Month: April 2016

(credit: Valentina Palladino)

Fitbit's newest trackers have made quite an impression with customers, despite only being available for less than a month so far. The company announced that it has shipped over 1 million units of the $200 Blaze smart fitness watch and 1 million units of the $130 Alta bracelet-esque tracker since they became available in early March.

This comes as a surprise since most people, particularly Fitbit investors, were confused when the Blaze was announced at this year's CES. Although it was never meant to be an Apple Watch killer, it certainly looked similar at first glance and that raised a lot of eyebrows. Immediately after the Blaze launch, Fitbit stock dropped 18 percent.

The Alta was announced shortly after the Blaze as a more stylish alternative to the existing Fitbit Charge. In terms of features, however, the Alta and the Charge have few differences, and their prices are identical at $130. At first it was unclear where these devices fit into Fitbit's llineup, but if these sales are any indication, it appears customers are embracing the new devices.

Google's April Fools' Day prank for Gmail backfired in spectacular style today after users claimed that it caused them to inadvertently offend friends and family, or in some cases lose their job.

The now-removed "Gmail Mic Drop" function allowed users to "send and mic drop" an e-mail, which automatically attached a GIF of a minion—yes, those weird yellow ones from Despicable Me—dropping a mic, before muting the conversation and archiving it. The prank is mildly amusing, but it wasn't so much the prank itself as the execution that caused problems.

Instead of functionality that users opted into, or was made distinct from Gmail's regular functions, the "send and mic drop" button replaced the often-used "send and archive" button, which lets users close a conversation and file the thread away. Many users typing with muscle memory, not aware that the functionality had been changed, or even that just misclicked—the button does sit right next to the send button after all—took to Twitter saying they had accidentally sent the e-mail to bosses, clients, and others that wouldn't have found the GIF particularly amusing.

(credit: MGM)

On Thursday, the US Department of Defense announced the launch of a pilot bug-bounty program for DOD's public-facing websites. Called "Hack the Pentagon," the bounty program will be managed by HackerOne, the disclosure-as-a-service company founded by Alex Rice and Michiel Prins.

Since Hack the Pentagon is a pilot, its budget and duration are fairly modest by DOD standards. The Pentagon has budgeted $150,000 for the month-long bug hunt, which will begin on Monday, April 18 and end by Thursday, May 12. Payouts for accepted bugs will come from HackerOne and will be doled out by June 10.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook did not specify which DOD sites would be considered fair game for Hack the Pentagon. "The program will target several DoD public websites which will be identified to the participants as the beginning of the challenge approaches," he said. "Critical, mission-facing computer systems will not be involved in the program."

David Scott commanded the Apollo 15 mission, which launched on July 26, 1971. Here he holds the Hasselblad camera with a Zeiss 500mm lens. (credit: NASA)

Apollo 15 was the first of that program's "J missions," which featured longer stays on the lunar surface and more science-heavy timelines. As part of that, for the first time, the lunar module also brought an electric rover to the Moon's surface so astronauts could visit interesting geological features farther away from the landing site.

For the first of these J missions, astronauts David Scott and Jim Irwin landed at the base of the Apennine Mountains, allowing them to explore the Hadley Rille, a deep rift in the Moon’s surface gashed by some early volcanic process. All told, the rover drove a total of 27.9km during the Apollo 15 excursions. But there was only so much the astronauts could do up close. And so it is a good thing, for the first time, they also brought a 500mm telephoto lens to the Moon.

Because weight restrictions were so tight on the mission after inclusion of the 209kg rover, Scott had to argue with mission managers to include the lens, and ultimately they agreed to slightly decrease the spacecraft's abort propellant to gain the extra margin in weight—about one pound.

(credit: Google Maps)

On Thursday, federal prosecutors filed an amended civil complaint in the case of the California commercial fisherman who has taken an ocean science buoy from the Monterey Bay into his custody.

As Ars reported on Monday, the fisherman, Daniel Sherer, is the first named defendant in a lawsuit filed last week by federal prosecutors in California. The way the government sees it, Sherer and his fishing business partner are essentially hostage-takers, as they recovered a loose United States Geological Survey buoy, claimed ownership of it, and now demand $13,000 for its return.

For his part, Sherer claims that he merely wants adequate compensation for losses he says were caused by the buoy, which popped up out of the ocean in January 2016 and got tangled up in his boat’s propellers. As a result, his boat was out of commission for about four days. "I have no problem giving it back tomorrow—I have no problem giving it back today," Sherer told Ars earlier this week. "Just understand that you guys need to compensate us something. We've lost in this deal."