Month: December 2021

Enlarge / People line up outside of a free COVID-19 vaccination site that opened today in the Hubbard Place apartment building on December 3, 2021 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty | Samuel Corum)

Amid a raging delta wave and fears of omicron, the United States on Thursday administered 2.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, the highest single-day vaccination total since May, shortly after the shots were made widely available to adults.

More than 1 million of the shots given yesterday were booster doses, according to Jeff Zients, White House COVID-⁠19 Response Coordinator. To date, nearly 200 million Americans are fully vaccinated, which is roughly 60 percent of the population, and 44 million are fully vaccinated and boosted.

"This is important progress," Zients said in a press briefing Friday. "Vaccines clearly remain our most important tool… If you were fully vaccinated before June, it's time for you to go get your booster. If you're unvaccinated, go get your first shot today. And if your kids are five years or older and not yet vaccinated, get them the protection of the vaccine as well."

HBO Max has dropped the official full trailer for Peacemaker, the spinoff series based on John Cena's murderously entertaining character from The Suicide Squad.

As we've reported previously, director James Gunn wrote the series last summer during the COVID-19 lockdown, just for fun, but then DC Films approached him about a possible spinoff series for one of the characters in The Suicide Squad. He picked Cena's Peacemaker, since he felt audiences never got the chance to get to know the character in the film—where, it must be said, he does some Very Bad Things, even for a member of the Suicide Squad. Gunn wanted to make Peacemaker less irredeemable. HBO Max was sufficiently impressed with Gunn's take that it ordered Peacemaker straight to series.

The eight-episode series is set after the events of The Suicide Squad, specifically after the post-credits scene, in which we learned that Peacemaker had survived what had appeared to be a fatal shooting. The first teaser dropped in October, showing Peacemaker (aka Christopher Smith) being recruited by Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) for another mission in order to avoid going back to prison.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

The iPhones of nine US State Department officials were infected by powerful and stealthy malware developed by NSO Group, the Israeli exploit seller that has come under increasing scrutiny for selling its wares to journalists, lawyers, activists, and US allies.

The US officials, either stationed in Uganda or focusing on issues related to that country, received warnings like this one from Apple informing them their iPhones were being targeted by hackers. Citing unnamed people with knowledge of the attacks, Reuters said the hackers used software from NSO.

No clicking required

As previously reported, NSO software known as Pegasus uses exploits sent through messaging apps that infect iPhones and Android devices without requiring targets to click links or take any other action. From there, the devices run hard-to-detect malware that can download photos, contacts, text messages, and other data. The malware also allows the operator to listen to audio and view video in real time.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Ronald Martinez)

Ohio resident John Sopko had to go a month without his AT&T fixed wireless Internet service because the company repeatedly failed to diagnose and fix the problem, the Akron Beacon Journal reported today. AT&T finally figured out this week that the antenna on Sopko's roof was broken and had to be replaced, but not until after a parade of support calls and technician visits.

Sopko said he isn't a big Internet user but that his girlfriend and her 17-year-old son are. The son has "been at his grandmother's since four days after [the outage] started because he needs it for school," Sopko said. Sopko's house is either in or near an area where AT&T received US government funding to deploy service.

Sopko's service stopped working on October 30. Rebooting the modem did nothing, so he called AT&T's service phone number and "followed directions to reboot the system." That again did nothing, so AT&T sent a technician to his home in Akron, but the tech just repeated the steps that Sopko had already taken, according to the report:

Enlarge (credit: Pointless Tinkering/YouTube)

There's no telling what you'll find on eBay—like an old keyboard and trackball originally dedicated to firing off nuclear missiles.

As detailed Tuesday by YouTube channel Pointless Tinkering, an enthusiast bought the keyboard off eBay simply because it "looked awesome" and had "some interesting buttons" saying things like "TRANSMIT," "ABORT," and "INITIATE."

The keyboard and trackball were part of a larger control system for a nuclear missile silo command center. More specifically, the peripherals were part of a console used to launch Minuteman III missiles in the '80s as part of the US Air Force's Rapid Execution and Combat Targeting (REACT) program.

Enlarge (credit: Arm)

The Federal Trade Commission has sued to block Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm, the semiconductor design firm, saying that the blockbuster deal would unfairly stifle competition.

“The FTC is suing to block the largest semiconductor chip merger in history to prevent a chip conglomerate from stifling the innovation pipeline for next-generation technologies,” Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s competition bureau, said in a statement. “Tomorrow’s technologies depend on preserving today’s competitive, cutting-edge chip markets. This proposed deal would distort Arm’s incentives in chip markets and allow the combined firm to unfairly undermine Nvidia’s rivals.”

Nvidia first announced its intention to acquire Arm in September 2020. At the time, the deal was worth $40 billion, but since then, Arm’s stock price has soared, and the cost of the cash and stock transaction has risen to $75 billion. The FTC lawsuit threatens to scuttle the deal entirely.

Valve's Steam Deck hardware might have been recently delayed by a couple of months, but the portable PC gaming device is still barreling toward release. As evidence of this, Valve posted some quick pictures late Thursday evening of the final packaging that will hopefully be reaching preorder customers early next year.

Yup, it's a box all right. (credit: Valve)

A multi-language lining. (credit: Valve)

Unlike recent iPhone packaging, the Steam Deck will come with a region-appropriate power supply to enable the unit's USB-C charging. (credit: Valve)

From the outside, the shipping packaging is a standard plain brown box, but Valve joked about the usual warnings on the side, urging customers to "not use the shipping box as an umbrella, smash [it] on the ground, or use [it] as a magnet." On the inside of the box, meanwhile, the design includes recommendations for where to play in multiple languages. Among the English suggestions: "On the toilet, on the subway, on a ferris wheel, on the moon, in a test chamber, on the couch, in a hammock, in a tent."

The case includes the Steam Deck's minimalist "circle and a curve" logo. (credit: Valve)

Valve also provided a look at the form-fitting carrying case that will accompany the lower-end 64GB and 256GB editions of the system. The new case, which includes an understated Steam Deck logo on the front outside, differs from the Valve-logoed carrying cases the company showed when Valve started shipping dev kits in September. Those who purchase the 512GB system, meanwhile, have been promised an "exclusive carrying case," likely this one, which has a white lining and an embedded Valve logo. The case was first shown when the Deck was announced.