Month: August 2019

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  The line of the dash as it rises and falls over the main instrument display is classic 911. But the execution is ultramodern minimalism. [credit: Porsche ]

I know, the slow drip of news from Porsche about its forthcoming Taycan electric car is starting to grate. "Just show us the damn car," you're probably thinking. I am, but I don't set the embargoes, and so here we are again. I've just got back from a long day's briefings about the new electric car, but I still can't tell you most of what I learned yet. However, today the company has allowed us to share these images of the interior.

It's unmistakably a Porsche to look at; the original 911 was a heavy influence for both the driving position and also the shape of the dashboard. But it's also unmistakably futuristic—the main instrument panel is a single, slightly curved 16.8-inch display. Not only is it the biggest screen I've seen used like this in a production car, it sits naked, without a cowl to shade it from bright sunlight. To combat glare, the screen is coated with a polarized layer, and it is angled slightly off-vertical to minimize reflections.

The Taycan's design team has created a radically simple new look for the main instrument panel. The "Classic" mode—seen in these studio shots—is a minimalist take on the traditional horizontal cluster of round dials and gauges. You can replace the center dial with a moving map—also minimalist white-on-black, and oh so tasteful, or go the whole hog and make the entire main display the map. And there's a Pure mode which just gives you your speed, cutting out all the other distractions like you were able to do with a Saab. Around left and right edges of the main instrument display are icons for functions like the headlights, ride height, and so on. (These are also the buttons to control them, but this is not a touchscreen, and those icons never move.)

Enlarge (credit: Timothy Brown / Flickr)

In an attempt to quell a controversy that has raised the ire of white-hat hackers, the maker of the Steam online game platform said on Thursday it made a mistake when it turned away a researcher who recently reported two separate vulnerabilities.

In its statement, Valve Corporation references HackerOne, the reporting service that helps thousands of companies receive and respond to vulnerabilities in their software or hardware. The company also writes:

We are also aware that the researcher who discovered the bugs was incorrectly turned away through our HackerOne bug bounty program, where his report was classified as out of scope. This was a mistake.

Our HackerOne program rules were intended only to exclude reports of Steam being instructed to launch previously installed malware on a user’s machine as that local user. Instead, misinterpretation of the rules also led to the exclusion of a more serious attack that also performed local privilege escalation through Steam.

We have updated our HackerOne program rules to explicitly state that these issues are in scope and should be reported. In the past two years, we have collaborated with and rewarded 263 security researchers in the community helping us identify and correct roughly 500 security issues, paying out over $675,000 in bounties. We look forward to continuing to work with the security community to improve the security of our products through the HackerOne program.

In regards to the specific researchers, we are reviewing the details of each situation to determine the appropriate actions. We aren’t going to discuss the details of each situation or the status of their accounts at this time.

Valve’s new HackerOne program rules specifically provide that “any case that allows malware or compromised software to perform a privilege escalation through Steam, without providing administrative credentials or confirming a UAC dialog, is in scope. Any unauthorized modification of the privileged Steam Client Service is also in scope.”

Enlarge / Ryugu's rubble-pile surface, taken by MASCOT shortly before it hit and started bouncing. (credit: JAXA)

For the last few months, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft has been engaged in various acts of interplanetary aggression, shooting the asteroid Ryugu in order to blast free material for a return to Earth. But Hayabusa2's visit has also featured various less violent activities, as its imaging and characterization of Ryugu has given us a new picture of the body, which is thought to act as a time capsule for material that formed at the earliest stages of our Solar System.

As part of these studies, Hayabusa2 dropped off a French-German robot that was meant to hop across the asteroid's surface in order to sample some of its rocks. Despite landing upside-down, the robot eventually hopped into the right orientation, and a paper describing what it found was published in Thursday's edition of Science.

Hopping, but not like a bunny

If you're like me, then the image of a small robot hopping across the surface of an asteroid brought something adorable and possibly anthropomorphic to mind. You may get rid of those images immediately. MASCOT, the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, is a rectangular box. Its ability to hop is provided by an internal weighted device. By rapidly rotating this weight, the robot could generate enough velocity to overcome Ryugu's tiny gravitational field and launch the box to new locations.

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  On Thursday morning, the final Delta IV Medium rocket launched from Florida. [credit: United Launch Alliance ]

On Thursday morning, United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Medium rocket took flight for the final time. Beneath clear blue skies at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch site in Florida, the rocket carried the GPS III satellite safely into orbit. This is the second of the Air Force's next-generation global positioning system satellites to reach space.

As usual, the single-core Delta IV rocket performed its job well. Since 2002, this rocket (which can fly with or without small, side-mounted solid rocket boosters) has flown 29 missions. All have been successful.

But the venerable Delta rocket will fly no more. Put simply, in today's marketplace—in which United Launch Alliance must compete with SpaceX for national security launches and with many other providers for commercial missions—the Delta-IV Medium cannot compete.

Enlarge / LOS ANGELES, Calif. - APRIL 14, 2015: Kathleen Miller, 46, right, with her children at a rally of parents and teachers who oppose efforts to end the personal-belief exemption on vaccinations. (credit: Getty / Irfan Khan)

The Sacramento Police Department on Wednesday cited a prominent anti-vaccine advocate on suspicion of assault after he shoved state Sen. Richard Pan from behind while livestreaming the interaction on Facebook, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.

Along with the streamed Facebook video (which you can watch here), advocate Kenneth Austin Bennett wrote: “... yes, I pushed Richard Pan for lying, laughing at us, and for treason.” He added in the video that if Pan “got what he deserved, he would be hanged for treason for assaulting children, for misrepresenting the truth.”

Bennett had previously accused Pan of treason in a recall petition he filed against Pan earlier this year. In the petition, Bennett cited Pan’s legislation aimed at tightening rules for vaccination exemptions in California. Bennett had also previously challenged Pan in the 2018 primary but did not qualify for the general election.

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  This is the new Mac Pro. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Apple has already had a busy year with the launch of the Apple Card and the reveal of the above-pictured Mac Pro, but it's about to get much, much busier. A new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Debby Wu—who have reported reliably on Apple's plans in the past—details numerous upcoming product announcements from Apple.

Citing people familiar with the situation, the report mentions three iPhones, a MacBook Pro, an Apple Watch, iPad Pros, an entry-level iPad, a higher-end iteration of AirPods, and a more affordable alternative to HomePod.

And those are just the as-yet-unannounced products: Apple has already stated its intentions to release a new Mac Pro, an ultra-high-end display for creative professionals, the Apple TV+ streaming service, the Apple Arcade games subscription service, and new versions of its iOS and iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS software—all before the end of the year.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Bonilla1879)

A new broadband mapping system is starting to show just how inaccurate the Federal Communications Commission's connectivity data is.

In Missouri and Virginia, up to 38 percent of rural homes and businesses that the FCC counts as having broadband access actually do not, the new research found. That's more than 445,000 unconnected homes and businesses that the FCC would call "served" with its current system.

Given that the new research covered just two states with a combined population of 14.6 million (or 4.5% of the 327.2 million people nationwide), it's likely that millions of homes nationwide have been wrongly counted as served by broadband. A full accounting of how the current data exaggerates access could further undercut FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's claims that repealing net neutrality rules and other consumer protection measures have dramatically expanded broadband access. His claims were already unconvincing for other reasons.