Month: May 2020

Enlarge / BFFs. (credit: Brenda Kochevar / Flickr)

During the pandemic, Ars has done its best to keep you on top of the most important news. But there are definitely gaps in our coverage: small updates to stories we've covered, or news that we've decided wasn't worth the time to report deeply. Focusing on breaking news also limits our opportunity to provide bigger-picture perspective. To make up for this, we're going to try doing a series of Monday updates to help keep you informed.

Current counts: 4.8 million confirmed cases globally (up 1.3 million over last week); 1.5 million of those in the United States (up 350,000 over last week). 320,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 (up 70,000 over last week); 90,000 deaths in the US (up 30,000 over last week).

Updates:

Over a month has passed since President Donald Trump announced that he was halting funding for the World Health Organization, a group that has played a leading role in coordinating the international response to the pandemic. Trump's claim was that it helped China cover up the initial spread of SARS-CoV-2, but over the weekend, reports started circulating that the administration was considering restoring some funding to the organization. The restored funds would represent a small fraction of the US' former budget, and details are still being negotiated.

Enlarge / An SX OS menu screen showing multiple pirated games, as seen in Nintendo court documents. (credit: Team-Xecuter)

Nintendo is going to court to stop a number of retailers that allegedly sell a Switch modification device that allows users to play pirated games on older versions of the system. But the console maker is also using those lawsuits to warn retailers away from taking pre-orders for an impending hardware hack designed to work on more recent Switch consoles, including the Switch Lite.

The lawsuits—obtained by Polygon after their filing in Ohio and Seattle courts on Friday—focus on websites that sell products from hacking collective Team-Xecuter. That group currently manufactures the SX Pro, a simple USB device which allows users to install a custom "SX OS" operating system on the Switch from a memory card. With SX OS installed, users can "play virtually any pirated game made for the Nintendo Switch, all without authorization or paying a dime to Nintendo or to any of the large number of authorized game publishers making games for Nintendo Switch," according to the filings.

The SX Pro only works with the roughly 20 million Switch consoles released before June 2018, which were susceptible to an unpatchable exploit in their Nvidia Tegra CPUs. The 35 million Switch and Switch Lite systems since then sport an updated chipset that cannot be hacked using that exploit.

Enlarge / NEW YORK - AUGUST 4: Shkreli was found guilty on three of the eight counts involving securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. (credit: Getty | Drew Angerer)

A federal judge on Saturday denied Martin Shkreli’s request for a “compassionate release” from prison, which was pitched as a way to protect him from contracting the new coronavirus—and to help him work on a cure for COVID-19 so he could save the rest of the world.

Lawyers for the infamous ex-pharmaceutical executive filed an emergency motion (PDF) April 22 in a bid to free him from the slammer. They argued that Shkreli is at high risk of contracting the virus in the close quarters of federal prison and could possibly become severely ill or die. They also argued that he is in a unique position to work on a cure for the devastating viral illness now sweeping the globe. Shkreli himself publicly made that claim in early April via a scientific document outlining his preliminary efforts to develop an antiviral drug.

In the emergency motion, his lawyers argued that "Current conditions of confinement threaten his health and life and prevent him from doing work that would contribute to the betterment of society worldwide."

Enlarge / Customers and staff in an Apple Store mid-pandemic. (credit: Apple)

Apple will re-open 25 more of its retail stores in the United States and 12 more in Canada by the end of this week, according to a public note from the company's SVP of retail, Deirdre O'Brien. However, the company's safety policies make clear that the shopping experience is going to be markedly different in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In every store, we're focused on limiting occupancy and giving everybody lots of room, and renewing our focus on one‑on‑one, personalized service at the Genius Bar and throughout the store," O'Brien wrote. Her note added that temperature checks will be conducted at the door, health questions will be posted at the entrance to screen for symptoms, and face masks will be required of all customers and staff. Any customer who does not have a face mask will be provided one on entry to the store.

Additionally, each store will have full-time janitorial staff cleaning the space periodically throughout the day, and social-distancing rules will be enforced.

Enlarge / The Capitol is big, but not big enough to give every member of Congress a whole lot of breathing room. (credit: Patrick Foto | Getty Images )

Congress has a problem. Well, many problems, if you ask almost any American, but specifically—right now in the middle of a pandemic—it has a problem with physical space for social distancing.

The House of Representatives has 435 members, and while the House Chamber is big enough to seat them all, it's definitely not large enough for every one of them to have a 6-foot radius of empty space around them. So Congress is looking to do what tens of millions of us are now currently doing: working remotely. But first, representatives have to agree on a new rule that lets them do so.

To that end, the House on Friday adopted Resolution 965, which will permit remote voting in the House for the first time since our legislative branch took form in 1789.

Enlarge / Attorney General William Barr at a press conference discussing the iPhone showing al-Qaida ties to Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who is suspected of killing 3 and wounding 8 in the December 6, 2019, shooting at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. (credit: US Department of Justice)

The US Department of Justice is using a newly discovered al-Qaida terrorist plot as fresh ammunition in its high-stakes fight against encryption in iPhones and other technologies.

Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani is suspected of carrying out the December 6 shooting that killed three people and wounded eight others at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. Although the FBI obtained a search warrant to examine two iPhones he used, investigators were unable to guess the passcodes needed to decrypt the contents. Complicating matters, Alshamrani—a 21-year-old second lieutenant for the Saudi Air Force who was training with the US military at the time of the killings—fired a round into one of the phones.

Declaring the shooting an act of terrorism, the FBI called on Apple to help defeat the encryption. Apple officials said they turned over all data in their possession to investigators and would continue to support them. US Attorney General William Barr countered that Apple had provided no "substantive assistance" in the case.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / EA Sports)

As sports fans clamor for something—anything—to watch in the wake of public safety closures, video game publishers like EA Sports have enjoyed increased exposure on cable stations like ESPN—where virtual sports are better than no sports at all. This weekend, that didn't necessarily work out in EA's favor.

Madden Bowl 20, the latest "world championship" for players of the annualized Madden NFL game series, hinged so much on a massive, unpatched issue in the game that its winner sported an in-game username that seemed to spit in EA Sports' face: "iRUNyouPASSiWIN." The winner, Raidel "Joke" Brito, played the entire week-long tournament without running a single pass play—this despite Madden being a series that traditionally features quarterbacks on its covers. This all culminated in a Saturday broadcast on ESPN2 of Brito cruising to victory in the tournament's semifinals and finals.

How could an American football simulator be so exploited that its winner forgoes half of the sport's options? Did Brito discover a tiny loophole that caught EA Sports unaware until the last minute? Not even close.

Enlarge / Classes have restarted in France following the lifting of restrictions. (credit: SEBASTIEN BOZON/Getty Images)

The various forms of social restrictions, from distancing to stay-at-home orders, seem like a radical departure to most of us. But faced with a pathogen that spreads through human interactions, they're an obvious potential solution to limit that spread. And a variety of epidemiological models have indicated that various combinations of these approaches should be effective.

But do they actually work in the real, messy, interconnected modern world, and against this specific pathogen? It's important to try to confirm that the models accurately project real world results, and epidemiologists are doing exactly that. So far, the results are good: across several countries and contexts, restrictions were associated with significant drops in the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The bad news is that more severe restrictions may be necessary to keep the number of infections from increasing.

Good news from France

France was one of a number of countries that went for a lockdown, with anyone found outside their home expected to have a permit explaining why they needed to travel. The country has only just started to ease these restrictions following a period in which the total number of infected individuals has fallen. An international team of researchers has now looked at the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2's spread in the time before and after the lockdown was started on March 17th.