Month: February 2021

Enlarge (credit: Roman Tiraspolsky)

A federal judge has ruled that Citibank isn't entitled to the return of $500 million it sent to various creditors last August. Kludgey software and a poorly designed user interface contributed to the massive screwup.

Citibank was acting as an agent for Revlon, which owed hundreds of millions of dollars to various creditors. On August 11, Citibank was supposed to send out interest payments totaling $7.8 million to these creditors.

However, Revlon was in the process of refinancing its debt—paying off a few creditors while rolling the rest of its debt into a new loan. And this, combined with the confusing interface of financial software called Flexcube, led the bank to accidentally pay back the principal on the entire loan—most of which wasn't due until 2023.

Enlarge / GoSearch22 isn't, technically speaking, any sort of "virus." But it's certainly not anything you'd want on your shiny new M1 Mac. (credit: Pete Linforth)

Last year, Apple released Macbooks and Mac Minis powered by a new ARM CPU—the Apple M1. A few months later, malware authors are already targeting the new hardware directly. Wired interviewed Mac security research Patrick Wardle, who discovered an M1-native version of the long-running, Mac-targeted Pirrit adware family.

Apple M1, malware, and you

ARM CPUs have a very different Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) than traditional x86 desktop and laptop CPUs do, which means that software designed for one ISA can't run on the other without help. M1 Macs can run x86 software with a translation layer called Rosetta, but native M1 apps of course run much faster—as we can see by comparing Rosetta-translated Google Chrome to the M1 native version.

When it comes to malware, Apple users have long benefited from the minority status of their platform. Ten years ago, macOS's operating system marketshare was only 6.5 percent, and few malware authors bothered to target it at all—but today, that marketshare is approaching 20 percent. That increase in popularity has brought malware vendors along with it; the macOS malware ecosystem is still tiny and relatively crude compared to the one plaguing Windows, but it's very real.

Enlarge / Crowds view new smartphones at a prior MWC event. (credit: LGEPR. License: CC BY 2.0)

Mobile World Congress (MWC) will move forward this year, but vaccination will not be required for attendance when the Barcelona event takes place in June, according to organizers.

"Our view is it would be great if the world was vaccinated, but we can’t rely on that in 2021, so instead we’re relying on testing upfront to ensure our bubble isn’t just the Fira Gran Via but the whole of Barcelona," global mobile tech industry association GSMA's CEO, John Hoffman, told Mobile World Live.

Attendees must test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of the event, with testing available on site. Further, the event's organizers claim they will use some form of "technology" to create a "touchless environment" at the event, which is often at least partially focused on handling smartphones and other devices with touchscreens.

Enlarge (credit: Google)

Google recently killed its only in-house Stadia game development studio, Stadia Games and Entertainment (SG&E), after building up the studio for only two years. In an industry where even established game studios take several years to ship a product, this was a breathtakingly fast pace for building and tearing down a game development studio. Kotaku got in touch with some of the 150+ staffers who were dismissed from Google's studio, and they paint a picture of a dysfunctional work environment plagued by dishonest communication and mismanagement.

According to the report, developers at the studio were "shocked" by the sudden shutdown since, only a week earlier, Stadia's leading executive, game industry veteran Phil Harrison, told the group "[SG&E] has made great progress building a diverse and talented team and establishing a strong lineup of Stadia exclusive games." The one-week flip-flop was "part of an apparent pattern of Stadia leadership not being honest and upfront with the company's developers," according to Kotaku, adding that many developers "upended their lives and careers to join the team."

The report says Stadia's developers found out about the studio closure at "almost the same time as everyone else." Stadia's developers had to wait three days before Harrison was available for a Q&A conference call, which the report describes as "contentious." The most chilling line in the report details Harrison's response to a question asking why the Studio was "making great progress" one week and then fired the next: "When asked what changed from the week prior, Harrison admitted nothing had and told those on the call, 'We knew.'"

Enlarge / A mammoth tusk thaws out of the ground in Siberia.

Ancient DNA has revolutionized how we understand human evolution, revealing how populations moved and interacted and introducing us to relatives like the Denisovans, a "ghost lineage" that we wouldn't realize existed if it weren't for discovering their DNA. But humans aren't the only ones who have left DNA behind in their bones, and the same analyses that worked for humans can work for any other group of species.

Today, the mammoths take their turn in the spotlight, helped by what appears to be the oldest DNA ever sequenced. DNA from three ancient molars, one likely to be over a million years old, has revealed that there is a ghost lineage of mammoths that interbred with distant relatives to produce the North American mammoth population.

Dating and the mammoth family tree

Mammoths share something with humans: like us, they started as an African population but spread across much of the planet. Having spread out much earlier, mammoth populations spent enough time separated from each other to form different species. After branching off from elephants, the mammoths first split into what are called southern and steppe species. Later still, adaptations to ice age climates produced the woolly mammoth and its close relative, the North American mammoth, called the Columbian mammoth. All of those species, however, are extinct, and the only living relatives are the elephants.

Enlarge / Fortnite on an iPhone... back when that was a thing. (credit: Savusia Konstantin | Getty Images)

Epic Games, maker of Fortnite, is loading up a new map in its ongoing fight against Apple as it files an antitrust complaint against the mobile phone maker in the European Union.

Epic alleges in its complaint that Apple uses its sole control over iOS apps to block competitors and benefit itself at developers' expense in violation of European competition law, the company said today.

"What’s at stake here is the very future of mobile platforms," Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said in a written statement. "We will not stand idly by and allow Apple to use its platform dominance to control what should be a level digital playing field. It’s bad for consumers, who are paying inflated prices due to the complete lack of competition among stores and in-app payment processing. And it’s bad for developers, whose very livelihoods often hinge on Apple’s complete discretion as to who to allow on the iOS platform, and on which terms."

Enlarge / The Volta Zero commercial delivery truck should go into production by 2022. (credit: Volta Trucks)

Volta Trucks, a Swedish startup developing battery-electric commercial vehicles, has found a battery supplier. On Wednesday, the company signed an agreement with Proterra, a leading US commercial EV manufacturer. The deal was the last piece of the puzzle that, now complete, will see Volta's 16-tonne (35,000lb) Volta Zero truck move forward. In 2020, Volta Trucks signed a deal with a Michigan-based company called Meritor, which will supply the Zero's electric motors.

"I'm delighted to welcome Proterra—a world-class innovative engineering partner—to the supply chain for the Volta Zero. When talking to our extensive group of customers, vehicle range is uppermost in their minds as it sits at the heart of the vehicle's ability to deliver for them. It was therefore imperative that we work with an industry-leader to ensure the quality, longevity, and safe performance of the battery. Proterra's cutting-edge but well-proven battery technology perfectly delivers all of this for us and our customers," said Rob Fowler, CEO of Volta Trucks.

The Zero is designed for city deliveries, and Proterra's battery pack should give the vehicle a range of 124 miles (200km), which is more than sufficient for a day's work in stop-start, low-speed traffic.