Month: September 2019

Enlarge (credit: Gabriel Mansour / Flickr)

On Monday night, Variety reported that film editors around Los Angeles who had Avid Media Composer software installed were suddenly finding that their Macs were unable to reboot. The publication speculated that malware may have been the cause. On Wednesday, Google disclosed the real cause—a Chrome browser update.

Specifically, it was a new version of Chrome's Keystone updater that caused so many Macs to stop rebooting, according to this Chrome open bug post. When the update was installed on Macs that had disabled a security feature known as system integrity prevention and met several other conditions, a crucial part of the Mac system file was damaged, a Google employee said in the forum.

"This appears to be an issue with a new version of Google Keystone," a different Google employee wrote earlier in the thread. "We have halted the rollout and are working on remediation right now."

Enlarge (credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

"Over the 21st century, the ocean is projected to transition to unprecedented conditions with increased temperatures, greater upper-ocean stratification, further acidification, oxygen decline, and altered net primary production." That's one of the top-line conclusions detailed in a new IPCC report released Wednesday. This latest report—the volunteer work of over 100 scientists summarizing almost 7,000 published studies—focuses on our planet's ocean and cryosphere, describing the changes we've measured, projected future changes, and the choices before us.

The report follows on others covering the potential benefits of limiting warming (which has already reached 1°C) from exceeding 1.5 °C, the role of land use in climate change, and impacts on global biodiversity.

The observed changes in oceans and ice run the gamut from physical changes to chemistry to living things. Sea levels are rising at increasing rates, of course, but it's also true that marine heatwaves (the kind of event that can bleach coral reefs) have doubled in frequency over the last few decades, and oxygen availability has slightly declined in the surface ocean as circulation changes. Marine species have shifted their geographic ranges to track changing conditions, and sea-level rise combined with coastal habitat loss have boosted flooding events and the inland intrusion of saltwater.

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  The new Ring Stick Up Cam. [credit: Amazon ]

Alongside the deluge of Echo devices Amazon announced during its autumn hardware event on Wednesday, the company unveiled two new security cameras from its Ring subsidiary: the Ring Indoor Cam and a refreshed model of the Ring Stick Up Cam.

The new Stick Up Cam appears very similar to the previous edition, which Amazon refreshed at an event just last year. It still puts out 1080p video, supports motion detection and night vision, and comes in a weather-resistant cylindrical frame that can be mounted indoors or outside. It’ll still work off wired or battery power, too, but it can now run off a solar-powered accessory as well. It has a slightly worse field of view than the previous battery-powered Stick Up Cam, but it’s much cheaper at $99.99 compared to the previous version’s $179.99. It’s available to pre-order today, with a full release on October 23.

The Ring Indoor Cam, meanwhile, is essentially a tiny version of the Stick Up Cam that only works when wired to a power outlet. It measures 46mm×46mm×75mm, compared to the new Stick Up Cam’s 60mm×60mm×97mm. It also has a slightly wider field of view: 115 degrees horizontal and 60 degrees vertical versus 110 degrees horizontal and 57 degrees vertical on the Stick Up Cam. Otherwise, it supports 1080p video, motion detection, two-way talk, and night vision just like the larger model. It costs $59.99—undercutting the price of Amazon’s first-party indoor security camera, the Cloud Cam, among others—and is available to purchase today.

Enlarge (credit: vBulletin)

Attackers are mass-exploiting an anonymously disclosed vulnerability that makes it possible to take control of servers running vBulletin, one of the Internet’s most popular applications for website comments. Sites running the app should take comments offline until administrators install a patch that vBulletin developers released late Wednesday morning.

The vulnerability was disclosed through an 18-line exploit that was published on Monday by an unidentified person. The exploit allows unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute malicious code on just about any vBulletin server running versions 5.0.0 up to 5.5.4. The vulnerability is so severe and easy to exploit that some critics have described it as a back door.

“Essentially, any attack exploits a super simple command injection,” Ryan Seguin, a research engineer at Tenable, told Ars. “An attacker sends the payload, vBulletin then runs the command, and it responds back to the attacker with whatever they asked for. If an attacker issues a shell command as part of the injection, vBulletin will run Linux commands on its host with whatever user permissions vBulletins' system-level user account has access to.” Seguin has more in this technical analysis of the vulnerability.

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  The new $199 Echo Studio speaker. [credit: Amazon ]

At an event in Seattle today, Amazon announced a slew of new Echo devices that build on the company's existing smart speakers. Of note is the new Echo Studio, a $199 smart speaker that supports 3D audio and Dolby Atmos sound.

Previous rumors indicated that Amazon, which recently started supporting lossless audio on its music streaming service, would release a speaker that could better play such music. The Echo Studio is that device—it looks like a beefier version of the original Echo and is strikingly similar to Apple's Homepod. It will fill a room with sound using its left, right, and top mid-range speakers, directional tweeter, and 5.25-inch bass driver and accompanying bass port. It will also adjust to its space by calibrating with its built-in microphones.

At $199, the Echo Studio could be an alternative to the Sonos One speaker. It's also not a coincidence that the Studio costs $100 less than both Apple's Homepod and the Google Home Max—Amazon is attempting to position the Studio as a more affordable option.