Month: November 2019

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  Tesla sent over some better images of the Cybertruck, and I updated the delivery information below. [credit: Tesla ]

On Thursday night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed his company's take on that most quintessentially American of automobiles, the pickup truck. "Trucks have been basically the same for 100 years. We want to do something different," Musk told a rapturous audience. He wasn't underselling things. It's called the Cybertruck, and it looks like a cross between the Aston Martin Bulldog, a wedge-shaped concept from the early 1980s, and that cool APC you remember from Aliens.

"We moved the mass to the outside," Musk said, referring to the fact that the Cybertruck has a stainless steel monocoque construction, like the Model 3. Criticizing the body-on-frame construction technique used for almost heavy trucks on sale, Musk told attendees that "the body and the bed don't do anything useful," before launching into a lengthy demonstration of people hitting or shooting body panels and glass from the Cybertruck to prove the toughness of the exterior.

The shape is highly unconventional, but the size could have been picked by a focus group—almost exactly as wide and tall as a Ford F-150, and about exactly as long as some of the four-seat versions of America's favorite pickup. At the rear, the 6.5-foot (2m) bed—called the Cybertruck Vault here, has a lockable aerodynamic cover that gives the vehicle 100 cubic feet (2,831L) of protected cargo storage. The Vault will also support loads of up to 3,500lbs (1,588kg).

Enlarge / iOS 13 on an iPhone 11 Pro. (credit: Samuel Axon)

The initial release windows of both iOS 12 and iOS 13 saw users complaining about a plethora of bugs both major and minor. Apple has plans to mitigate this problem when iOS 14 launches next year, according to sources who spoke with Bloomberg.

People familiar with the shift told the publication that a major factor contributing to iOS 13's rough launch window was the fact that many Apple developers were making daily or weekly commits of new features at varying levels of readiness and quality, and those features were enabled by default regardless of their readiness. This meant that test builds were often unusable for stretches of time due to one problematic feature or another, which limited the amount of time testers spent with the software.

Under the new methodology, new test builds of Apple's future operating systems will turn certain features deemed to be buggy or to cause usability issues off by default. Testers will be able to opt-in on a feature-by-feature basis in many cases, reducing the likelihood that they will be working with "unlivable" builds.

Enlarge / Louisiana state agencies were taken offline during the response to a Ryuk ransomware attack but are now largely up and running again thanks to backups. (credit: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Getty Images via Getty Images)

In October, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warning of increased targeting by ransomware operators of "big game"—targets with deep pockets and critical data that were more likely to pay ransoms to restore their systems. The past week has shown that warning was for good reason.

On November 18, a ransomware attack caused Louisiana's Office of Technology Services to shut down parts of its network, including the systems of several major state agencies. These included the governor's office, the Department of Health (including Medicare systems), the Department of Children and Family Services, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Department of Transportation. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards activated the state's cybersecurity response team.

Today, we activated the state's cybersecurity team in response to an attempted ransomware attack that is affecting some state servers. The Office of Technology Services identified a cybersecurity threat that affected some, but not all state servers. #lagov #lalege

— John Bel Edwards (@LouisianaGov) November 18, 2019

While some services have been brought back online—in some cases, within hours—others are still in the process of being restored. Most of the interrupted services were caused by "our aggressive actions to combat the attack," according to Louisiana Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne. "We are confident we did not have any lost data, and we appreciate the public's patience as we continue to bring services online over the next few days."

Enlarge / Verizon 5G in Boston's Fenway/Kenmore area. (credit: Verizon)

Verizon has continually touted its rollout of 5G as it reaches more cities with the latest cellular technology, but new coverage maps confirm what consumers have experienced: Verizon's 5G network is only sparsely deployed even in major cities.

You can check out Verizon's new coverage maps that show 5G mobile deployment in 18 cities on the Verizon website, and we'll show you some highlights in this article. In many of the maps, you'll see one or two densely populated areas covered by 5G, with just small pockets of 5G scattered throughout the surrounding streets. You'll also see a lot of areas where there is 5G on each street but not between each street, suggesting that Verizon 5G doesn't penetrate indoors.

Here's how to read each coverage map. For each city, we'll start with Verizon's extremely basic and blocky map that displays gray shapes for areas that have at least some 5G and white shapes for parts of the city that have no 5G at all.