Month: June 2019

• 

  Cal and BD-1 scope out upcoming danger. [credit: EA / Respawn ]

LOS ANGELES⁠—How much is a solid single-player Star Wars adventure game from EA worth in 2019?

That answer might have been different six years ago, when EA's brand-new investment in the Star Wars universe had everyone wondering how epic its games would turn out. Since then, one huge project sputtered, then was outright canceled, while two Star Wars Battlefront reboots ranged from so-so to alarming.

Hence, at this point, you may breathe a sigh of relief to learn that this November's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order not only exists but feels quite good, based on my hands-on gameplay session at last week's E3. Or you may yawn while wondering where the heck your Knights of the Old Republic-caliber Star Wars adventure is. After my tests, I think both of those responses are valid.

On Wednesday of this week, an Israeli firm called Regulus Cyber issued a press release stating that "spoofing attacks on the Tesla GNSS (GPS) receiver could easily be carried out wirelessly and remotely." In the firm's demonstration attack on a Model 3, "the car reacted as if the exit was just 500 feet away—abruptly slowing down, activating the right turn signal, and making a sharp turn off the main road," according to Regulus. "The driver immediately took manual control but couldn't stop the car from leaving the road."

Tesla's official response could best be described as "brusque."

So, a company most of us haven't heard of tells us that it's demonstrated disturbing vulnerabilities in Tesla. Tesla, in effect, says said company is just looking for a buck and there's no problem, but it doesn't really provide any details. Where does the truth lie? That question necessitates a look at the merits of this specific Regulus-vs-Tesla claim—and then a broader glance into the history, technology, and possibilities of GNSS spoofing itself.

Enlarge / From the animist deck. I hope you like spiders...

Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com.

Card battle games are a cornerstone of analog gaming. From the venerable Magic: The Gathering to the recently departed Android: Netrunner, their addictive blend of brainy strategy and beautiful artwork have brought millions of players to the table. Their other big draw? The potential for personalization—players can spend hours honing and perfecting their decks, tweaking tactics and hunting for powerful card combinations.

It’s a rich, engrossing process, but it's not for everyone. If recent releases are anything to go by, a substantial audience of gamers would rather just skip it. Keyforge, the recent game from Magic creator Richard Garfield, removed custom decks from the equation, instead handing players pre-assembled, algorithmically generated collections of cards. And now there’s Sorcerer, the latest release from Star Realms studio White Wizard Games. The game takes a more low-tech approach to bypassing deck construction, throwing players straight into a battle of cunning, cleverness, and giant spiky demons.

Enlarge (credit: Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Early Sunday morning, all of mainland Argentina lost power in an “unprecedented” blackout event that left most of the country’s 44 million citizens in the dark until the evening. The blackout also extended to Uruguay (which is connected to Argentina’s power grid) and limited parts of Chile. Although the exact cause of the blackout is still being investigated, Argentina experienced heavy rains over the weekend, and there is reason to believe that the inclement weather played a starring role in the largest blackout in recent history.

Extreme weather events are a leading cause of blackouts around the world, and the blackout in Argentina is a reminder that our electric grids aren’t ready to handle the increasing intensity of storms resulting from climate change. Although the United States isn’t likely to see a nationwide blackout like the one that hit Argentina, localized blackouts in the United States have increased in both frequency and duration in recent years. This is due in no small part to massive forest fires, snow storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes that cause localized blackouts often affecting tens of thousands of people.

“There is clear evidence that extreme weather events have increased over the past 20 years, and so have the number of outages and the number of customer hours out of service,” says Alison Silverstein, an independent energy consultant and previous advisor to the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “We need to accept this and do a better job at helping customers and communities survive these growing outages and threats.”