Month: March 2016

This is what the NSA would have suggested Secretary of State Clinton use as a secure mobile device in 2009: The General Dynamics Sectéra Edge Windows CE secure PDA. Pricetag: $4,750 (not including all the server software and licenses). (credit: General Dynamics)

When former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pushing to get a waiver allowing her to use a BlackBerry like President Barack Obama back in 2009, the National Security Agency had a very short list of devices approved for classified communications. It was two devices built for the Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device (SME PED) program. In fact, those devices were the only thing anyone in government without an explicit security waiver (like the one the president got, along with his souped-up BlackBerry 8830) could use until as recently as last year to get mobile access to top secret encrypted calls and secure e-mail.

Despite $18 million in development contracts for each of the vendors selected to build the competing SME PED phones (or perhaps because of it), the resulting devices were far from user-friendly. The phones—General Dynamics' Sectéra Edge and L3 Communications' Guardian—were not technically "smart phones," but instead were handheld personal digital assistants with phone capability, derived from late 1990s and early 2000s technology that had been hardened for security purposes—specifically, Windows CE technology.

At the time Clinton was asking for a phone, only the Sectéra Edge was available (the Guardian was running behind in development). But you couldn't just buy the Edge and be ready to go—it required multiple server-side and phone-side e-mail additions, desktop synchronization software, and other supporting products. Since it had both a secure and nonsecure side, it required separate accessories for each of its modes. The "Executive Kit" version of the Edge, priced for government purchase at $4,750, included:

(credit: Aurich Lawson)

Two leading US non-profits dedicated to reforming drug laws have said that Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's sentence of life without parole should be thrown out and that he should be remanded to another judge for re-sentencing.

Ulbricht was convicted last year of conspiracy drug-trafficking charges, as well as distributing false IDs, computer hacking, and money laundering. He admitted to founding the Silk Road darknet marketplace, but his lawyer said it was later handed off to others. Ulbricht is appealing his conviction and his sentence.

"Life sentences are exceedingly rare in the federal criminal justice system, particularly for individuals, like Mr. Ulbricht, with no prior criminal record," write lawyers for the Drug Policy Alliance in an amicus brief (PDF) filed yesterday. "This is particularly true for people convicted of drug offenses, including drug trafficking. In 2013, life sentences were imposed in less than one-third of one percent of all drug trafficking cases... Life sentences are typically reserved for people who committed violent crimes."

(credit: Teza Harinaivo Ramiandrisoa)

Based on data from a past Zika outbreak, researchers estimate that there’s a one-in-100 chance that women infected during the first trimester will give birth to a baby with microcephaly—a birth defect that leaves infants with small and malformed brains and skulls.

There’s still not a definitive link between microcephaly and the mosquito-borne virus, which is currently blazing through Central and South America. But the data coming in has only strengthened the connection. For instance, a recent study found that Zika virus can kill off developing brain cells.

With the new estimate on the rate of microcephaly in Zika infections from an outbreak in French Polynesia starting in 2013, researchers are relieved that it appears the birth defect is relatively rare.

Despite all appearances, Comcast Business wasn't available at SmartCar's address. (credit: Comcast)

Nearly a year ago, a Silicon Valley startup called SmartCar signed up for Comcast Internet service. SmartCar founder and CEO Sahas Katta was moving the company into new office space in Mountain View, California, and there was seemingly no reason to think Comcast might not be able to offer him Internet access.

But Comcast never fulfilled its promise to hook up the business, blaming the delay on construction and permitting problems. Katta discovered that neighboring businesses were making do with painfully slow and unreliable DSL Internet from AT&T, and ultimately SmartCar reluctantly signed up for AT&T as well.

After hearing Comcast excuses for months, Katta finally got fed up and decided that he would find a new office building once his 12-month lease expires on April 20 of this year. Katta told Comcast he wanted to “cancel” his nonexistent service and get a refund for a $2,100 deposit he had paid. Instead, Comcast told him he’d have to pay more than $60,000 to get out of his contract with the company.

Jonathan Gitlin

A Model X, in the flesh.

4 more images in gallery

Later this month, Tesla is going to unveil its long-awaited Model 3 electric vehicle. We're all eager to see the new EV, which will retail for half the cost of Tesla's current cheapest model while retaining the company's signature long-range capability. But there's another Tesla we're yet to know well, one that's just starting to appear on our roads: the Model X SUV. Tesla is currently taking the Model X on a tour around the country to give customers with reservations a chance to get behind the wheel, and the company was kind enough to invite us to check it out earlier this week in Washington, DC.

A proper review will have to wait until Tesla has a spare Model X they can set aside for the media, which we hope happens some time later this year. The company is currently working to meet order books that are overflowing regardless of glowing road tests, so it's hard to blame this approach. In the meantime, the 10 minutes your author spent behind the wheel on the roads of Tyson's Corner, Virginia, will have to suffice.

If that time is anything to go by, the Model X is one of the very best SUVs I've driven. The Model X shares its platform—if not its ride height—with the Model S sedan, which means there's a skateboard chassis with the battery packs between the axles. With such a low center of gravity, there's none of the usual SUV body roll. Instead you get all the benefits of a lofty driving position without the principal drawback. Combined with the panoramic windscreen (it has clever magnetic sunshades), the result is an expansive view of the world in front of you.

We had heard whispers that Google parent company Alphabet's robotics division was in trouble, but we never expected something like this. A report from Bloomberg says that the company is looking to sell Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics is easily Alphabet's highest-profile robotics company, regularly showing the world its creations through its YouTube account.

Alphabet's robotics division, internally called "Replicant," was created by Android founder Andy Rubin in 2013. To jump-start the division, he snapped up eight robotics-related companies in about six months, including Boston Dynamics. After only a year at the helm of the new division, though, Andy Rubin left Google.

The sale of Boston Dynamics lines up with an earlier report from Business Insider, which said that Google's hodgepodge of companies had "little in common" and were "scattered across different countries and working on unrelated projects." The loss of Rubin apparently greatly impacted Replicant, and the BI report said that "many of the people who had joined Google through the robotics M&A felt confused and disappointed." Bloomberg's new story backs this statement up, saying the division "was plagued by leadership changes, failures to collaborate between companies, and an unsuccessful effort to recruit a new leader."

Four months after the first phones with Windows 10 Mobile preinstalled shipped, Windows Phone 8.1 devices can now officially be upgraded to Windows 10 without the use of Insider/Preview builds.

Unfortunately, not all Windows Phone 8.1 devices will be upgradable. Some phones, mostly (though not exclusively) older models, aren't going to be upgraded. Frustratingly, this includes some phones that were previously eligible for the Windows Insider Program, meaning that they could run the previews and betas but aren't going to get the final stable release. Handsets including the Lumia 920 and HTC One M8 both fall into this awkward category. It's possible that these phones will be added later.

For now, the list of supported phones is: Lumia 1520, 930, 640, 640XL, 730, 735, 830, 532, 535, 540, 635 1GB, 636 1GB, 638 1GB, 430, 435, BLU Win HD w510u, BLU Win HD LTE x150q, and MCJ Madosma Q501.