Month: May 2018

Enlarge / Yahoo! Inc. signage is displayed at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, California in 2016. (credit: Noah Berger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Canadian man who pled guilty last year to a massive spear-phishing operation of Yahoo employees—which ultimately resulted in 500 million accounts being compromised—has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Karim Baratov, 23, was also ordered on Tuesday by a federal judge in San Francisco to pay a $250,000 fine.

"The sentence imposed reflects the seriousness of hacking for hire," acting US Attorney Alex Tse said in a statement. He also wrote:

Enlarge / Martian Marine Bobbie Draper and her team get ready for action. (credit: Rafy/Syfy)

Amazon will become the home of The Expanse's fourth season, after cable network Syfy announced that it would not air any episodes after the conclusion of season three. The third season will continue airing on Syfy, but the series will become an Amazon Original in the United States for season four.

The news was announced by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos himself at the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles, with cast members of The Expanse present. A session on The Expanse had taken place at the same conference earlier that day.

Last week, news hit that Bezos was a big fan of the series and that he was seeking a deal to save it. However, it was not a done deal at that time. The Expanse is produced fully by a company called Alcon Entertainment, but the show's continued production was dependent on Syfy's deal to air the show on cable. However, for myriad reasons, Syfy is locked in a strategy focused on traditional OTA (over-the-air) viewing—a mismatch with the genre's audience. The cable station also did not have the OTT rights to stream The Expanse on digital platforms. Amazon streamed the program in the United States some time after air, whereas Netflix streamed the program in some other regions.

Enlarge / Akuma readies a super attack in Third Strike. The picture mode is set to original, with the TV scanline filter and bezel art set to on, the filters and bezel are optional

This is how arcade-nostalgia compilations should be done. One year after Ultra Street Fighter II's pricey-and-thin cash-in on the Switch, the series' best arcade entries return in a giant, priced-right anthology for pretty much every major gaming platform—and so far, it's absolutely held up to my series-obsessed button mashing.

Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection does right by one of the more enduring legacies of the arcade era, responsible in good part for the popularity of the fighting game genre. Although not nearly as popular as the sequel that would follow, the original Street Fighter came out just over 30 years ago, complete with pressure-sensitive pads (which were switched to the familiar 6 button layout after people injured their hands from hitting the controls too hard).

This new collection features 12 games, from the original Street Fighter (1987) up to Street Fighter III: Third Strike (1999). That number is padded a little by the various releases of Street Fighter II, or early game renditions that were surpassed by later versions such as Street Fighter Alpha 1, or Street Fighter III: New Generation, but completionists will appreciate their inclusion. The remaining titles are excellent games that still hold up very well from a gameplay perspective.

Enlarge / A power line tower downed by the passing of Hurricane Maria lies on top of a house in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on November 7, 2017. The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York estimated in a report released last month that about 114,000 to 213,000 Puerto Rican residents will leave the island annually "as a result of Hurricane Maria." (credit: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images)

In Puerto Rico, the official government estimate for the number of people who died as a result of Hurricane Maria (the hurricane that struck the island in late September 2017) is just 64. But a new study from Harvard University, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, estimates that the true number is closer to 4,645—that is, more than 70 times the official estimate.

After Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, the island went for months without proper water, electrical, or cellular service. Alsom the island was briefly embroiled in a scandal in which a $300 million government contract to rebuild the electrical grid was offered to a company called Whitefish Energy under unusual circumstances.

Puerto Ricans have sharply criticized the government headed by Governor Ricardo A. Rosselló. They claim it has been slow to restore street access from downed trees, as well as other basic utilities. The low "official" fatality count has contributed to the problem. Accurate measures of disaster-related deaths allow regions to properly prepare for future disasters and provide closure for families.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is led by a leftover Memorial Day deal on LG's B7A OLED TVs, as Dell has dropped the 65-inch model down to $1,900. That's a drop of around $500-600 from its usual going rate. The deal also includes a $300 gift card for Dell's online shop, which should come in handy for those in need of new PC accessories.

A few things to note: Dell says the gift card will arrive via email sometime within 20 days, and it will expire if it's not used within 90 days. Second, the B7A is about a year old at this point, so this looks like another example of a TV manufacturer blowing out its old inventory to make way for new models. By most accounts, though, LG's new C8 series isn't a drastic step forward from a picture-quality standpoint. New models support Google Assistant, trade some peak brightness for better motion handling, and include a new color-management system to help those who get their TVs calibrated achieve better accuracy. But for the most part, the new models aren't a major leap compared to the already-excellent picture from last year's sets.

More importantly for the Dealmaster's purposes, the new 65-inch set likely won't reach this low of a price for a few months. Right now, it's going for around $3,500. If you don't want to wait until the holidays, if you plan to make use of that gift card, and if you're OK not having the absolute best mainstream TV out there, this is one of the few times we can call a $1,900 product a decent deal. Note that LG is selling the 55-inch B7A for $600 less, though we've seen that model sit around that price in the past.

Enlarge (credit: Jeff Dunn)

Apple's iOS 11.4 rolls out today, and it brings a big update to HomePods: AirPlay 2 with multi-room audio. The update allows the HomePod and Apple TV (the two Apple devices that currently support AirPlay 2), as well as forthcoming third-party AirPlay 2 devices, to play the same audio throughout your home or only in select areas of your home.

All AirPlay 2 devices can be controlled using an iOS device, HomePod, Apple TV, or by asking Siri. Users can say, "Hey Siri, play classical in the living room," and the appropriate audio will play through the AirPlay 2-compatible speakers, but only in the living room. Essentially, the new setup makes it easier for users to play in-sync audio through all (or only some) of the speakers in their home.

Manufacturers that pledged to support AirPlay 2 include Bang & Olufsen, Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, Marshall, Pioneer, and Sonos. AirPlay 2 devices will now show up in the Apple Home app, since AirPlay 2 integrates with HomeKit. In addition to using Siri or individual apps to control speaker selection and music playback, all AirPlay 2 devices available in a home will show up in iOS' Control Center.