Month: April 2017

Enlarge / Hencha Voigt (left) is accused of extorting Julieanna Goddard (right). For now, Voigt is refusing to enter the passcode to her seized iPhone. (credit: Hencha Voigt / Julieanna Goddard)

Next week, a local judge in Miami-Dade County, Florida, is expected to issue a key ruling in a bizarre sextortion case involving two Miami-area social media personalities.

The question before the court is one that has vexed other judges in recent years: can a person be forced to give up a password to decrypt their seized devices? Or, put another way, does the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination allow people to keep their encrypted devices locked? "I’m going to have to read these cases with a fine-tooth comb," Circuit Judge Charles Johnson said at a hearing this week, according to the Miami Herald. "I’m surprised by this case."

This issue is far from settled law. A former Philadelphia police officer has remained in custody for 18 months and counting for refusing to decrypt a seized hard drive that authorities believe contains child pornography. While the facts in that Pennsylvania case are different from the Florida case, the underlying issue remains the same.

Acer has unveiled what may just be the perfect gaming monitor—so long as you don't like ultrawides, at least. The Predator X27 is Acer's take on Nvidia's prototype HDR monitor design first unveiled at CES 2017, and features a 27-inch 16:9 panel, 4K UHD resolution, HDR, a wide colour gamut, local dimming backlighting, and a super-fast 144Hz refresh rate. And yes, it supports G-Sync for super-smooth variable refresh rate gaming.

Digging further into the specs reveals some serious high-end tech. The X27 is based on an AU Optronics M270QAN02.2 AHVA panel with "quantum dot" technology. That's the same quantum dot tech Samsung uses in its best 4K televisions, which promises deeper blacks and better colours. Indeed, the X27 supports both HDR10 and 96 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. It also features 1,000 nits of brightness, and a 4ms response time alongside its 144Hz refresh rate.

Like the look of the Nintendo Switch, but aren't quite old enough to party on a rooftop with impossibly attractive twenty-somethings? Today is your lucky day. Nintendo has unveiled the 2DS XL, a halfway house between the kid- and budget-friendly 2DS and the more expensive New 3DS XL. It hits shops on July 28.

The 2DS XL features the same upgraded hardware and second analogue nub as the New 3DS XL—which means it can handle more technically challenging games like Xenoblade Chronicles 3D—but ditches the seldom-used 3D glasses-free functionality that was the handheld's biggest selling point at launch. It also ditches the odd, if robust wedge form factor of the 2DS in favour of a more traditional clamshell design.

Enlarge (credit: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg)

The first 100 days of President Donald Trump's administration come to a close Saturday. By any account, this presidential honeymoon of sorts was a mixed bag. The 45th president's biggest achievement was the confirmation to the Supreme Court of Neil Gorsuch. His biggest defeat was the failure to live up to a campaign promise to get Congress to repeal Obamacare—officially known as the Affordable Care Act. "We couldn't quite get there. We're just a very small number of votes short in terms of getting our bill passed," the president said. And throughout it all, the administration's first three months remained clouded in political turmoil, largely because the FBI is investigating whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government.

The current administration will claim several crowning achievements that fall somewhere in between the president's Supreme Court victory and his healthcare reform defeat. These achievements—or setbacks, depending on your political leanings—run the gamut when it comes to policy areas. The president's FCC appointment has pushed net neutrality to the chopping block. Online privacy took a hit as well after Trump signed legislation allowing home Internet and mobile broadband providers to sell or share Web browsing history without consent from consumers. Trump also signed legislation designed to limit federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other groups that provide abortions. The president ordered the termination of President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, and he rolled back the Obama administration's move to require automakers to increase fuel efficiency.

"If the standards threaten auto jobs, then common sense changes could've and should've been made," Trump said about the mileage standards. And speaking of jobs, Trump also notably signed an executive order requiring a wholesale review of the H-1B visa program. That program has allowed tens of thousands of foreign tech-sector workers to come and work in the US each year.