Month: March 2019

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket launches a GPS III satellite for the Air Force in December, 2018. (credit: SpaceX)

Even before the space shuttle Challenger accident in 1986, the US military wanted access to space independent of the civilian space agency. But that accident spurred the Reagan administration to devise a National Space Launch Strategy that directed the military to develop a “mixed fleet” policy and ensure access to space by way of multiple vehicles.

By 1994, as the military sought to develop a stable of rockets for the 21st century, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Thomas Moorman urged development of an “evolved expendable launch vehicle,” or EELV approach. The goal of the Moorman plan was to “evolve” the aging Atlas and Delta rockets by improving their reliability and lowering their cost. This grew into the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets presently built and flown by United Launch Alliance.

In the last two decades, this EELV abbreviation has become synonymous for military launches. But that appellation makes less sense now, as the Air Force has begun to buy launches from SpaceX and indicates its willingness to consider sending its payloads into space on previously flown rockets.

Enlarge / Rob Joyce, senior advisor to the Director for Cybersecurity National Security Agency (NSA), shown here speaking at the Aspen Cyber Summit in November of 2018, warned at a presentation to DOD contractors that the US needs to be more aggressive in cyber operations to achieve anything resembling deterrence of state hacking attacks. (credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images)

At an industry event in Hanover, Maryland last week, former National Security Council cybersecurity policy coordinator and acting Homeland Security Advisor Rob Joyce—now back at the National Security Agency as senior advisor to NSA Director General Paul Nakasone—warned that the US government needs to do more than just counter cyber attacks launched against the US. "We have to impose costs in a visible way to start deterrence,” Joyce told attendees of a February 28 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) chapter meeting, according to a report by CyberScoop's Sean Lyngaas. "We have to go out and try to make those operations less successful and harder to do.”

Citing the WannaCry and NotPetya malware attacks (attributed to North Korea and Russia, respectively, by US intelligence), along with the Russian hacking and disinformation campaigns in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential elections, Joyce said that state-sponsored cyberattacks have been shifting from "exploitation to disruption." While electronic espionage continues, attackers have increasingly focused on doing economic damage to the US and its allies, he said.

Joyce spoke as President Donald Trump was bringing his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to an early close—and as North Korean hackers reportedly continued a 15-month campaign targeting US and European businesses.

Enlarge (credit: HBO)

HBO is planning to produce 50 percent more original content this year, even as new owner AT&T reportedly plans significant layoffs across its Time Warner subsidiary.

WarnerMedia, the AT&T division created after its June 2018 acquisition of Time Warner, told Ars today that it is planning to reduce costs for "duplicative back-office functions," while increasing investment in producing content. WarnerMedia today also issued a press release announcing a reorganization that will create four business divisions "around entertainment networks, live programming, content production, and affiliate and advertising sales."

"From an HBO content perspective, and this is irrespective of today's announcement, they are already increasing and looking to increase their original content by 50 percent this year," WarnerMedia Senior VP of Corporate Communications Emile Lee told Ars.

• 

  OnLeak's OnePlus 7 renders. Check out that pop-up camera! [credit: OnLeaks x PriceBaba ]

We purportedly have our first good look at the next OnePlus device, which will probably be called the OnePlus 7, thanks to a set of device renders created by OnLeaks (hosted over at Pricebaba). OnLeaks has a great track record with these first-look renders, having most recently nailed the Galaxy S10 and Pixel 3, so this is worth looking at, too.

So far in 2019, most manufacturers are moving beyond the notch display cutout for front camera placement (well, unless you are LG). On most new devices, we would expect something like the Galaxy S10's "hole punch" display, but OnePlus appears to be throwing us a real curveball and putting a pop-up front camera in a mainstream device. On the top of the phone, a square block pops up when it's time to take a picture, leaving no blemishes on the front display at all. The leak puts the display at 6.5 inches, which would be a small increase from the 6.41-inch display on the OnePlus 6T.

OnePlus' parent company, BBK, has been experimenting with moving cameras for the last year or so, having also released the Oppo Find X and Vivo Nex. Like in the Vivo Nex, the new camera is presumably motorized and will open when you switch to the front camera in the camera app.

Enlarge / A very dramatic-looking Thunderbolt 3 cable.

Fulfilling its 2017 promise to make Thunderbolt 3 royalty-free, Intel has given the specification for its high-speed interconnect to the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the industry group that develops the USB specification. The USB-IF has taken the spec and will use it to form the basis of USB4, the next iteration of USB following USB 3.2.

Thunderbolt 3 not only doubles the bandwidth of USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, going from 20Gb/s to 40Gb/s, it also enables the use of multiple data and display protocols simultaneously. We would expect the USB4 specification to be essentially a superset of the Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2 specifications, thus incorporating both the traditional USB family of protocols (up to and including the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2) and the Thunderbolt 3 protocol in a single document. Down the line, this should translate into USB4 controllers that support the whole range of speeds.

Intel has previously announced that its Ice Lake platform, due to ship later this year, will integrate both Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 (aka USB 3.2 Gen 2) controllers. Currently, offering Thunderbolt 3 requires the use of an additional chip, one of Intel's Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controllers. Integration into the platform means that system-builders no longer need to choose whether or not to include the extra chip; the capability will be built in, and as such, we'd expect to see it become nearly universal.

Enlarge / Outside of Germany, there's nowhere you can legally drive this car at its top speed anyway.

Few automakers have staked the reputation of their brands on safety quite the way Volvo has. Several years ago, Volvo's President Håkan Samuelsson announced that the company was enacting a plan called Vision 2020—building cars so safe that by 2020 no one is killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo. On Monday, the company revealed the latest part of this plan. From next year, all new Volvos (beginning with the 2021 model year) will be limited to 112mph (180km/h).

"Because of our research we know where the problem areas are when it comes to ending serious injuries and fatalities in our cars. And while a speed limitation is not a cure-all, it’s worth doing if we can even save one life," Samuelsson said in a press release. "We want to start a conversation about whether car makers have the right or maybe even an obligation to install technology in cars that changes their driver's behaviour, to tackle things like speeding, intoxication or distraction. We don’t have a firm answer to this question, but believe we should take leadership in the discussion and be a pioneer."

It's certainly a bold move—and the antithesis of the perennial horsepower war that rages between German luxury carmakers, or even the recent move by Tesla to increase the speed of the Model 3 Performance to 162mph via a software update. But it's also not unheard of; in fact, most Japanese OEMs have restricted their domestic market vehicles to 112mph for decades.