Month: May 2016

Enlarge / iPad Pro and Smart Keyboard. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Update: Apple has re-posted the update as of today. Fixing an iPad bricked by the old update may be possible if you connect your tablet to a Mac or PC running iTunes, but we'll need to wait for reports from affected users to know for sure.

Original story (5/20/16): Apple is pulling iOS 9.3.2 for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro following reports that tablets were being bricked by the update. Affected tablets show the "connect to iTunes" message that iDevices display when put into recovery mode, but iTunes only displays an "Error 56" message and can't actually be used to restore the tablets. The bug doesn't appear to affect any other supported iDevices and the update hasn't been pulled for any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod.

Apple's statement on the issue offers no real insight about what the problem is. The company says it is "working on a fix" and will "issue an update as quickly as possible." Whether the update will resuscitate already-bricked iPads isn't clear, but 9to5Mac reports that at least a few users had affected tablets replaced at Apple Stores.

Rep. Lamar Smith, right (R-Texas) conferring with Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). (credit: Getty Images | Alex Wong)

Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, has used his subpoena powers liberally to seek the e-mails of climate scientists in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Even before getting the evidence he claims he needs, however, Smith has accused NOAA of scientific dishonesty.

Rep. Smith and the 12 other Republicans on the committee have now turned their sights on a new target—actually, on 25 new targets. On Wednesday, letters were sent to 17 state attorneys general and eight environmental groups demanding e-mails and documents related to recent efforts to investigate Exxon Mobil’s past campaigns to downplay climate change.

Stories by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times described climate research by Exxon scientists in the 1970s and 1980s. At the time, Exxon’s own scientists apparently made it clear to leadership that climate change was a threat. Building on those revelations, momentum has been building behind the accusation that Exxon intentionally mislead its shareholders (and the public) about climate change, both via its own company statements and through the funding of contrarian think tanks. Several attorneys general are now pursuing investigations of consumer and securities fraud akin to the investigations that damaged the tobacco industry in the 1990s—it's too early to know if these accusations have similar merits.

(credit: Center for Open Science)

Some of the problems within science have been getting much more public attention recently. Psychology’s replication crisis has gained deserved notoriety, but the social sciences are far from alone, with pharmaceutical science being plagued by the same problems.

These issues are the product of a number of underlying problems. A study published recently in the journal PLOS Biology presents evidence showing that a very cheap solution could help to patch up one of them: the sharing of data that underlies published research. It's a solution that isn't out of place in a video game—all it takes is a digital badge or two to encourage researchers to be more transparent.

It’s clear that although the scientific method is still the best tool we have at our disposal, there are some situations where it desperately needs sharpening. One thing that has dulled the tool is the damaging incentives often faced by scientists. They’re under pressure to publish exciting, positive results in order to keep their jobs and be promoted, which can push some people to do awful things like fake data. But on a more mundane level, the pressure often means that only the most exciting, whizzbang studies see the light of day.

The Minecraft community is one of the most video-centric gaming groups online, with hundreds of thousands of players routinely streaming and sharing gameplay and mods through YouTube and Twitch without issue. Nintendo, on the other hand, is one of the most restrictive game publishers when it comes to video, with a history of taking videos of its games offline and threatening to shut down livestreamed tournaments. It has also had problems sharing ad revenue with video creators.

When those two sides effectively merged through the recently released "Super Mario Mash-Up Pack" for the Wii U version of Minecraft, problems were bound to arise. And arisen they have, with a number of YouTubers publicly complaining about Nintendo making copyright claims on their Minecraft videos.

The issue appears to stem from the game's use of Super Mario 64 music, which is actually included as part of the Mash-Up Pack but still triggers a copyright match with the original Nintendo 64 game. One memorable video response from a Nintendo streamer urges the company to "stop trippin'" about the Minecraft videos. "It's like Nintendo doesn't want us to play their games. Don't play them because we don't want you to show them on YouTube. We don't want anyone else to see how great and wonderful the gameplay is..." the streamer says in his best mock Nintendo imitation.