Month: April 2016

When the drama around NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was unfolding, it felt like watching an incredible spy movie. So it's no surprise that Oliver Stone, a master of political thrillers, is turning the real-life version of Snowden's experiences into a movie that feels—at least in the trailer—as tense and exciting as the latest Mission Impossible installment. Which is good but also means that you'll need to forgive this movie for its unrealistic tech tropes.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, Looper) does a pitch-perfect impression of Snowden as a patriotic geek with smartass tendencies. Injured during military training, he sets his sights on intelligence work, where he scores off the charts on every task the government throws at him. And then one night, one of his fellow intelligence geeks shows him a tool that they can use to spy on everyone in the country. As Snowden has a crisis of conscience, we're treated to one of those classic "hacking scene" moments where a nonexistent piece of software behaves in ways that make no sense, swirling around and showing us random pieces of private data from all the social networks ever. I know, I know. This is not how it happened. Just go with it.

Probably the best part of the trailer, which captures both the serious and mischievous sides of Snowden, is when we see him sneaking data out of the NSA contractor where he works by hiding it on an SD card inside a Rubik's Cube. Then we see a rapid-fire series of scenes where the stakes get higher, Snowen meets with Glenn Greenwald (played by Zachary Quinto, AKA Spock), and the tension mounts as blinky lights illuminate everybody's faces. It's satisfying to see events that aroused so much passion around the world translated into an emotionally gripping story. But "story" is the operative term here. Stone, who co-wrote the film, has taken a lot of liberties to turn this tale of people typing and talking into a suspenseful drama.

Comcast today announced that it will boost its data cap from 300GB per month to 1TB beginning June 1, but will also charge more to customers who want unlimited data.

Comcast has been trialling different caps in various cities in preparation for a potential nationwide rollout. Typically, customers would get 300GB per month and have to pay another $10 for each additional 50GB when they go over. Comcast also allowed customers to pay an extra $30 to $35 a month for unlimited data, depending on the city.

After the June 1 change, fewer customers will need to buy unlimited data—but it will cost them $50 a month to do so instead of $30 or $35. Overage fees will stay the same, $10 for each additional 50GB. Thus far, Comcast has allowed customers to exceed the cap in three "courtesy months" before charging them overage fees.

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) crops have been one of the most successful applications of genetic engineering in agriculture. The crops carry a gene that encodes a bacterial protein that kills insects that ingest it. While it's possible to spray crops with the Bt toxin instead, farms that rely on Bt GMO crops are more profitable, have higher productivity, and use less pesticides.

Unfortunately, evolution isn't sitting still, and Bt-resistant insects are beginning to become a problem. While scientists are developing new crops with other Bt genes and farmers can adopt agricultural practices that limit the risk of resistance, some researchers decided to short-circuit the whole process. In a new paper, they figured out how to evolve a completely new Bt toxin in a virus that infects bacteria and showed that it was effective in killing insects.

The basics of Bt

The researchers' work highlights the importance of basic, fundamental research—while a handful of the research team worked at Monsanto, two-thirds came from various academic institutions. And the work relies on some basic information that's not essential to using Bt in GMOs.

SAN FRANCISCO—Lawyers for Google and Oracle fought over the final details of their upcoming copyright trial today, debating issues of courtroom technology, time limits, and what type of evidence jurors will see.

Oracle sued Google in 2010 for violating its copyright because the search giant used parts of 37 Java APIs in creating its Android operating system. Oracle acquired Java when it purchased Sun.

Oracle lawyer Peter Bicks pleaded for more time, saying that US District Judge William Alsup's original time limit of 12 hours of evidence per side for a "liability phase" and seven hours each for a possible "damages phase" isn't long enough for the company to make its case.

The Nexus line has a long history of fish-inspired device code names, and these code names have an equally long history of leaking via rumors and AOSP commit comments. Today both Android Police and Evleaks are chiming in with details on the next Nexus phones.

Android Police nailed early Nexus rumors in 2014 with the Nexus 6 (Codenamed "Shamu") and again in 2015 with the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X (Codenamed "Angler" and "Bullhead," respectively) and today they're introducing us to "Marlin" and "Sailfish," two HTC-built Nexus devices. The names come from sources Android Police isn't sharing, but "Marlin" was actually mentioned in an AOSP commit by a Qualcomm engineer. This all but confirms the device exists as some kind of Nexus product. Qualcomm's involvement points to the device having a Snapdragon 820 SoC.

Scoring the Nexus contract would be a big deal for HTC. With the excellent HTC Vive VR headset and the revamped HTC 10 smartphone, the company has been on a bit of a resurgence.

According to a report from The New York Times, slides from a 2006 presentation suggest that a "top technology executive" within Volkswagen Group detailed how the company could circumvent US auto emissions regulations by including illegal software on the German automaker’s diesel cars.

That illegal software showed up first in diesel Volkswagen and Audi models from 2009 and later and then in a handful of diesel Audi and Porsche SUV models. The US Environmental Protection Agency cited VW Group for its transgression in September, leading to a huge scandal for the automaker. Last week, VW Group said it would buy back nearly 500,000 affected 2.0L engine vehicles and set aside $18 billion to deal with the buyback, the legal costs, and regulatory fines.

The Times said the 2006 presentation was discovered during the course of investigations into the company’s actions, and two anonymous sources confirmed to the paper that they had seen the slides in question. Volkswagen has maintained that its top management was unaware of the problem for years and then misunderstood the severity of the problem when it was brought to its attention in 2014.