Month: June 2020

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Attackers recently hijacked powerful machine-learning clusters inside Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing service so that they could mine cryptocurrency at the expense of the customers who rented them, the company said Wednesday.

The nodes, which were misconfigured by customers, made the perfect target for so-called cryptojacking schemes. Machine-learning tasks typically require vast amounts of computing resources. By redirecting them to perform the compute-intensive workloads required to mine digital coins, the attackers found a means to generate large amounts of currency at little or no cost.

The infected clusters were running Kubeflow, an open source framework for machine-learning applications in Kubernetes, which is itself an open-source platform for deploying scalable applications across large numbers of computers. Microsoft said compromised clusters it discovered numbered in the “tens.” Many of them ran an image available from a public repository, ostensibly to save users the hassle of creating one themselves. Upon further inspection, Microsoft investigators discovered it contained code that surreptitiously mined the Monero cryptocurrency.

Enlarge / The key art for this year's conference. (credit: Apple)

Today, Apple announced more details about its 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), including some initial details about online sessions and the start time of the keynote.

Said keynote is slated to begin on Monday, June 22, at 10:00am PDT (1:00pm EDT; convert to your time zone here), and we'll be liveblogging the event here on Ars as it transpires. During these WWDC keynotes, Apple executives typically take the stage to detail Apple's software plans for the year.

Of course, nothing is going to be typical about this year's keynote, as it will be held entirely online for the first time as a result of the pandemic. Still, we expect a similar slate of announcements to what we've seen in previous years. Software like the operating systems for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch is almost always the focus in the WWDC announcements, but the company has used the event to announce major new hardware products or services before.

Enlarge / The PlayStation 5's new gamepad is called DualSense and sports a bold two-toned design. Did Aperture Science make this? (credit: Sony / Aurich Lawson)

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  But it did include incredible, up-close detail of Miles's real-time face. [credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment ]

Nearly three months after laying out some of the PlayStation 5's technological underpinnings, Sony today offered a first extended look at actual games running on the upcoming hardware during a live event.

The event started off with a glimpse of an "expanded and enhcanced" version of Grand Theft Auto V, which is coming to the PlayStation 5 in 2021, in case you need an excuse to buy the game again. PlayStation 5 owners will also get GTA Online free at launch in 2021, while PS4 owners of GTAV will get $1 million in monthly online GTA Cash every month until the PS5 version launches.

A follow-up to last year's Spider-Man featuring Miles Morales will be hitting the PS5 in Holiday 2020. "A hero is just someone who doesn't give up," an unseen narrator says over the footage. "Your dad said that. He was right. Now it's your turn. Go be a hero Miles"

At last year's E3, Ubisoft offered a vague teaser video about a new open-world gaming series: Gods and Monsters. While it was slated to launch earlier this year on various platforms, Ubisoft chose to delay the game, along with many others, to later in 2020. We wondered whether this month's deluge of E3-like streamed videos would include a look at how the game is shaping up.

Instead, our first look at the game comes from a different "video streaming" source: an accidental leak of a playable build, hosted by Google Stadia.

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  The Gods & Monsters prototype on Google Stadia, which loads with some clunky image interaction. [credit: YouTube / Regorsnas ]

Users across multiple Stadia territories reported finding a game in its store interface on Thursday simply named Orpheus, which could be claimed for "$0.00." Once claimed and bound to their accounts, users were greeted with a clear Gods and Monsters title screen, then dumped into a prototype interface with options for "Play" and "Play Dungeon." (The game has since disappeared for anyone who had claimed it.)

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  This is the $25,000 Honda Civic Si. [credit: Honda ]

Earlier this week, we reviewed the VW Golf GTI, a jack-of-all-trades car that, in the words of one reader, is "the most refined and least 'boy-racer' of the hot-hatches." But what if you want a cheap and sporty car that leans into that boy (or girl) racer image? The answer could well be the car we're reviewing today—the 2020 Honda Civic Si. OK, technically this one isn't actually a hot-hatch; your $25,000 buys either a two-door coupe or a four-door sedan.

The idea, as always, is pretty simple. You start with a cheap car and add a more powerful engine, tweaked suspension, and some go-faster styling accoutrements that through the power of transubstantiation imbues the entire lineup with a shiny, glowing halo. (Ignoring the more special but even more expensive Civic Type-R, which polishes that halo.)

Honda describes the way the Si looks as "benefit[ing] from exterior styling enhancements befitting the model's aggressive driving dynamics." Another way to describe it would be to say that this one really looks like a space fighter. At the front there's a new front bumper with some elements that call to mind mid-engined exotica or the complicated front wing of a race car. At the back, a wide exhaust that kind of resembles an HDMI port, and a rear wing that I'm not sure does much aerodynamically. And to round it all off, some matte-black 18-inch alloy wheels, which you can have wrapped in sticky summer tires for an extra $200.

Enlarge (credit: Archaeology South-East/UCL)

Around 1567, a man named John Brayne built an Elizabethan playhouse called the Red Lion just outside the city of London to accommodate the growing number of traveling theatrical troupes. Its exact location has proven elusive to archaeologists—there were many streets and pubs named the Red Lion (or Lyon) over the ensuing centuries—but a team from University College London (UCL) believes it has found the original site at an excavation in Whitechapel.

The Red Lion is the earliest-known attempt to create a playhouse in the Tudor era, a precursor to the famed Globe Theatre. We know from historical documents—notably a pair of lawsuits involving Brayne's project—that it was a single-gallery multi-sided theater. A fixed stage was constructed, with trap doors and a 30-foot (9.1 meter) turret for aerial stunts. It was technically a receiving house for touring companies, as opposed to an actual repertory theater, and included the Red Lion Inn as part of its complex.

The Red Lion doesn't seem to have survived very long, perhaps because it was sited in open farmland and therefore only feasible for performances in the summer. Only one play seems to have been staged there, The Story of Samson. In 1576, Brayne partnered with his brother-in-law, actor/manager James Burbage, to build The Theatre at Shoreditch. (London banned plays in 1573 because of the plague—16th-century social distancing—which is why these early theaters were built outside the city's jurisdiction, in the so-called "suburbs of sin.")

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Today's Dealmaster is headlined by a variety of discounts on Nintendo Switch games, as Nintendo has joined Sony and Microsoft in offering its own sweeping summer sale. Deals are available at Nintendo's own eShop and third-party retailers like Amazon, and Nintendo says they'll last through June 16.

Not every discount here marks an all-time low, and in general Switch games tend to run pricey—sometimes to the point of parody—especially with ports of games released on other platforms. But discounts on first-party Switch games are still uncommon, and the deals we've highlighted below are all a good ways below their usual going rates online. Buying digital also means not having to deal with the shipping delays many retailers have faced lately.

Some standouts here include a handful of major Nintendo-made games for $42, such as Super Mario Party, the latest in Nintendo's long-running digital board game/friend trolling series, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, a gorgeous 2D platformer and one of our favorite couch co-op games, and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, an updated version of a classic Mario platformer we heartily recommended.