Month: January 2019

Enlarge / This logo is from one of the series' video games; there's no telling what logo may come from an eventual Netflix take on the series. (credit: Capcom)

Hours before the newest Resident Evil video game reaches PCs and game consoles, a report has linked the zombie-horror franchise to relatively new territory: a deal with Netflix.

Deadline has what appears to be a very early scoop on the news. Reporter Nellie Andreeva firmly claimed on Thursday that the horror series is "coming to television" and that Netflix has claimed it as a "global original," courtesy of German film and TV production company Constantin Film.

If that name doesn't sound familiar, it's the company responsible for all six live-action Resident Evil films released between 2002 and 2016. Each film starred Milla Jovovich, and while the 2016 entry was subtitled "The Final Chapter" and was formally described as the film series' finale, its events left a sizable hole in the plot to make room for a follow-up story.

Enlarge / SpaceX hot-fire tested this Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday. (credit: SpaceX)

On Thursday afternoon, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX performed a hot-fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket that will fly its first commercial crew demonstration mission. This flight will not carry crew members but will serve as a test of the launch system, Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the company's ability to dock the vehicle safely with the International Space Station.

More than two hours after the 4pm ET test—in which the rocket's first stage engines are fired for several seconds to simulate liftoff while the rocket is clamped down—SpaceX had yet to confirm whether the test was successful. Some early reports indicated the test did not undergo a full firing, which may or may not be a problem.

Thursday's act of firing the rocket, which will now be returned from the launchpad to SpaceX's Horizontal Integration Facility at the company's Florida site, nevertheless represents a significant step forward for SpaceX and NASA.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

Five US Senate Democrats today warned that the T-Mobile US/Sprint merger could hurt consumers and urged the Senate Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on the deal's potential harms.

The Democrats sent a letter to Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) asking him to schedule a hearing on the proposed merger.

The committee has "jurisdiction over the wireless industry and the Federal Communications Commission" and thus has a "responsibility to assess the effects of this potential consolidation," the Democrats wrote.

Enlarge / The iPhone XS has a different battery design than the iPhone XS Max, which has the same design as the iPhone X. (credit: iFixit)

Apple has hired Soonho Ahn, a former Samsung executive who worked primarily on lithium-ion batteries and other battery-related technologies, Bloomberg reports. Ahn joined Apple in December after a four-year stint at Samsung.

He ran Samsung SDI, which, among other things, supplied Apple with device batteries a few years ago. Bloomberg also reports that Apple is in talks to buy cobalt "directly from miners"—cobalt is needed to make these kinds of batteries. Both revelations suggest that Apple may be looking to make its own batteries rather than source them from other companies.

If there's one guiding product design and business philosophy at Apple, it's that minimizing the number of components and features that are dependent on third parties and other companies leads to a win-win—better products and user experiences for customers, and more profit for the company.

Enlarge / Seriously, it's enough to make researchers cry. (credit: Getty | Peter M Fisher)

Dr. Steve Bellovin is professor of computer science at Columbia University, where he researches "networks, security, and why the two don't get along." He is the author of Thinking Security and the co-author of Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker. The opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily represent those of Ars Technica.

Newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) recently stated that facial recognition "algorithms" (and by extension all "algorithms") "always have these racial inequities that get translated" and that "those algorithms are still pegged to basic human assumptions. They're just automated assumptions. And if you don't fix the bias, then you are just automating the bias."

She was mocked for this claim on the grounds that "algorithms" are "driven by math" and thus can't be biased—but she's basically right. Let's take a look at why.

Enlarge / Some Googlers held protest signs during the November 2018 walkout. (credit: Cyrus Farivar)

Newly revealed filings to the National Labor Relations Board show that attorneys for Google have been lobbying the agency to undo an earlier decision that required companies to let employees organize on the company's own email systems.

According to a Thursday report by Bloomberg, Google has urged the NLRB in both May 2017 and as recently as November 2018 to overturn a 2014 decision known as Purple Communications.

In that case, the majority found that workers at Purple Communications, an American Sign Language interpreting company, could not be barred from using their work email for organizing purposes. The three Democratic-appointed members found that the workers' own work email was a "natural gathering place," particularly when those workers—like ASL interpreters—were distributed across a wide geographic area.

Netflix has released the first full trailer for The Umbrella Academy, its TV adaptation of the comic book series of the same name written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá. So we'll soon be treated to the darkly comic adventures of the Hargreeves siblings, a dysfunctional family of reluctant superheroes. Think of them as the anti-Incredibles.

The comics are set in an alternate 1977 (coincidentally the year Way was born) where President John F. Kennedy was never assassinated. The Monocle, an alien disguised as billionaire industrialist Sir Reginald Hargreeves, adopts seven surviving children out of 43 mysteriously born to random women who had not been pregnant the day before. The children are raised at Hargreeves' Umbrella Academy and become a family of superheroes with special powers. But it's a dysfunctional arrangement, and the family members ultimately disband, only reuniting as adults when Hargreeves dies. Later in the series, one of their own becomes a supervillain, prompting them to officially become a crime-fighting team again.

Fans of the comics will be pleased to hear that the Netflix adaptation looks to roughly follow the same basic premise—except the 43 mysterious babies are born on the same day in 1989 instead of 1977. Once again, the team disbands and reunites for the funeral of their childhood benefactor 17 years later, except they don't really have many nice things to say about him. "He was a monster," Diego Hargreeves (David Castaneda) offers as the ashes are scattered.

Enlarge (credit: TechBargains)

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is headlined by a deal on Vizio's excellent P-Series TV, the 55-inch model of which is down to $648 at Walmart. That's a $150 discount that brings the TV back to its Black Friday pricing.

This P-Series set will inevitably be replaced by a new model in the coming months, but at this price it's still a good buy. It has almost unanimously positive reviews across the Web, with praise heaped on its high contrast (for an LED TV) and subsequently strong HDR performance. The P-Series supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision and includes five HDMI ports (and a TV tuner, unlike some past Vizio TVs.) Vizio's smart TV interface isn't quite as simple as that of a Roku TV, but it does have built-in Chromecast support.

To address the elephant in the room: yes, Vizio is likely tracking what you watch and selling your data to advertisers. Yes, this is creepy. But it's also something every major smart TV manufacturer is doing, and Vizio has at least been pressured into being more transparent about what data it collects and shares. Annoyingly, the one surefire way to halt the snooping is to disconnect your TV from the Internet entirely. Nevertheless, while the P-Series' picture isn't quite as stunning as those of the best OLED TVs, it's still impressive for something that costs half as much (and has no risk of image burn-in down the road).

Enlarge / The true consequences of the government shutdown for information security may not yet have been felt. (credit: Gary Kemp Photography/Getty Images)

The US Federal government is in the midst of the longest gap in funding for many of its agencies in history. As the "shutdown" extends into a second month, the economic impact is mounting for federal workers—including civil servants and government contractors working in IT and information security roles for the government—as well as the communities they work and live in.

Furloughs have had a real impact on the government's security posture as well. Work at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology on a number of initiatives, including work on encryption, has been suspended. Some "non-essential" agencies have had to furlough security teams, leaving them with no way to respond to incidents during the shutdown. Routine maintenance on IT systems, such as patches and updates to websites and server operating systems, are being deferred. And those still at work at agencies operating without a budget are doing so without pay and under financial duress—not exactly an ideal situation for maintaining a top security posture.

But the real damage to the government may be waiting in the wings. Several furloughed federal workers in information security who spoke to Ars this week said that they are now actively seeking jobs in the private sector out of necessity. A number of private companies recruiting talent in the field have seen a spike in job applications from people in government service. And even if the shutdown were to end this week—which doesn't seem likely—some government IT leaders expressed concern that workers would come back to collect their back pay and then resign. And for contractors who have no guarantee of regaining lost wages, the math is even more vicious.