Month: March 2016

NASA successfully fired a space shuttle main engine today that will power the SLS rocket. (credit: NASA)

As NASA builds its new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), it is relying on some older technologies, including the space shuttle's reusable engines. And before the new rocket flies, the older engines must be test fired to ensure they still function properly. On Thursday, that happened for the first time with one of the engines that will be used on the SLS's maiden flight.

The engine, number 2059, fired for 500 seconds on a test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi. It had not been used since 2011, when it powered space shuttle Endeavour to orbit in what was the penultimate flight of the space shuttle program. This engine flew five times into space.

The SLS rocket will rely on four space shuttle main engines, which combined will provide more than 2 million pounds of thrust. The new rocket may make its initial flight in late 2018 or 2019, with an uncrewed launch of the rocket and Orion spacecraft called Exploration Mission-1. Unlike the shuttle, however, only the capsule returns from space so engines that were designed to be reusable are lost.

Making a typo in a tweet that then gets retweeted is bad enough, but imagine how dumb these hackers feel. Reuters reports that hackers broke into Bangladesh's central bank in February and started transferring large sums to accounts in the Philippines and Sri Lanka from an account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Unfortunately for the hackers, only four of these transfers, for a total value of about $81 million, went through successfully. Not because the break-in was detected by the Bangladesh Bank or because heavily armed police kicked down the hackers' doors and arrested them all at gunpoint... but because one of the transfers had a typo. Attempting to transfer $20 million to a Sri Lankan non-governmental organization called the Shalika Foundation, the hackers instead attempted a transfer to the Shalika "Fandation." Staff at Deutsche Bank spotted this error and got in contact with the Bangladeshis to ask for clarification. The ruse was discovered and the remaining transfers were canceled.

Reuters writes that the NGO does not in fact appear to exist.

(credit: Julien Sabardu)

As expected, federal prosecutors filed their formal response on Thursday in the ongoing case involving the seized iPhone 5C that was used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack in December 2015.

Last month, the government obtained an unprecedented court order that would compel Apple to assist in the government’s investigation. If the order stands up to legal challenges, Apple would be forced to create a new customized iOS firmware that would remove the passcode lockout on the phone. Apple has said both publicly and in court filings that it will fight the order as much as possible, and the company has drawn support from many cryptographers, tech companies, and even the husband of a survivor of the attack.

In the new filing, Eileen Decker, a United States Attorney, argued that the court order is "modest," and only applies to a single iPhone.

Adobe has issued an emergency update for its Flash media player that patches almost two dozen critical vulnerabilities, including one that's being maliciously exploited in the wild.

"These updates address critical vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system," Adobe officials wrote in an advisory published Thursday. "Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2016-1010 is being used in limited, targeted attacks." The notice advises Flash users to install the update as soon as possible.

CVE-2016-1010 is the common vulnerabilities and exposures designation for an integer overflow vulnerability that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code on vulnerable computers. Adobe credited Anton Ivanov of Kaspersky Lab with discovering the zero-day vulnerability but provided no additional details. In an e-mail, a Kaspersky representative wrote:

(credit: Fossil)

Fossil has been quiet since the start of 2016, but now we are getting a glimpse of the company's first new wearable of the year. The company just announced the Q Motion, a slim, cylindrical tracker that is the company's first to track sleep in addition to activity.

None of Fossil's current wearables—the Q Founder smartwatch, the non-display Q Grant watch, and the Q Reveler tracker—monitor how much sleep you get, so this is a good addition for the Q Motion but also an expected one. The Q Motion is also the first device to come from Fossil since the company purchased Misfit, which makes both connected fitness wearables and home devices. Most of Misfit's wearables track sleep, and while the Q Motion is clearly positioned as part of Fossil's line, it's likely that Misfit taught the fashion company a thing or two as it developed features for this device.

The Q Motion also looks very much like Misfit's newest device, the Misfit Ray. Both are stylish yet minimalist bracelets, with a cylinder module in the middle. Both track activity (although with the Ray, you can designate specific activities within Misfit's app) and sleep, and both have vibration motors and small LEDs on the module that go off when you receive smartphone notifications. While the Ray only receives text, call, and alarm alerts, Fossil's Q Motion will be able to filter the notifications you receive on the device via its Android and iOS app just like the other Q wearables.

(credit: Illustration by Sean MacEntee)

Internet service providers and wireless carriers would have to seek permission from customers before using their private information for certain marketing purposes, if new rules proposed by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler are approved.

For example, ISPs could only share a subscriber's Internet usage habits with advertising companies or other third parties if the subscriber opts in to such usage. An ISP also wouldn't be able to serve targeted ads to you based on your Web browsing habits without first obtaining opt-in consent.

"Your ISP handles all of your network traffic," Wheeler wrote in a blog post today. "That means it has a broad view of all of your unencrypted online activity—when you are online, the websites you visit, and the apps you use. If you have a mobile device, your provider can track your physical location throughout the day in real time. Even when data is encrypted, your broadband provider can piece together significant amounts of information about you—including private information such as a chronic medical condition or financial problems—based on your online activity."

The new Android N Developer Preview starts off with a warning and then gives you an option to jump into vision or emergency contact settings.

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The Android N Developer Preview is out, bringing split screen and a redesigned notification panel among many new Android tweaks. How much more new stuff is what we're here to find out. We already covered the biggest addition—split screen mode—but with the dev preview flashed on a device, we set out to see what else Android N had in store.

Keep in mind this is just a developer preview, and everything is subject to change. The last developer preview, Android M, had all sorts of wacky additions that didn't make it to a consumer version of Android, like an app drawer with huge letter headings and a user-selectable theme setting. Tons of stuff could change between now and release.

One of the coolest new settings that is immediately available is the "Display Size," which lets you adjust the size the entire interface is rendered at. Changing it to a lower setting allows you to see more content on-screen at once, making big-screened devices much more useful. When the massive Nexus 6 was released, we complained that the large screen wasn't very useful, but this potential feature along with multi-window capabilities suddenly changes that. This setting (internally called the software "DPI") was a common thing for modders to change, and now it's freely accessible in the settings under Display > Screen Size.