Month: July 2017

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Department of Justice officials announced Thursday in Washington, DC that in conjunction with law enforcement across several countries, they had shut down AlphaBay, the notorious online Dark Web marketplace.

Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein said that Dutch authorities also shut down Hansa Market, another Tor-hidden underground drug market.

Acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe estimated that AlphaBay was "10 times the size of Silk Road."

Federal officials confirmed the recent death of Alexandre Cazes, whom they said was the Thailand-based Canadian mastermind behind AlphaBay, and announced that civil forfeiture actions had also begun. That documents cites that as of June 2017, AlphaBay had over 369,000 listings.

Enlarge / Intel-powered Tag Heuer smartwatch.

Intel was once moving full-steam ahead into wearables, but that effort has apparently come to an end. Reports at the end of last year claimed the company was looking to step back from wearables, but Intel denied that rumor. Now a report from CNBC cites a source that claims Intel completely shut down its wearable division about two weeks ago.

The report refers to the Basis group, which was made up of employees from the wearable company that Intel bought for about $100 million. The source also claims 80 percent of those in the Basis group were let go in November 2016, but many were given the option to assume other roles within Intel. The company's New Technologies Group is reportedly focusing on AI now more than ever.

We don't know what this will mean for Intel's Curie chip in the long-term, but it's still being promoted on Intel's website. It's possible that Intel isn't putting any more effort into creating its own wearable devices, but will continue to provide technology like Curie to partners. Currently Intel lists Tag Heuer, New Balance, and Oakley as some of its partners on the Curie webpage.

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Planar magnetic headphones, which use a thin film suspended between neodymium magnets to deliver sound quite unlike that of typical dynamic and balanced armature headphones, are traditionally the reserve of the well-heeled audiophile. The sound quality is, according to fans, clearer, sharper, and more detailed and only surpassed by electrostatic headphones, which use electricity instead of magnets to vibrate a thin film to push sound to the ears.

Both technologies are more complex to manufacture than traditional dynamic drivers, and both require more volume to function. The result is that planar magnetic headphones like those from US-based MrSpeakers cost well over £1,000/$1,000, while the headphone amps required to drive them cost hundreds if not thousands of pounds more on top.

Blue, famous for its line of podcast microphones, hopes to make planar magnetic technology less intimidating with its Ella headphones (buy here). At £675/$699, Ella is hardly cheap (and there are sets like the Oppo PM-3 that are cheaper at £350). But they combine the coveted headphone technology with an internal amplifier (250mW) that allows them to be used with everyday devices like smartphones and laptops, as well as with a high-end audio setup.

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Google's dispute with France's privacy watchdog over a call to apply "right to be forgotten" rules globally to some Web links will be weighed by Europe's top court—three years after it told the ad giant to comply with an order to remove old, out of date, or irrelevant listings from its powerful search index, so long as they weren't found to be in the public interest.

French data regulator, the CNIL (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés), previously called on Google to globally delist certain search results, in a move that inflamed a row over the European Union's right to be forgotten landmark 2014 ruling. Last year, the multinational said it would appeal against CNIL's order, which included a €100,000 fine for failing to remove certain links from its global search results.

On Wednesday, it was confirmed that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will rule on whether certain links should be scrubbed from search engine results worldwide, across the EU, or on a country-by-country basis. It comes after France's supreme administrative court—the Conseil d’Etat—had asked the CJEU to intervene in the fracas between Google and CNIL.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

NEW YORK—On July 15 and 16, the fledgling sport of Formula E racing managed something its older, bigger, much richer sibling never managed: racing with the Statue of Liberty and the downtown Manhattan skyline as a backdrop. After races in Miami (2015) and Long Beach, California (2015, 2016), the Big Apple became the third US venue to host an ePrix, and it should provide the electric racing series a home for some time to come thanks to a 10-year contract with the city.

Before a sold-out crowd of 18,000, DS Virgin Racing's Sam Bird stepped up to the pressure and took two wins from two races. And with championship leader Sebastien Buemi absent—the Swiss driver was committed to racing in Germany in the World Endurance Championship the same weekend—ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport's Lucas di Grassi made up ground in the title fight, narrowing the gap to just 10 points with two races left to go. Given all the excitement (and the fact NYC qualifies as the closest stop on the Formula E calendar), Ars took to the grandstands to see how one of our favorite racing series is starting to mature.