Month: October 2019

Enlarge (credit: Getty )

After three decades of progressive symptoms, a 43-year-old man from Panama was rushed into emergency surgery with a massively swollen scrotum that hung past the level of his knees and had begun to rot and ooze foul-smelling pus, a team of Texas doctors report.

When he arrived at the hospital, he had a fever of 102.2 °F (39 °C) and rapid heart rate, as well as extensive swelling and thickened skin in his scrotum and upper right leg. He also had two open wounds in his scrotum. Further imaging of his abdomen and pelvis revealed a large hernia containing part of his colon, as well as a huge abscess, considerable tissue damage, and fluid collection. (You can see NSFW images of his condition here)

Fearing the ravages of gangrene and sepsis—a life-threatening response to infection—the doctors quickly wheeled him to an operating room to try to remove the rotting flesh. Pathologists examining tissue from his scrotum found extensive inflammation and that some of his skin had begun to liquify.

Enlarge / Coming soon to a Nest near you: Your Google account. (credit: Google Nest)

Google's "Nest" smart home division has seen major upheaval this year, and according to a report from Bloomberg, the changes aren't sitting well with residential builders that formerly integrated Nest projects into their construction projects.

This year, we finally started seeing results from Nest's 2018 demotion from a standalone Alphabet company to a merger with Google. "Nest" is no longer a line of products developed by a company or division and now seems to be a general-purpose sub-brand for any of Google's smart home devices. We've seen several existing product lines be rebranded from "Google" to "Google Nest" like the Google Nest Mini (formerly the Google Home Mini), the Google Nest Hub (formerly the Google Home Hub), the Nest Wifi (formerly Google Wifi), and the Google Nest Learning Thermostat (formerly the Nest Learning Thermostat).

In addition to the death of Nest the company, we're also seeing the death of the Nest ecosystem. The "Works with Nest" smart home program is being shut down in favor of Google Assistant compatibility, and that means devices that used to communicate with Nest now work differently or not at all. Nest's account system is also being shut down, and in the future, users will need a Google account.

(credit: Aurich Lawson)

AT&T is rolling out another batch of price increases for AT&T TV Now, the online streaming service formerly known as DirecTV Now.

The AT&T TV Now "Plus" package that contains 45 channels and costs $50 a month will rise to $65, AT&T told Ars. Customers on other plans will get a $10 increase, AT&T said. That means the "Max" plan with 60 channels will go from $70 to $80. Plans with more channels that currently range in price from $86 to $135 would also get $10 increases.

Notices of the increases are being sent to existing customers, so the price hikes will affect both new and existing users.

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  The Motorola Razr V3—the classic phone that started this hype train moving. [credit: Remy Overkempe / Flickr ]

Motorola and parent company Lenovo have invited press outlets to a product unveiling event on November 13 in Los Angeles that has enthusiasts speculating about the potential imminent announcement of a new Razr phone.

As reported by CNET, an invitation went out with taglines like "an original unlike any other," "you're going to flip," and "highly anticipated unveiling of a reinvented icon." Accompanying the invitation was an animated image depicting the original Razr phone hinge design being peeled back to reveal another, partially obscured device that is clearly meant to look like a foldable device. Given that, it's hard to imagine this event as anything other than a Razr event.

Despite a dearth of reliable information or confirmations, the Razr reboot has become one of the most anticipated smartphone releases among gadget enthusiasts. It's understandable; the Razr V3 was the first cell phone to achieve pop culture icon status, thanks to aggressive, fashion-oriented marketing, among other things. More than 130 million Razr phones were sold over several years after it was announced. It's one of only a few specific phones even today that many consumers in the general public could recall by brand name.

Enlarge / A Frontier Communications service van. (credit: Mike Mozart)

Minnesota regulators are letting Frontier Communications settle an investigation without admitting fault, despite the state attorney general's office calling the settlement "paltry compared with Frontier's alleged misconduct."

Frontier failed to properly maintain its telecom network in Minnesota, leading to "frequent and lengthy" phone and Internet outages, the Minnesota Commerce Department said in January. Frontier also failed to provide refunds or bill credits to customers affected by outages that sometimes lasted for months, committed frequent billing errors that caused customers to pay for services they didn't order, and failed to promptly provide telephone service to all customers who requested it, the department's investigation found.

The Commerce Department in August announced a proposed settlement in which Frontier agreed to offer refunds to customers for problems dating back to November 2015, and to improve future service quality, customer service, and billing practices. The settlement would expire in two years if Frontier is in "substantial compliance" with its terms.

The contents of the Bronze Age toolkit with the mud cleaned off. (credit: V. Minkus)

Three-thousand years ago, at least 140 fighters died in a battle along the banks of Germany’s Tollense River. One of the fallen dropped a small kit containing tools and a handful of bronze scraps. Based on the types of artifacts archaeologists found in this kit, they've concluded that at least some of the combatants in the prehistoric battle probably came from hundreds of kilometers away in Central or even Southern Europe.

According to University of Göttingen archaeologist Tobias Uhlig and his colleagues, that suggests that large-scale battles between far-flung groups began long before people in Europe had developed a system of writing to record the history of their conflicts.

An ancient battlefield

Today, quiet pastures flanked by woods line the banks of the Tollense River in Northeastern Germany. But beneath the green grass and the placid surface of the water, the 3,000-year-old remains of fallen soldiers and their broken weapons lie scattered for at least 2.5km along the river. Most of what we know of the European Bronze Age comes from more peaceful contexts, like settlement or burial sites; the bones, weapons, and personal effects along the Tollense River are the only archaeological evidence (so far) of a battle in prehistoric Europe.

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  Remember the old Xbox "Jump In" ad campaign? Apparently it's back.

Through nearly two decades of Xbox game consoles, Microsoft has never followed Nintendo and Sony's lead in attempting to create a dedicated portable gaming system. Project Xcloud, which entered a limited public beta test this week, is an interesting end-run attempt at filling in that hole. Instead of downloadable games running locally, you stream games running on powerful remote servers over Wi-Fi. Instead of dedicated hardware, you use the smartphone you probably already own.

After spending a few days playing "portable" Xbox One games at home via Xcloud, we're somewhat warming up to the idea. But there are enough hassles and caveats that we're glad Xcloud isn't serving as a full-on replacement for Microsoft's existing gaming strategy just yet.

Head in the clouds

After getting approved for the preview, setting up our Xcloud test was as simple as logging in to the free Android app with a Microsoft account and connecting the controller via Bluetooth. There were about 60 seconds of loading when first starting up a game, but much less when switching back to an existing game after briefly moving to another app on the phone.