Month: October 2016

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuri_Arcurs)

Mandatory arbitration clauses are depriving customers of their rights and helping ISPs avoid serious punishment for actions that harm consumers, two Democratic officials from the Federal Communications Commission and US Senate argue.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and US Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) yesterday published a Time op-ed titled "How Your Internet Provider Restricts Your Rights." By pushing customers into arbitration instead of court review, ISPs are protecting themselves from class-action suits, Clyburn and Franken wrote.

"Ever since a series of controversial Supreme Court decisions ruling that companies can use these clauses to force disputes out of the legal system and into the private arbitration process, they’ve become far more common," they wrote. "And in telecom contracts, they’re nearly ubiquitous. A study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found that 99.9 percent of wireless subscribers were subject to mandatory arbitration clauses."

(credit: UCR Today)

There's a new method for rooting Android devices that's believed to work reliably on every version of the mobile operating system and a wide array of hardware. Individuals can use it to bypass limitations imposed by manufacturers or carriers, but it could also be snuck into apps for malicious purposes.

The technique comes courtesy of a Linux privilege-escalation bug that, as came to light last week, attackers are actively exploiting to hack Web servers and other machines. Dirty Cow, as some people are calling the vulnerability, was introduced into the core Linux kernel in 2007. It's extremely easy to exploit, making it one of the worst privilege-elevation flaws ever to hit the open-source OS.

Independent security researcher David Manouchehri told Ars that this proof-of-concept code that exploits Dirty Cow on Android gets devices close to root. With a few additional lines, Manouchehri's code provides persistent root access on all five of the Android devices he has tested.

Enlarge (credit: Ron Amadeo)

The Google Pixel, Google's first-ever self-branded smartphone, is the best Android device you can buy. The origins of the device are something of a curiosity, though. Google stopped the Nexus line to move into the hardware arena itself, but then the company produced a piece of hardware that wasn't very different from a Nexus, or very different from what anyone else was doing.

The official line from Google's Rick Osterloh is that the device is "Made by Google," with Google doing "the design work and a lot of the engineering." HTC is described as the "contract manufacturer," playing a similar role that Foxconn does for Apple. Look closer, though, and you'll see a lot of evidence that suggests HTC had a larger hand in the design than Google is willing to admit.

We're only a few days removed from the ship date of the Pixel phones, but rumors and reports have already popped up to paint a better picture of what the Pixel's development may really have been like.

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Along with the release of iOS 10.1 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch today, Apple released the newest version of watchOS for Apple Watch. The WatchOS 3.1 update brings small changes to the device, mostly focusing on fixing bugs.

Of note are updates to Messages and a fix for a potential battery issue. With the update, you'll be able to replay full-screen effects in Messages and play effects when Reduce Motion is enabled. The update should also fix any problems Apple Watch Series 2 models may have had that prevented some from charging fully. The update goes on to provide fixes to the Timer, Activity interface, and Force Touch functions in third-party apps.

The update won't drastically change how you interact with your Apple Watch, unlike when watchOS 3 became available in September. That update brought a slew of changes to the Apple Watch's interface, including the new app Dock, the SOS feature for alerting authorities to emergency situations, and the Breathe app that guides the wearer through deep breathing exercises.

Enlarge / In fairness, that is terrifying. (credit: Patricia Marroquin via Getty Images)

Leaders of a small Mississippi county have banned its roughly 10,000 residents from dressing in public as clowns, all in response to a wave of threats—online and public— in connection to the latest creepy clown meme.

The Kemper County ordinance, which lasts through November 1 (the day after Halloween), bars anybody of any age from wearing a clown costume, a clown mask, or clown makeup. Violators of the ordinance face a $150 fine.

The county's Board of Supervisors approved the measure last week at the request of James Moore, the county's sheriff. Johnny Whitsett, the board's president, said the clown meme "has really gotten out of hand." Whitsett said "it wouldn't be good" if people saw somebody dressed as a clown in their yard.

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

Apple released the final version of macOS 10.12.1 today, its first update to Sierra since the operating system was released last month. The list of fixes isn't as long as the one that accompanies iOS 10.1, but it ought to fix some of the new operating system's most pressing issues. The release notes are below:

• Adds an automatic smart album in Photos for Depth Effect images taken on iPhone 7 Plus
• Improves the compatibility of Microsoft Office when using iCloud Desktop and Documents
• Fixes an issue that may prevent Mail from updating when using a Microsoft Exchange account
• Fixes an issue that caused text to sometimes paste incorrectly when using Universal Clipboard
• Improves reliability of Auto Unlock with Apple Watch
• Improves security and stability in Safari

The update has been released ahead of a Mac-centric product event that Apple is hosting later this week. The company is widely expected to provide long-anticipated updates to the MacBook Pro and other Mac models.

The macOS Sierra 10.12.1 update can be downloaded through the Updates tab in the Mac App Store, and it should soon become available on Apple's downloads page. New downloads of the Sierra installer should automatically include the 10.12.1 update, if you're the kind of person who likes to wait for the first patch or two to come out before updating your Macs.

On October 23, 2001, Apple unveiled its original iPod. Though MP3 players existed beforehand, the iPod safely brought this portable music format to the masses. Over the 15 years since, Ars has examined the evolution of this product's design, its inevitable death (three years before that time arrived), and its impact on the music industry at-large. So for the product's anniversary, we'll resurface this re-review of the original iPod from 2011.

Don't look now, but the iPod—yes, the original, less-space-than-a-Nomad iPod—just turned 10 years old. That makes the device older than Facebook, YouTube, Crocs, Vibram FiveFingers, and the Motorola RAZR, to name a few brands and devices that have penetrated general culture over the last decade. But unlike old flip phones and tacky footwear, the iPod's overall design remains iconic and its effect on our consumption of music remains pervasive. It was not the first MP3 player on the market, but it was the one whose industrial and UI design would influence handheld gadgets for far longer than its product lifetime.

In fact, it's not hard to argue that the original iPod is still with us. It can be found most obviously in the iPod classic, but its influences are also found in iOS and even third-party smartphones and music players. Hell, even though the original iPod is 10 years old, you could almost still use it today as your go-to music player... or can you? Ars got its hands on an original 5GB iPod from back in 2001 so that we could re-review it with some 2011 flair—clickwheel and all.

Apple has just posted the final version of iOS 10.1, the first major update to iOS 10 since it was released a month and a half ago. The update's biggest addition is exclusive to the iPhone 7 Plus—it unlocks the "Portrait Mode" feature, which uses data from the main lens and telephoto lens to simulate the depth-of-field effect you often see used in professional photography.

Unlike last week's iOS 10.0.3 release, iOS 10.1 is available for everything that runs iOS 10: the iPhone 5 and newer, the fourth-generation iPad and newer, the iPad Mini 2 and newer, both iPad Pros, and the sixth-generation iPod Touch. The build number, 14B72 on older iDevices and 14B72c on the 7 and 7 Plus, is identical to the beta build that was released last week, so if you're enrolled in Apple's public or developer beta programs you've already got the final version of the update.