Month: August 2017

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Kheng ho Toh)

Two Democratic members of Congress today called for an independent investigation into the Federal Communications Commission's claim that it suffered DDoS attacks on May 8, when the net neutrality public comments system went offline.

"While the FCC and the FBI have responded to Congressional inquiries into these DDoS attacks, they have not released any records or documentation that would allow for confirmation that an attack occurred, that it was effectively dealt with, and that the FCC has begun to institute measures to thwart future attacks and ensure the security of its systems," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) today. "As a result, questions remain about the attack itself and more generally about the state of cybersecurity at the FCC—questions that warrant an independent review."

The letter requesting a GAO investigation was written by Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.).

Enlarge / I'm legit proud of this screenshot, even though I didn't really do much except hit a button.

Can Uncharted really be Uncharted without Nathan Drake? For nearly a decade now, the cinematic action-adventure series has been as tightly linked to its main character as the Indiana Jones movies are to, well, Indiana Jones. Spinning off Lost Legacy as a Nathan Drake-free Uncharted experiment—just a year after the last major franchise release and at a cut-rate price point—is a move that smacks of being a desperate effort to squeeze the last drops out of a series that has lost its main protagonist.

So it's nice to say that, on the one hand, Lost Legacy shows that Uncharted is definitely still Uncharted without Nathan Drake. On the other hand, it also shows that Uncharted is still just Uncharted, Nathan Drake or no.

A not-so-dynamic duo

With Nathan out of the picture, Lost Legacy draws from some of the series' secondary characters, focusing on the player-controlled Chloe Frazer and AI assistant Nadine Ross (plus the surprise appearance of another familiar face that I've been asked not to spoil). I hope you recognize these characters from their previous Uncharted adventures, because Lost Legacy seems to assume quite often that you know them and their history with the series. If you don't, there are only mild allusions to explain how they got here and why you should care about their adventures.

The treasure-hunting Chloe and the more mercenary Nadine make for an odd pairing, which the game makes a valiant effort to explain through a lot of retrospective exposition about how they met up and why they're working together. There's something of a token effort to link the protagonists through a shared sense of loss—Chloe for her father, Nadine for her mercenary group—but it never feels very natural, and the unlikely team-up never quite gels.

The Google Feed, Google's revamp and rebrand of its "Google Now" card feed inside of the Google app, is rolling out to Android users. The Feed is mostly a new coat of paint for features that already existed, but let's cover what's here.

The first is the new tabbed-Feed interface. Open the Google app and at the bottom you'll see three sets of tabs: "Home," "Upcoming," and "Recent." "Home" is the news feed, showing suggested articles based on your search history. The "Upcoming" tab contains cards based on your calendar, e-mails, reminders, and suggested travel times. Finally there's the "Recents" tab, which is basically your search history designed to look like the iOS recent app screen.

The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is losing another of its more exciting features. In July, Microsoft said that the Timeline and Pick Up Where I Left Off features would be delayed until a later release. Now it has been confirmed that Story Remix, the new photo and video app, won't include its impressive 3D capabilities either.

Story Remix was unveiled and demonstrated at Microsoft's Build conference in May this year. It takes something rather unassuming—the Windows Photo and video viewer—and makes it exciting. In simple terms, it includes a bunch of tools for making home videos based on your photos and videos. But that's rather selling it short; Microsoft's demonstration, in the video above, was nothing short of jaw-dropping. This is not Windows Movie Maker; Story Remix used machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques to automatically pick exciting video clips, arrange them and cut them in a sensible way, and add music. Given shots of a girls' soccer game, for example, you could tell Story Remix to make a video focused on a particular team member, and it would pick the best clips to show off that person's performance.

That was already impressive, but Microsoft's demo then kicked things up a notch by adding 3D capabilities. Story Remix was shown importing 3D objects from the same 3D object gallery as is used by Paint 3D. These 3D elements were then incorporated into the videos; for example, a 3D fireball was attached to the soccer ball during a particularly impressive free kick. The fireball's path traced the soccer ball's trajectory—its tail of flame and smoke following the curved path the ball took—transforming the shot into an unsaveable scorcher. Story Remix includes surface detection and tracking, so 3D elements can be pinned to elements in the 2D video, ensuring that the 3D objects stay in the right place even as the camera moves around.

Enlarge / A test model of the Orion spacecraft, with its parachutes, is tested in Arizona. (credit: NASA)

Last week, NASA’s acting chief technologist, Douglas Terrier, visited one of NASA’s main contractors in the Houston area, Jacobs. Along with a handful of media members, he spent about an hour touring the company’s engineering development facility, where the company supports NASA programs from the International Space Station to the Orion spacecraft.

At one stop during the tour, Terrier learned about a new distiller that might more efficiently recover water from urine during long-duration missions. At another, he learned about new debris sensors that will go to the station to record micrometeorite and orbital debris impacts. And at yet another, he heard about the parachute system that Jacobs has helped develop for the Orion spacecraft.

The Jacobs engineer who talked about the contract said the company had partnered with several Houston-based firms and leveraged knowledge from the region’s large oil-and-gas economy. These partnerships, she said, had saved money for NASA over the course of the agency’s 11-year contract with Jacobs to design and build Orion’s parachutes.

Cox is now charging its customers $50 extra each month for unlimited data.

Cox also introduced a $30-per-month charge that adds 500GB to the standard 1TB data plan. Cox customers who go over the 1TB cap without having purchased extra or unlimited data pay a $10 charge for each additional 50GB. Naturally, "unused data does not roll over," Cox says.

DSLReports reported Monday that the new $50 and $30 fees would be rolled out this week, and Cox confirmed it with details on its website. There's also an FAQ. "Our additional data plans are flexible to meet our customers' changing needs—you can add or remove an additional data plan as needed and will see a prorated charge on your bill," Cox said.