Month: December 2021

Enlarge / Hyundai's striking new Ioniq 5 EV was worth the wait. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

SAN DIEGO—In 2020, Hyundai Motor Group revealed it had developed a new platform, purely for battery electric vehicles. Its smaller, earlier EVs have gotten impressively close to Tesla-levels of powertrain efficiency, and these days the Korean automaker is at or near the head of the class in terms of quality and reliability.

So the excitement was palpable when we learned that this new "Electric-Global Modular Platform" (or E-GMP) was intended for larger, more powerful EVs with either rear- or all-wheel drive, with an 800 V electrical architecture, the ability to fast-charge in 18 minutes, and the ability to power AC devices easily. That excitement only grew when we got our first look at the Hyundai Ioniq 5—the first of those EVs—back in February.

In fact, if I'd been paying more attention at the 2019 Frankfurt Auto Show, I would have seen the Ioniq 5, barely disguised as a concept called the 45. The design team, led by SangYup Lee, channeled some of Giorgetto Giugiaro's angular and boxy energy into the Ioniq 5's proportions. The 45 concept is meant to pay homage to a 1974 concept that Giugiaro penned for the Korean brand, but to my eyes, it's more reminiscent of a 1980s Lancia Delta. Except scaled up by 19 percent.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

An Android app with more than 500,000 downloads from Google Play has been caught hosting malware that surreptitiously sends users’ contacts to an attacker-controlled server and signs up users to pricey subscriptions, a security firm reported.

The app, named Color Message, was still available on Google servers at the time this post was being prepared. Google removed it more than three hours after I asked the company for comment.

Ostensibly, Color Message enhances text messaging by doing things such as adding emojis and blocking junk texts. But according to researchers at Pradeo Security said on Thursday, Color Message contains a family of malware known as Joker, which has infected millions of Android devices in the past.

(credit: Capcom)

Netflix seems to be on a mission of late. The streaming brand has been on a near-rampage, sourcing Japanese content with nostalgic appeal and turning it into live-action content with the "Netflix original" stamp. There's always trepidation when hearing about an adaptation of an old favorite, but the latest Netflix adaptation I heard about stings more than usual. Not because I'm outraged by casting choices, character omissions, or use of heartless CGI—we haven't gotten that far yet. It's because I've been waiting for a different addition to the Mega Man franchise for nearly (gulp) 22 years.

When I hear the phrase "new Mega Man," I presume it's going to be the announcement of a new video game, and deep down, I always hope that announcement is Mega Man Legends 3. Decades later, I and many other fans are still holding out for a follow-up to the two PlayStation games (they were eventually ported to a few other platforms, including Windows) that challenged, entertained, and mesmerized me starting in 1998.

Since Mega Man Legends 2 came out in 2000, Capcom has offered me small return trips to the Mega Man universe, including 2001's Mega Man Battle Network series and 2018's Mega Man 11. But none continued—or, better yet, completed—the detailed, mysterious story of the Legends games, whose lore is loaded with themes of myriad familial bonds, independence, ingenuity, and coming of age.

Enlarge / Pirelli recently introduced a high load (HL) version of its P Zero performance tire, designed to cope with the greater mass of an electric vehicle. (credit: Pirelli)

In the past, we've looked at the technology that goes into winter tires—and even what makes a good racing tire. But considering that the majority of our auto coverage at Ars focuses on electric vehicles, it's time to dig into the specialized tires those EVs have to wear.

"We like to design [the tire] as the car is being designed," explained Ian Coke, director of quality at Pirelli. That means getting started with the OEM several years before the car is due on sale, when it's still just a concept being developed. "Or if you're Tesla, six weeks, because they work in a different way," he laughed.

"We're getting to know [Tesla] very well now," he said, as the Italian tire company develops rubber for the automaker.

Enlarge / Coal smoke and steam vapor pour out of the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant across from a largely abandoned children's park on September 11, 2008, in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. After two enormous toxic coal soot discharges in 2006 and 2007, the children's park was rarely used. The 2,460 MW coal-fired plant wasn't fully decommissioned until November 2019. (credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

Burning fossil fuels kills more than 1 million people ever year, according to a new study that examined the worldwide health effects of fine particulate pollution, also known as PM2.5.

Coal, which produces sooty, particulate-laden pollution, is responsible for half of those deaths, while natural gas and oil are responsible for the other half. Some 80 percent of premature deaths due to fossil fuel combustion takes place in South Asia or East Asia, the report said.

“Our key objective was to identify major sources of PM2.5 pollution and to understand how these sources change around the world,” Erin McDuffie, the study’s lead author and a research associate at Washington University, said in a statement. “In some countries, our results are some of the first pieces of information they have on the major sources in their region.”

Enlarge / Apple's global headquarters in Cupertino, California. (credit: Sam Hall/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

It's been a rocky road for Apple's return-to-office plans. Over the past few months, we've reported on numerous stops and starts, but the industry behemoth seems to have come to the hardest stop yet, according to a Bloomberg report.

According to a memo sent to Apple employees by CEO Tim Cook, the company's return-to-office date (which was last set at February 1 a few weeks ago) has once again been delayed—but this time, it has been delayed to a "date yet to be determined." Up to this point, previous delays had set a new target. Not so this time.

Cook wrote in the memo that the delay is due to "rising cases in many parts of the world" as well as "the emergence of a new strain of the virus." He described the change in plans as a delay, though, not a cancellation. Employees will get at least four weeks of notice before a new return-to-office date, he added.

Enlarge (credit: Jeremy Brooks / Flickr)

A US federal agency has been hosting a backdoor that can provide total visibility into and complete control over the agency network, and the researchers who discovered it have been unable to engage with the administrators responsible, security firm Avast said on Thursday.

The US Commission on International Freedom, associated with international rights, regularly communicates with other US agencies and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The security firm published a blog post after multiple attempts failed to report the findings directly and through channels the US government has in place. The post didn't name the agency, but a spokeswoman did in an email.

Members of Avast’s threat intelligence team wrote: