Month: December 2019

• 

  The Motorola One Hyper. [credit: Motorola ]

Motorola has what might be the best-looking mid-range smartphone with the "Motorola One Hyper," a $400 phone with flagship touches like an all-screen front design and a motorized, pop-up camera. It's like a mini OnePlus 7 Pro! You won't find any notches or other screen blemishes here.

For specs, you have a 6.5-inch 2340×1080 IPS LCD, a 2GHz Snapdragon 675, 4GB of memory, 128GB of storage, and a 4000mAh battery. The are two rear cameras: a 64MP main sensor and a 8MP wide angle lens, and a 32MP front camera. Both the main front and back cameras have a pretty high megapixel count, and both have an optional "quad pixel" mode, which merges every four pixels together for better light pickup.

There's a rear fingerprint reader, a 3.5mm headphone jack (!), a microSD slot for expandable storage up to 1TB, and NFC. There is clearly some cost cutting here, but that's to be expected at $400. You'll get a USB-C port capable of 45W quick charging, but you'll only get a 15W charger in the box. The body is made of plastic, and while it has a "water-repellant design" there's no official IPxx rating. Motorola is not great at OS updates, but at least out of the box, the phone has Android 10.

Enlarge / Screenshot of Justice Department website shows four pictures of same alleged criminal. (credit: US Justice Department)

Federal prosecutors have indicted the kingpin of Evil Corp, the name used by a cybercrime gang that used the notorious Dridex malware to drain more than $70 million from bank accounts in the US, UK, and other countries.

Maksim V. Yakubets, a 32-year-old Russian national who used the handle "Aqua," led one of the world's most advanced transnational cybercrime syndicates in the world, prosecutors said on Thursday. The crime group's alleged deployment of Dridex was one of the most widespread malware campaigns ever. The UK's National Crime Agency said the syndicate used the name Evil Corp.

Dridex was configured to target the customers of almost 300 different organizations in more than 40 countries by automating the theft of online banking credentials and other confidential information from infected computers. Over time, Dridex creators updated the malware to install ransomware. Previously known as Bugat and Cridex, Dridex used zeroday exploits and malicious attachments in emails to infect targets. The malware was designed to bypass antivirus and other security defenses.

Enlarge / Regional headquarters of software company Oracle in San Jose, California, April 13, 2019. (credit: Smith Collection | Gado | Getty Images)

As a long-running Department of Labor suit against Oracle heads in front of a judge this week, Oracle is fighting back by arguing that the DOL's suit, alleging violation of labor laws, is unconstitutional.

The DOL filed suit against Oracle in 2017, alleging that the company had a broad, systemic pay discrepancy that underpaid women and people of color employed by the firm by a total $401 million in a four-year period. Analyses conducted by the department, as well as by independent third parties, found women were being paid between $13,000 and $20,000 less per year, on average, than their male peers.

The hearings in the case began today. The DOL is expected to call more than 20 current and former employees as witnesses in the case over the next week or two of proceedings.

Enlarge / A Google Fiber van. (credit: Google Fiber)

Google Fiber has stopped offering its $50-per-month, 100Mbps Internet plan to new customers, leaving its gigabit service as the only option available to people who weren't grandfathered into the cheaper plan.

On the plus side, Google Fiber has still never raised the $70-per-month price of its gigabit plan since beginning operations in November 2012, a rarity in an industry in which incumbent ISPs routinely raise prices and tack on hidden fees because they face little competition.

"We're going all in on a gig," Google Fiber said in its announcement yesterday. "We will no longer offer a 100Mbps plan to new customers."

• 

  This Eero kit consists of three Eero routers, rather than the less-expensive one-router-and-two-Beacon kits. [credit: Jim Salter ]

We finally got our hands on Amazon's redesigned second-gen Eero kit, and we won't bury the lede—it's a fantastic performer, especially for the price. Although its performance isn't on par with the Plume Superpods, it was easy to set up and didn't outright fail any of our torture tests. Eero maintained decent browsing latency all around the house, even while simultaneously delivering four emulated 4K video streams.

Don't get us wrong, there's still a lot of daylight between Eero and Plume—but with the Eero kit retailing for $250 normally, and currently on special for $189 with a free Echo Dot and without need for a subscription (for most features), it's a heck of a deal.

On the other hand, if you want Eero because of its Alexa integration... maybe you ought to wait a bit.