Month: June 2017

Andrew Cunningham

I have seen the new iPad Pros, and they are about what you'd expect, not that that's a bad thing. Since the "hands on" process is basically the same as handling any other iPad, let's focus on answering questions.

The new 12.9-inch iPad Pro is the easiest to describe, since its physical design is the same as the original model. It's still a 0.27-inch (6.9mm) thick, 1.49 pound (677g) tablet that looks like a stretched-out version of the iPad design Apple has been selling since 2013 or so. The difference is that some of the features introduced in last year's 9.7-inch iPad Pro weren't ready for the first 12.9-inch version. That list of features includes:

Enlarge (credit: Chris Yarzab)

The first major US study of body-cam footage concluded that police, at least in Oakland, California, showed more respect to white people than to blacks.

The study from Stanford University researchers analyzed the transcribed text from 981 traffic stops caught on body cams by 245 Oakland Police Department officers in 2014. White people pulled over were more likely to be called "ma'am" or "sir," and they were more likely to hear the words "please" and "thank you" from police officers. Blacks, however, didn't get as much respect, and they were more likely to be called by their first names and even "my man."

"Indeed, we find that white community members are 57 percent more likely to hear an officer say one of the most respectful utterances in our dataset, whereas black community members are 61 percent more likely to hear an officer say one of the least respectful utterances in our dataset," according to the study. (PDF) The results held constant no matter the race of the officer, the study said.

Enlarge / Eric Trump, son of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, looks at wife Lara Yunaska's voting booth. An NSA report indicates Russia may have attempted to plant malware on the computers of election officials in the days before voting. (credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images News)

A Top Secret NSA analyst's report published by The Intercept suggests that, in August 2016, the Russian General Main Staff Intelligence Directorate (GRU) hacked into an election-related hardware and software vendor in the US. The GRU then used data from the company for at least two "spear phishing" campaigns against local government officials associated with elections—including one attack close to the election that appeared to target officials dealing with absentee ballots. The report was based on information that only became available in April of this year, and the NSA report does not reveal the name of the company.

Within an hour of the story's publication, the FBI announced the arrest of the alleged source of the leaked report. Reality Leigh Winner was arrested at home in Augusta, Georgia, after an NSA audit identified her as the person who printed and removed the report from a secure facility. The Intercept had turned over the report to the NSA to verify its provenance while asking for comment. Ars will report more details as they become available.

Seven e-mail accounts at the vendor company were targeted with a method similar to the method that obtained access to e-mail accounts used by members of the Clinton campaign earlier in 2016, according to the text of the report. At least one of those accounts appears to have been compromised, as information from the company was then used in two separate sets of e-mails with malicious attachments sent to election officials just days before the election.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | DonNichols)

The cable TV business is in trouble—in fact, it is "failing" as a business due to rising programming costs and consumers switching from traditional TV subscriptions to online video streaming, according to a cable lobbyist group.

"As a business, it is failing," said Matthew Polka, CEO of the American Cable Association (ACA). "It is very, very difficult for a cable operator in many cases to even break even on the cable side of the business, which is why broadband is so important, giving consumers more of a choice that we can't give them on cable [TV]."

Polka made his comments in an episode of C-SPAN Communicators that is airing this week, though it was recorded in April. Video is available here.