Month: March 2016

The iPhone 4S and other older iDevices could be affected by this problem. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple has temporarily pulled the iOS 9.3 update for older iDevices following some issues with device activation. On a support page for the update, the company said that affected products could get stuck during the activation phase of the update if users didn't happen to remember their Apple ID passwords.

Devices affected include the iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, and 5S; and the iPad 2, third- and fourth-generation Retina iPads, and the iPad Air. Apple's page doesn't mention the iPad Mini or iPod Touch lines, but according to this Twitter account that tracks iOS updates, the iPad Mini, Mini 2, and Mini 3 and the fifth-generation iPod Touch are also affected.

While Apple works on a fix, the company says that you should try to reset your password or disable the Activation Lock feature at iCloud.com or connect the affected device to a computer running iTunes. Apple said in a statement to iMore that it would be posting a fixed version of the update "in the next few days," and we'll update this post when it does.

(credit: Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson)

It all started with a request from the developers of a messaging application to an open-source developer to change the name of a library. It ended with JavaScript developers around the world crying out in frustration as hundreds of projects suddenly stopped working—their code failing because of broken dependencies on modules that a developer removed from the repository over a policy dispute.

At the center of it all is npm, Inc., the Oakland startup behind the largest registry and repository of JavaScript tools and modules. Isaac Schlueter, npm's creator, said that the way the whole thing shook out was a testament to how well open source works—the missing link was replaced by another developer quickly. But many developers are less than elated by the fact that code they've become dependent on can be pulled out from under them without any notice.

The disruption caused by the wholesale unpublishing of code modules by their author Azer Koçulu was repaired in two hours, Schlueter told Ars, as other developers filled in the holes in the repository. The incident is, however, prompting Schlueter and the team at nmp Inc. to take a look at how to prevent one developer from causing so much collateral damage.

VentureBeat has the scoop on another YouTube service: YouTube Connect. Connect would be a livestreaming service which would take on "spur-of-the-moment" live video services like Facebook Live and Twitter's Periscope.

The report says the service would include apps on Android and iOS with "much of the same functionality" as Periscope and Facebook Live. Streaming would be immediate and paired with chat and "tagging" features. There is supposedly even a "news feed" that would list videos from friends and your YouTube subscriptions. Live broadcasts would be saved for later on-demand viewing and would show up on the content creator's YouTube channel.

The new service would be yet another expansion of the YouTube brand and app lineup. Including Connect, YouTube's video empire would be spread across a whopping seven apps: the regular YouTube app, YouTube Gaming, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, YouTube Creator Studio, and YouTube Capture. There is also the umbrella subscription service YouTube Red.

(credit: Agência Brasil)

While ongoing scandals and indictments rocked the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) during the 2014 World Cup Tournament in Brazil, there’s one thing the group was likely not guilty of—introducing Zika to the Americas.

The first case of the mosquito-transmitted virus in the Americas was documented in May of 2015 in Brazil. And some researchers had speculated that the large, international crowds of athletes and sports fans that flocked to the game may have unwittingly delivered the virus.

But a new genetic study, published Thursday in Science, suggests that the virus arrived in Brazil between May and December of 2013, well before the tournament. Around that time, the authors noted, Brazil saw a boost in travelers from areas that where then experiencing Zika outbreaks, including French Polynesia and New Caledonia. But, that travel surge was not likely linked to a specific events—sporting or otherwise—the authors emphasized.

Jonathan Gitlin

The Genesis New York concept car.

6 more images in gallery

Hyundai unveiled a gorgeous new concept car at the New York International Auto Show this week, the Genesis “New York" Concept. It not only hints at future design direction; it will also result in a real car within the next 18 months, according to Hyundai insiders.

Sized in between typical D-segment and E-segment cars (3-series and 5-series BMW sedans, for example), the New York is decidedly not a moonshot that dares to redefine design. Rather, its proportions and form factor follow the well-understood "three-box" convention (a hood, a cabin, and a trunk). But, as with anything worthwhile, the devil’s in the details and we think Hyundai’s beaten the devil.

Hyundai is spinning off its Genesis cars into a new brand—think Nissan/Infiniti, Honda/Acura, or Toyota/Lexus. The Genesis brand currently has but one car production car, the G90, and is aiming for BMW’s M division with its own N division. Judging by the New York Concept, the competition should be on alert.

(credit: John Lester)

Researchers have discovered highly stealthy malware that can infect computers not connected to the Internet and leaves no evidence on the computers it compromises.

USB Thief gets its name because it spreads on USB thumb and hard drives and steals huge volumes of data once it has taken hold. Unlike previously discovered USB-born malware, it uses a series of novel techniques to bind itself to its host drive to ensure it can't easily be copied and analyzed. It uses a multi-staged encryption scheme that derives its key from the device ID of the USB drive. A chain of loader files also contains a list of file names that are unique to every instance of the malware. Some of the file names are based on the precise file content and the time the file was created. As a result, the malware won't execute if the files are moved to a drive other than the one chosen by the original developers.

"In addition to the interesting concept of self-protecting multi-stage malware, the (relatively simple) data-stealing payload is very powerful, especially since it does not leave any evidence on the affected computer," Tomáš Gardoň, a malware analyst with antivirus provider Eset, wrote in a blog post published Wednesday. "After the USB is removed, nobody can find out that data was stolen. Also, it would not be difficult to redesign the malware to change from a data-stealing payload to any other malicious payload."

A man in Croydon, England, was arrested for "incitement to racial hatred"—a crime under UK law—after tweeting about accosting a Muslim woman in the street. He demanded an explanation from her for the Brussels attacks, and her response didn't satisfy him. So he took to Twitter to rant about it.

According to The Guardian:

He is understood to be Matthew Doyle, a partner at a south London-based talent and PR agency, who tweeted earlier in the day: “I confronted a Muslim women [sic] yesterday in croydon. I asked her to explain Brussels. She said “Nothing to do with me” a mealy mouthed reply.”

Doyle is not the first Brit to be arrested for this kind of crime on social media. After people reacted negatively to his first tweet, Doyle continued his tirade by tweeting, "Who cares if I insulted some towelhead ?? Really." Before he was arrested, he tweeted, "Thanks all you tweeters for proving I can still do PR."

The bacteria that acted as the raw material for this experiment.

Life is a rather difficult thing to define, but there are a few aspects that most biologists would agree on: it has to maintain genetic material and be able to make copies of itself. Both of these require energy, so it also must host some sort of minimal metabolism.

In large complex cells, each of these requirements takes hundreds of genes. Even in the simplified genomes of some bacteria, the numbers are still over a hundred. But does this represent the minimum number of genes that life can get away with? About a decade ago, researchers started to develop the technology to synthesize a genome from scratch and then put it in charge of a living cell. Now, five years after their initial successes, researchers used this model to try to figure out the genetic minimum for life itself.

At first, the project seemed to be progressing well. In 2008, the team described the tools it had developed that could build the entire genome of a bacterium. (The team used a parasitic bacteria called Mycoplasma genitalium that started with only 525 genes.) Two years after that, they managed to get a genome synthesized using this method to boot up bacteria, taking the place of the normal genome.

Verizon Enterprise offers security services, but it is dealing with a breach of its own this week. (credit: Verizon)

After a data breach at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, a customer database and information about Verizon security flaws were reportedly put up for sale by criminals this week.

According to KrebsOnSecurity, "a prominent member of a closely guarded underground cybercrime forum posted a new thread advertising the sale of a database containing the contact information on some 1.5 million customers of Verizon Enterprise." The entire database was priced at $100,000, or $10,000 for each set of 100,000 customer records. "Buyers also were offered the option to purchase information about security vulnerabilities in Verizon’s Web site," security journalist Brian Krebs reported.

Verizon Enterprise is itself a seller of security products and services, often helping Fortune 500 businesses clean up after data breaches. Verizon Enterprise also sells Internet service to large businesses, along with a variety of other networking products.

The Amazon Echo. Imagine this with Google inside. (credit: Amazon)

The Information has just posted a massive info dump on Nest, painting a picture of a "stalled" company with sales that haven't lived up to expectations and a seemingly rough internal culture. The report says there has been an "exodus" of employees, with more than half of the 100 employees from the Nest-acquired Dropcam walking away from the company. Dropcam co-founder Greg Duffy was part of that exodus, reportedly calling Nest CEO Tony Fadell a “tyrant bureaucrat” on his way out.

Fadell spoke to The Information as part of the report, saying that “A lot of the [Dropcam] employees were not as good as we hoped.” One of the most interesting things Fadell mentioned is that Alphabet is entering a "fiscal discipline era" and asking its subsidiaries for business plans for the year. This comes on the heels of an earlier report that said Alphabet was looking to dump robotics company Boston Dynamics after it supposedly lacked a real product and didn't want to work with the rest of Alphabet.

Drama aside, the report also contains a list of upcoming Google and Nest products. The most interesting is a "Google Voice Recognition device" that "competes with Amazon Echo." The Echo is basically a Wi-Fi speaker with voice recognition technology—think "Siri in a box." Google has all of the voice tech nailed down from its efforts on Android and Google.com, so it's easy to imagine building the existing Google app capabilities into a standalone device. Nest originally wanted a hand in the project but was denied by Google. As for the timing of such a device, the report says it's "unclear when Google will release the device and there’s still a chance it won't be released at all." Previously, the well-sourced Artem Russakovskii of Android Police briefly mentioned an Amazon Echo competitor in development at Google, codenamed "Chirp."