to Apple," the law enforcement official said in response to a question from Ars. Just a week ago, Apple told reporters in a conference call that it would insist in court of knowing everything about the vulnerability. Ars reported last week that the Israeli firm Cellebrite was potentially working for the US government to unlock the phone, and many have speculated that the method was a NAND mirroring attack.

Microsoft's annual Build developer conference kicks off on Wednesday at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and streamed online to the rest of the world.

There's not a whole lot that's officially known about the event this year, but we can make some educated guesses as to what'll be on show. After some experiments with different formats, the company is sticking to its traditional two keynote schedule this year, with day one being mainly about Windows, and day two being mainly about development.

Windows 10 and the Universal Windows Platform is sure to be the focus. The Windows Insider Preview builds that have shipped since the November Update was released last year have thus far been light on new features; we'd expect this to change at Build, and for the company to go public with its plans for the next incremental iteration of the operating system. Session listings point to new or improved capabilities for live tiles and notifications

Volkswagen will recall the 5,561 e-Golf electric vehicles that it’s sold in the US since November 2014 due to a battery software problem, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NTHSA) said today. Customers will have to bring their cars to dealerships to get a software update.

According to an NTHSA report (PDF), the e-Golf's battery management software is at risk of stalling the car if the system detects a power surge. Specifically, the administration writes, "Oversensitive diagnostics for the high-voltage battery management system may falsely detect an electrical surge resulting in the vehicle's electric drive motor shutting down unexpectedly.” The NTHSA report noted that power steering, anti-lock brakes, lights, and airbags on the e-Golf were unaffected by the high-voltage battery glitch because they’re powered by a separate 12V battery system.

The recall was initiated by Volkswagen, rather than a US regulator, and the fix for the problem involves a software update made at a Volkswagen dealer. Mark Gillies, Volkswagen spokesperson, confirmed to Ars that “the software reflash is very simple to enact at the dealership.”

Since Netflix's admission last week that it throttles video on most mobile networks to help customers avoid data cap overage charges, Internet service providers and anti-net neutrality think tanks have been blasting the online video provider. Netflix is a hypocrite because it throttles its own video streams even as it supports net neutrality rules that prevent ISPs from throttling traffic that passes over their networks, they claim. Even AT&T, which has throttled its own unlimited data users for years and tried to avoid any punishment for doing so, said it is "outraged" by Netflix's actions.

While most ISPs want the elimination of the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, they generally are not demanding that new rules be applied to Netflix. But there is an exception. The American Cable Association, a cable lobby group that represents more than 900 small and medium-sized companies, has called on the FCC to consider writing new rules that apply to Netflix and similar online content providers ("edge providers" in industry parlance).

The FCC's "approach to Net Neutrality is horribly one-sided and unfair because it leaves consumers unprotected from the actions of edge providers that block and throttle lawful traffic," the ACA said Friday. Netflix's confession of throttling provides "further evidence" that consumers are being harmed, the group claimed.

According to a new court filing, government prosecutors have formally asked a federal judge to cancel her prior order that would have compelled Apple to assist efforts to unlock a seized iPhone linked to the San Bernardino attacks in late 2015.

Apple had publicly said in court that it would resist all efforts to force its compliance. Last week, however, the hearing between prosecutors and Apple was postponed less than 24 hours before it was set to take place, because the Department of Justice said it was evaluating a new method to access the phone's data.

"The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on [terrorist Syed Rizwan] Farook’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc.," prosecutors wrote in the Monday filing, which does not explain precisely what was done.

He styles himself "Mad" Mike Hughes. But Mad Mike Hughes is not content with just one nickname, so he aspires to a second one—"King of the Daredevils." Given what Mad Mike plans to do this coming Saturday, it is hard to begrudge him either moniker. Mad Mike has built a rocket, the X-2 "SkyLimo," and on April 2 he plans to set this rocket up on one side of the Palo Duro Canyon, light that sucker up, fly 3,500 feet into the air, and reach a maximum speed of 350mph.

Palo Duro Canyon cuts across the Texas Panhandle. At 70 miles long and with a depth of nearly 900 feet, it is no mere ditch. The artist Georgia O'Keeffe lived nearby almost a century ago in the towns of Amarillo and Canyon, and she loved to visit the great red crack in the flat plains by car or wagon. O’Keeffe referred to the sight as a “slit in nothingness.”

Rather than become nothingness himself, Mad Mike hopes to survive this adventure in his homemade rocket. "I’m not a crazy guy," he told Ars. "I have a high IQ. I know the dangers. But this is a whole new world. I’m in uncharted territory with this thing."

Our week or so with the Oculus Rift hasn't provided enough time to do full, deep-dive reviews of all 30 games that launched alongside the hardware (though we did find the time for a full VR playthrough of space station float-em-up Adr1ft). For those early adopters getting their shipments now, here are our early impressions of some of the games that have been filling out Rift's eye holes the most over the last few days.

Eve: Valkyrie

Developer: CCP Games
Price: $59.99 (free for pre-orders)

Definitely the most impressive Rift exclusive we've played so far, Eve Valkyrie has the potential to be a long-lasting killer app for the headset. Dogfighting in space planes is far from new in video games, but the same old genre manages to feel entirely new in VR.

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Scientists have just discovered a bizarre pattern in global weather. Extreme heat waves like the one that hit the eastern US in 2012, leaving at least 82 dead, don't just come out of nowhere. A new study, published today in Nature Geoscience, reveals that heat waves arise in a predictable pattern roughly 40-50 days after an event called the Pacific Extreme Pattern.

During a Pacific Extreme Pattern, a large area of the Pacific north of Hawaii experiences unusual temperatures both at the water's surface and far above it in the atmosphere. Specifically, the southern part of the region gets far hotter than is typical, and the northeastern part of the region gets much colder. These unusual temperature patterns create a wave of weather effects that sweep over most of the US, then stop over the humid inland eastern region, creating a high pressure zone that brings clear skies and oppressive heat. The effect is intensified if there has been little rain in the east as well.

The researchers examined weather data from sensors in both the Pacific and throughout the eastern US between 1982-2015, finding that the Pacific Extreme Pattern was a strong predictor of heat waves. When the pattern emerges, there is a 1 in 4 chance that the eastern US will experience extreme heat in 50 days. There's a 1 in 2 chance that they'll experience it in 40 days. Given that the eastern US has a high population as well as many agricultural regions that are breadbaskets for the nation, this kind of long-range prediction could be lifesaving.

The perils of "distracted driving," particularly sending text messages while driving, has been well-reported. Now the New Jersey state legislature may soon consider a new threat—texting while walking.

New Jersey Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt has introduced a bill that would ban pedestrians from walking while texting, and the proposed legislation would bar the use of cell phones while walking altogether unless they're hands-free. For those who violate the walking-and-texting rule, Lampitt's bill allows fines of up to $50 or imprisonment of up to 15 days (the same penalties that the state imposes for jaywalkers).

If the bill passes, then New Jersey's rules for cell phone use would be the same for walkers and drivers. A total of 14 states, including New Jersey, bar hand-held cell phones while driving, and 46 states prohibit texting while driving, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.