Month: February 2021

Enlarge / That's quite the game-announcement leak there, Blizzard. (credit: Blizzard)

Ahead of this weekend's BlizzCon game-announcement frenzy, two of Blizzard's secrets have sneaked out in the form of a leak. Both revolve around World of Warcraft: one for the latest Shadowlands expansion, and another for the World of Warcraft Classic server option.

In the latter case, 2007's hugely popular WoW expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, will be bolted onto the WoW Classic option inside the Blizzard Launcher starting sometime in "2021." The news comes from an apparent leak of official BlizzCon press release materials, all formatted with official images and descriptions of what's to come, as found on Blizzard's official servers by users at Reddit's WoW community.

As with 2019's official WoW vanilla launch, The Burning Crusade will return without any new or special features on top of what originally came with the game. You may recall that this expansion pack included a trickle of content drops while Blizzard maintained it before selling Wrath of the Lich King in 2008. Meanwhile, Blizzard's leaked document claims that the original version's update cadence will return: "Content from the original game will roll out in phases, at a cadence paced for the WoW Classic community. Prepare for the opening of the Black Temple, gear up to confront the gods of Zul'Aman, and gather your allies to face the fury of the Sunwell."

Enlarge / That's quite the game-announcement leak there, Blizzard. (credit: Blizzard)

Ahead of this weekend's BlizzCon game-announcement frenzy, two of Blizzard's secrets have sneaked out in the form of a leak. Both revolve around World of Warcraft: one for the latest Shadowlands expansion, and another for the World of Warcraft Classic server option.

In the latter case, 2007's hugely popular WoW expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, will be bolted onto the WoW Classic option inside the Blizzard Launcher starting sometime in "2021." The news comes from an apparent leak of official BlizzCon press release materials, all formatted with official images and descriptions of what's to come, as found on Blizzard's official servers by users at Reddit's WoW community.

As with 2019's official WoW vanilla launch, The Burning Crusade will return without any new or special features on top of what originally came with the game. You may recall that this expansion pack included a trickle of content drops while Blizzard maintained it before selling Wrath of the Lich King in 2008. Meanwhile, Blizzard's leaked document claims that the original version's update cadence will return: "Content from the original game will roll out in phases, at a cadence paced for the WoW Classic community. Prepare for the opening of the Black Temple, gear up to confront the gods of Zul'Aman, and gather your allies to face the fury of the Sunwell."

Enlarge (credit: Drew Angerer | Getty Images)

The hackers behind one of the worst breaches in US history read and downloaded some Microsoft source code, but there’s no evidence they were able to access production servers or customer data, Microsoft said on Thursday. The software maker also said it found no evidence the hackers used the Microsoft compromise to attack customers.

Microsoft released those findings after completing an investigation begun in December, after learning its network had been compromised. The breach was part of a wide-ranging hack that compromised the distribution system for the widely used Orion network-management software from SolarWinds and pushed out malicious updates to Microsoft and roughly 18,000 other customers.

The hackers then used the updates to compromise nine federal agencies and about 100 private-sector companies, the White House said on Wednesday. The federal government has said that the hackers were likely backed by the Kremlin.

Enlarge

In their first press conference following Perseverance's successful landing on Mars, NASA and JPL scientists revealed some information on where the rover landed and what to expect for the next several days and weeks as it begins its mission in earnest.

Pics or it didn’t happen

One of the first orders of business is getting some of the images, audio, and video taken during the landing back to Earth. For now, doing so requires using a low-gain antenna to transmit data to some of the hardware in orbit around Mars. Jennifer Trosper, the deputy project manager for the rover, said that the Mars Odyssey orbiter should have a brief pass overhead within the next few hours, followed by the Mars Trace Gas orbiter, which will have a longer overflight and grab larger amounts of data. Matt Wallace, another deputy project manager, said that should be enough to allow NASA to release video of the landing on Monday.

Long-term, however, communications will rely on a high-gain antenna that will allow direct communications with Earth. That will require pointing, which means understanding the rover's current orientation on Mars' surface, which the team has inferred from the shadows cast in the first images sent down. Incidentally, those were taken with transparent lens caps on the Perseverance's navigation cameras, so we can expect better images once those are removed.

Enlarge / Ready, take aim, and let fly... (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

Robinhood's move to temporarily limit purchases of GameStop and other highly volatile stocks in late January was the overwhelming focus of today's House Committee on Financial Services hearing.

At the hearing, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that extreme stock volatility that led to Robinhood's restriction was a "five sigma" event with a "1 in 3.5 million" chance of happening. That made the situation practically impossible for the company to plan for, Tenev said. "In the context of tens of thousands of days in the history of US stock market, a 1 in 3.5 million event is basically unmodelable."

As we've covered previously, the high volatility of GameStop and other so-called "meme stocks" last month meant Robinhood was suddenly forced to provide much more collateral to the stock clearing houses that actually process its trades. Tenev said Thursday that these collateral obligations increased tenfold between January 25 and January 28, as GameStop rose from $76 a share to over $347, then back down to $193.

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  I'm very sorry, but this is as far off-road as I was able to take the Land Rover Defender during our time with the SUV. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

I wasn't expecting to be quite as charmed as I was by the Land Rover Defender. We first saw the new Defender at 2019's Frankfurt auto show, where it proved to be a hit by marrying rugged looks and off-road skills with a healthy helping of tech. Even though I fell for its looks, I was trepidatious about spending a week with one, having failed to gel with most Land Rovers in the past. As I found out, those fears were misplaced (mostly), for the Defender was not at all agricultural in behavior, unlike its 20th-century forerunners.

But before we go any further, an apology of sorts, or at least an explanation. Last September, Land Rover held a media first-drive event for the SUV, where journalists got to spend a couple of days driving up and down Mount Equinox in the Taconics. Alas, Ars couldn't attend because of scheduling conflicts—instead, we used that time to test a couple of electric vehicles instead. And so, although the Defender is built to go off-road, the best I managed during my week with it was some radical parking, as seen in the gallery above.

Therefore, I don't know how well it fords water up to 35.4 inches (900mm) deep. I don't know how well it approaches breaks-over or departs from obstacles (at angles of 38˚, 28˚, and 40˚, respectively). I can't really tell you how good the permanent four-wheel-drive system, with twin speed transfer case and optional locking center and rear differentials, works on rough ground. I can't opine on how well the various software systems—Terrain Response 2, All Terrain Progress Control, Hill Descent Control—manage the task of keeping you right-side up and moving in the intended direction. Which makes this review somewhat lacking, given that stuff is basically the Defender's raison d'être. Mea culpa.

Enlarge (credit: G Fiume | Getty )

A group of business organizations led by the US Chamber of Commerce is suing the state of Maryland, seeking to block the implementation of the state's brand-new, first-of-its-kind tax on digital-advertising revenue.

Maryland's tax bill is "deeply flawed" and "illegal in myriad ways," the suit (PDF) alleges, claiming that act will "harm Marylanders and small businesses and reduce the overall quality of Internet content."

"This is a case of legislative overreach, punishing an industry that supports over one hundred thousand jobs in Maryland and contributes tens of billions of dollars to its economy each year," the Internet Association, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement about the suit. "Internet services and companies are proud to play a role in creating opportunities for Maryland’s small businesses and citizens."

Enlarge / The new version of Office will offer easy-toggle Dark Mode settings in many if not all applications. (credit: Microsoft)

If Microsoft had its way, Office 2021 probably wouldn't be news at all—the Redmond giant would almost certainly prefer that everyone simply subscribe to Microsoft 365, pay a small monthly or annual fee, and get new features and fixes as they're rolled out. For many if not most Office users, the subscription-based service is the most convenient way to get Office, even when they want to use it as locally installed software rather than doing their work in the browser and in the cloud.

For the rest of us—and for those who don't want to put up with the Byzantine procedures necessary to install Microsoft 365 apps on Remote Desktop Servers—there's Office 2019 now, and there will be Office 2021 later this year. There will also be a new Office LTSC (Long Term Service Channel), which trades a 10 percent price hike for a guarantee of longer support periods... longer than the consumer version of Office 2021, that is.

In reality, the "Long Term Service Channel" version of Office 2021 will still have a shorter support life cycle than that enjoyed by previous versions of Office. Office 2019 had a seven-year support window—Office 2021 LTSC will only offer five. There's no official word yet on the support life cycle of the presumably shorter-lived consumer version of Office 2021.