Month: June 2020

Enlarge (credit: Yonkers Honda / Flickr)

Honda halted manufacturing at some of its plants around the world on Tuesday after being hit by a cyberattack that’s widely reported to be ransomware.

“Honda has experienced a cyberattack that has affected production operations at some US plants,” the automaker told Ars. “However, there is no current evidence of loss of personally identifiable information. We have resumed production in most plants and are currently working toward the return to production of our auto and engine plants in Ohio.”

Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday evening that production was suspended at car factories in Ohio and Turkey as well as at motorcycle plants in India and South America. The company, according to Bloomberg, was working to fix systems. The news outlet also said that Japanese operations weren’t affected and that other Honda plants in the United States have already resumed manufacturing.

Enlarge / The flag of China. (credit: Getty Images | Nijat Abdullayev | EyeEm)

The Federal Communications Commission and other US agencies have failed to properly oversee Chinese telecom companies that operate in the United States, according to a bipartisan Senate report released today.

After a year-long investigation, the staff report by the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations "found that the FCC and 'Team Telecom'—an informal group comprised of officials from the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense—have failed to monitor these three Chinese government-owned carriers," a joint announcement by the subcommittee's Republican and Democratic leaders said. The three carriers the subcommittee referred to are China Telecom Americas (CTA), China Unicom Americas (CUA), and ComNet USA. The companies "operated in the US for nearly 20 Years with little to no oversight from the federal government," the senators' announcement said.

"The Chinese government engages in cyber and economic espionage efforts against the United States and may use telecommunications carriers operating in the United States to further these efforts," the report said.

Enlarge / WHO Technical Lead and epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove attending a virtual news briefing on COVID-19 from the WHO headquarters in Geneva on April 6, 2020. (credit: Getty | AFP)

An expert with the World Health Organization on Monday made brief comments about asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 that sparked a firestorm of confusion, backlash, and criticism.

Some public health experts were quick to lash out at the organization for poor messaging. Others tried to clarify what the WHO expert might have been trying to say. And still others quickly impeached evidence-based strategies to combat the pandemic virus.

On Tuesday, the WHO responded with a live Q&A on social media to address confusion and lingering questions about transmission. In it, the WHO expert who made the confusing comments on Monday tried to clarify the issue and add context and caveats. But the response may still leave some confused and frustrated.

Enlarge / Expansions will continue apace for Destiny 2, since the studio has no plans to make a Destiny 3 at this time. (credit: Bungie)

After revealing the next regularly scheduled Destiny 2 expansion pack, launching on September 22, the game's creators at Bungie used the Tuesday opportunity to describe a three-year plan for the series. On the eve of a new console generation, fans might have expected teases for a brand-new, next-gen sequel. Bungie put such questions to rest conclusively: "We don't believe a sequel is the right direction for the game."

Instead, Destiny 2 will persist for the foreseeable future as a cross-console product, upgraded to run at higher resolutions (up to 4K) and higher frame rates (60 fps) on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and designed to transfer all purchases and progress from older systems to newer ones. As of press time, Bungie has only confirmed that purchases on PlayStation 4 will transfer to PS5, while purchases made for the Xbox family of consoles will support "smart delivery" to automatically transfer to XSX. And if you jump to a newer console and still have friends on the older one, you can continue matchmaking together (as in, XB1 and XSX, or PS4 and PS5; Destiny 2 still does not support cross-platform play, but Bungie has finally hinted that this may change as soon as 2021.)

However, Bungie has not yet clarified whether cross-save progress, entitlements, and purchases will all cleanly move to next-gen consoles. Want to take your purchases and content from PS4 to Xbox Series X? Or did you pay for content on PC or Stadia and want to continue with the Beyond Light expansion content on PlayStation 5? Cross-save has worked this way in the past, but Bungie has yet to clarify whether a new generation of consoles will work this way.