Month: January 2017

Enlarge / AT&T Sponsored Data charges companies for the right to offer Internet content without counting against mobile data caps. (credit: AT&T)

With just over a week left as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler today accused AT&T and Verizon Wireless of violating net neutrality rules with paid data cap exemptions. But with the FCC about to switch to Republican control after next week's inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, AT&T and Verizon can likely keep doing what they're doing without any chance of punishment.

Wheeler described his views in a letter to US senators who had expressed concern about the data cap exemptions, or "zero-rating." FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau staff today also issued a report concluding that AT&T and Verizon zero-rating programs are unfair to competitors. Both Wheeler's letter and the staff report can be read in full here.

The main issue is that AT&T and Verizon allow their own video services (DirecTV and Go90, respectively) to stream on their mobile networks without counting against customers' data caps, while charging other video providers for the same data cap exemptions. The FCC also examined T-Mobile USA's zero-rating program but found that it poses no competitive harms because T-Mobile offers data cap exemptions to third parties free of charge. T-Mobile also "provides little streaming video programming of its own," giving it less incentive to disadvantage video companies that need to use the T-Mobile network, the FCC said.

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For the second time in as many years, security researchers have determined that hackers have caused a power outage in Ukraine that left customers without electricity in late December, typically one of the coldest months in that country.

The researchers' conclusion, reported by news outlets including Dark Reading, Motherboard, and the BBC, signals yet another troubling escalation in the hacking arena. A December 2015 attack that caused 225,000 Ukrainians to lose electricity was the first known instance of someone using malware to generate a real-world power outage. Ukrainian officials have pinned the attack on the Russian government, a claim that's consistent with some evidence collected by private security firms.

Now, researchers say a second power outage that struck Ukraine in mid-December was also the result of a computer intrusion and bears many of the same technical hallmarks as the first one. It was part of a series of malicious hacks that have recently targeted key Ukrainian infrastructure, including the country's rail system server, several government ministries, and a national pension fund. The attacks started on December 6 and lasted through December 20. The December 17 power outage was the result of an attack at the Pivnichna substation outside Kiev that began shortly before midnight. It lasted for about an hour.

Enlarge / A recent satellite view of SpaceX's Landing Zone 1 shows the single, large landing pad. (credit: Apple Maps)

As part of the process to gain federal approval for the simultaneous landing of its Falcon Heavy rocket boosters in Florida, SpaceX has prepared an environmental assessment of the construction of two additional landing pads alongside its existing site. The report considers noise and other effects from landing up to three first stages at the same time. After undergoing a preliminary review by the US Air Force, the document has been released for public comment.

First reported by NASASpaceFlight.com, the document offers some interesting details about the proposed launch and landing of SpaceX's heavy lift rocket, which the company hopes to fly for the first time in the spring or early summer of 2017. After previously demonstrating the ability to land a single Falcon 9 booster, SpaceX also hopes to land the three first-stage boosters that will power the Falcon Heavy for potential re-use.

The company states this reusability as its rationale for the new construction—reducing the cost of access to space. "This purpose continues to support SpaceX’s overall missions for NASA and the USAF," the document states. "The action continues to fulfill the U.S. expectation that space transportation costs are reduced in order to make continued exploration, development, and use of space more affordable."

Enlarge / One of the early United Airlines warnings about the Note 7. (credit: Donald Sadoway)

If you've flown anywhere in the last few months, you've probably heard an announcement saying something like "Samsung Galaxy Note 7s are defective. You aren't allowed to turn them on or charge them on the plane, and they can't be in your carry-on luggage." After a defective Galaxy Note 7 exploded on a Southwest flight, the Federal Aviation Administration banned the device, and this warning has been made before every flight since.

Now It's looking like the end of the line for the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. Samsung recently announced that 96 percent of Galaxy Note 7s have been returned, and in response, the FAA has decided to remove the requirement for airlines to make a Note 7 pre-boarding announcement.

The 96 percent return rate is thanks to the actions of Samsung and carriers, which, in addition to sending out plenty of notifications, have recently started remotely disabling Galaxy Note 7 units. If customers were stubborn about returning a defective device, they probably became a lot more interested in getting a replacement after their Note 7 became a useless brick.

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Last week, I implored you all to give the last-minute donations that would make our tenth annual charity drive our most successful one ever. You did donate in record numbers, but we just barely missed setting a new record for total money donated.

All told, Ars Technica readers donated $38,738.11 to Child's Play and the EFF through our 2016 charity drive. That's just about $123 under the record-setting pace set in the 2015 drive, but well higher than every other year we've run the contest.

Over 660 of you donated this year, a new record that improves on the 615 that donated last year. That's includes more than 100 readers who were able to dig deep and give over $100, nearly matching last year's mark for "big" donors.

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The US Justice Department announced on Wednesday that Volkswagen would pay $4.3 billion in civil and criminal fines and plead guilty to three criminal charges pertaining to the automaker’s diesel emissions scandal. The DOJ also announced an indictment of six high-level VW Group executives, who are charged with lying to regulators and destroying documents.

Working with US Customs and Border Patrol, the DOJ brought against VW Group charges of defrauding the US government, committing wire fraud, and violating the Clean Air Act. As part of the settlement, VW Group has agreed to submit to three years of criminal probation, which will require the German automaker to "retain an independent monitor to oversee its ethics and compliance program." It has also agreed to cooperate with the DOJ's ongoing investigations into individual executives that may have been involved with the scandal.

For the past 17 months, the automaker has maintained that none of its executives were involved with the diesel scandal, in which illegal software was discovered on Volkswagens, Audis, and Porsches to alter the cars' emissions controls depending on whether the cars sensed they were under real-world driving conditions or lab conditions. Instead, VW Group claimed, "rogue engineers" were responsible for the placement of the emissions cheating software on the cars.

The first iPhone was officially announced ten years ago this week, and the anniversary is generating a lot of nostalgia-fueled retrospectives and is unearthing interesting artifacts. Case in point, the video embedded above by sometimes-reliable Apple leaker Sonny Dickson shows off two competing early demos of the iPhone's user interface.

The two operating systems are referred to as "P1" and "P2." P1, on the left, uses an iPod-like user interface complete with virtual click wheel. Users would scroll through phone apps and settings much as they would on a mid-2000s iPod. P2, on the right, looks like barely more than a tech demo or a diagnostic mode, but it's entirely touch-controlled and uses the phone's entire screen to display content. Of the two prototypes, P1 boots much faster and looks more polished, but P2 is obviously the kernel that would eventually become the iPhone OS (and later, iOS).

Tony Fadell, one of the iPod's creators and the former CEO of Nest, tweeted some additional information that explains some of Apple's thinking and confirms the video's authenticity. Apple tried out a lot of different competing ideas when creating what would become the iPhone and iOS, and Steve Jobs requested that both iPod-style and all-touch versions of the operating system be designed. Fadell says that there was "no doubt in anyone's mind which was the right path," though. "Those on the iPod based UI knew it was doomed. [Jobs] pushed us, 'make it work!'"

(credit: Vector)

Fitness wearables company Fitbit didn't announce any new products at CES 2017, and we didn't expect it to. However, just days after the show ended, news of a new acquisition has come out. Fitbit has purchased the European smartwatch startup Vector, which already has two devices in the luxury connected watches market. Both watches boast 30-day battery lives. A message on Vector's website confirms the acquisition but does not disclose how much Fitbit paid for the startup. Vector CEO Andrei Pitis also confirmed the news to TechCrunch and said Fitbit is acquiring the company for its "software platform and design team."

"We believe this is an important milestone as a moment when we will start building other new and amazing products, features, and experiences, incorporating our unique technology and knowhow with Fitbit’s experience and global community," the Vector team wrote on its website.

Vector came onto the scene in 2015 with its Lunar and Meridian smartwatches that are compatible with Android, iOS, and Windows devices. Both watches have similar features: activity tracking, onboard apps, their own OS with discrete notifications and "streams" (or visuals of cherry-picked information from social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook), and an impressive 30-day battery life.