Month: October 2020

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Google and Intel are warning of a high-severity Bluetooth flaw in all but the most recent version of the Linux Kernel. While a Google researcher said the bug allows seamless code execution by attackers within Bluetooth range, Intel is characterizing the flaw as providing an escalation of privileges or the disclosure of information.

The flaw resides in BlueZ, the software stack that by default implements all Bluetooth core protocols and layers for Linux. Besides Linux laptops, it's used in many consumer or industrial Internet-of-things devices. It works with Linux versions 2.4.6 and later.

In search of details

So far, little is known about BleedingTooth, the name given by Google engineer Andy Nguyen, who said that a blog post will be published “soon.” A Twitter thread and a YouTube video provide the most detail and give the impression that the bug provides a reliable way for nearby attackers to execute malicious code of their choice on vulnerable Linux devices that use BlueZ for Bluetooth.

Enlarge / Sony's WH-1000XM4 noise-canceling headphones. (credit: Jeff Dunn)

With Amazon Prime Day comes a flood of discounts, but in truth, only a fraction of those are worth buying. So we've spent the last couple of days trying to pick out the deals most worth your attention from Amazon's self-manufactured shopping holiday.

With the event scheduled to end by tomorrow, though, we thought it'd be fun to have our final Prime Day post share the most purchased items by readers here at Ars. To be clear: we absolutely do not (and can not) track individual buying habits, but we are able to see what's received the most attention in anonymized aggregate.

Furthermore, don't take this as a scientific set of data. We've highlighted specific products as especially noteworthy within our deal roundups, with entire articles dedicated to the best Amazon device deals and the best Apple device deals. Naturally, some of the products that got the most prominent call-outs wound up among the most popular. (We appreciate your faith in our recommendations, by the way.) Without getting too deep into the minutiae of retailer affiliate networks, we'll also note that the items below are only based on Tuesday's activity.

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  The two sizes of the Spotify widget in iOS 14. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Spotify—one of Apple's main rivals in both the latter's services strategy and in antitrust investigations—has released a new version of its iPhone app that supports home screen widgets, one of the flagship features of iOS 14.

Last month's release of iOS 14 brought home screen widgets—previously only the domain of iPads and Android phones—to iPhones. As we noted in our iOS 14 review, the value of the feature depends entirely on strong adoption and clever uses by third-party app developers.

Releases of widget-supporting apps from developers have been slow. Part of that was because Apple launched iOS 14 with less notice to developers than usual, meaning many were racing to play catch-up. But even now, a month later, the roster of widget-supporting apps has only grown a little.

US soldiers must fight for their lives in a parallel world filed with gigantic, aggressive creatures in Monster Hunter, a forthcoming film adapted from the hugely successful global video game franchise of the same name. Die-hard fans of the games are already noting their displeasure with the trailer, which I get—let's be honest, the trailer looks a little cheesy. But the film also co-stars martial arts star Tony Jaa of the Ong-Bak franchise, which in my book makes up for a lot of sins. And director Paul W.S. Anderson was the driving creative force behind the wildly popular Resident Evil film franchise.

The Monster Hunter games are Capcom's second bestselling game series—behind the Resident Evil series—with more than 64 million units sold globally to date across all platforms. Anderson (Mortal Kombat) discovered Monster Hunter while visiting Japan in 2008, and adapting a film from the game world became his new passion project. With the hope of establishing another successful film franchise, he enlisted his own wife, Milla Jovovich (who starred in the Resident Evil films), for the lead role of Captain Natalie Artemis, a US solider who falls into the gaming world via a portal—Anderson's plot device for introducing cinema audiences to that universe.

In the Monster Hunter role-playing games, players choose a Hunter character, along with custom armor and weapons. The characters don't have intrinsic abilities, like traditional RPGs; rather, whatever abilities they have derive from the choice of weapons and armor. Those choices are basic at first, and players collect additional resources from their quests to conquer various monsters—including fashioning new assets from parts gleaned from the defeated creatures. In single-player mode, the Hunters are usually accompanied by a Felyne or sentient cat creatures known as Palicos for additional support.

Enlarge / If one wants to have Starships on Mars, one first has to refuel them in Earth orbit. (credit: SpaceX)

NASA has reached an agreement with 14 US companies to develop technologies that will enable future modes of exploration in space and on the surface of the Moon. NASA says the value of these awards for "Tipping Point" technologies is more than $370 million.

With these awards, the space agency is leaning heavily into technologies related to the collection, storage, and transfer of cryogenic propellants in space. Four of the awards, totaling more than $250 million, will go to companies specifically for "cryogenic fluid management" tech demonstrations:

• Eta Space of Merritt Island, Florida, $27 million. Small-scale flight demonstration of a complete cryogenic oxygen fluid management system. System will be the primary payload on a Rocket Lab Photon satellite and collect critical cryogenic fluid management data in orbit for nine months.
• Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colorado, $89.7 million. In-space demonstration mission using liquid hydrogen to test more than a dozen cryogenic fluid management technologies, positioning them for infusion into future space systems.
• SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, $53.2 million. Large-scale flight demonstration to transfer 10 metric tons of cryogenic propellant, specifically liquid oxygen, between tanks on a Starship vehicle.
• United Launch Alliance (ULA) of Centennial, Colorado, $86.2 million. Demonstration of a smart propulsion cryogenic system, using liquid oxygen and hydrogen, on a Vulcan Centaur upper stage. The system will test precise tank-pressure control, tank-to-tank transfer, and multiweek propellant storage.

These awards are notable because, for much of the last decade, the agency has been hesitant to invest in technologies that will enable the handling of cold propellant in space. The official reason given for this reluctance has been that the technology of creating propellant "depots," and transferring liquid hydrogen and oxygen to and from these depots, was deemed not ready for prime time. But there were political reasons as well.

Enlarge / Nobody from the White House went on record as supporting herd immunity. (credit: Congressional Budget Offic)

On Monday, the White House hosted a pandemic-focused call for the press "on background"—intended to provide a window into the administration's thinking, but not to provide quotes that could be attributed to any government official. During the call, the unspecified White House officials touted a document supporting the idea of herd immunity as a plan to control the pandemic, saying it reflected the administration's thinking.

The document, called the Great Barrington Declaration, was prepared by a libertarian think tank with the assistance of a handful of scientists who have been pushing the idea that COVID-19 isn't much of a threat. And it has attracted enough attention that the World Health Organization decided to address it. The result severely undercut whatever the White House intended to accomplish.

"Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic," the WHO's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "It's scientifically and ethically problematic."

Enlarge / Emily Miller, when she was a reporter for OAN in 2016. (credit: YouTube)

Back in August, the Food and Drug Administration ousted Emily Miller from her role as the agency’s top spokesperson. Miller, a right-wing activist and former One America News reporter, was installed in the FDA by the White House and given the role of Assistant Commissioner for Media Affairs, a role typically held by nonpartisan civil servants. She held the post for a mere 11 days and was fired amid intense controversy after several high-profile agency missteps.

But now it appears that Miller never left the FDA. She’s still at the regulatory agency and has since been given a new—perhaps more prestigious—title. And, as before, she is causing problems for the agency.

Miller is now the Senior Advisor to the Chief of Staff at the FDA. And, as an FDA employee, she has publicly promoted an unapproved drug as being “like a cure” for COVID-19 on twitter. Her tweets support unproven and potentially dangerous statements from President Trump and may violate FDA regulations. The drug she promoted is currently being reviewed by the FDA for emergency use, raising concerns about the agency’s impartiality.