Month: December 2021

Enlarge / The mushroom cloud from the Soviet detonation of "Tsar Bomba" on October 30, 1961, was so large that the photographers had a hard time capturing its full dimensions. (credit: Rosatom)

The detonation of the first nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is seared into our collective memory, and the world has been haunted by the prospect of a devastating nuclear apocalypse ever since. Less well-known but equally significant from a nuclear arms race standpoint was the Soviet Union's successful detonation of hydrogen "superbomb" in the wee hours of October 30, 1961.

Dubbed "Tsar Bomba" (loosely translated, "Emperor of Bombs"), it was the size of a small school bus—it wouldn't even fit inside a bomber and had to be slung below the belly of the plane. The 60,000-pound (27 metric tons) test bomb's explosive yield was 50 million tons (50 megatons) of TNT, although the design had a maximum explosive yield of 100 million tons (100 megatons).

The US had conducted the first successful test of a hydrogen bomb (codename: Ivy Mike) in 1954 and had been pondering the development of even more powerful hydrogen superbombs. But the Soviets' successful test lent greater urgency to the matter. Ultimately, President John F. Kennedy opted for diplomacy, signing the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on October 7, 1963.

Enlarge / A Fortnite loading screen displayed on an iPhone in 2018, when Apple and Epic weren't at each other's throats. (credit: Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images)

Apple has won a last-minute stay on an injunction that would have required it to imminently begin allowing iPhone and iPad app developers to direct users to alternative payment options.

The requirement to allow in-app linking to third-party payment systems was ordered in a September 10 ruling by the judge in the ongoing Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit. This was one of the few wins for Epic, while Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled in favor of Apple on most points.

The judge gave Apple until December 9 to make the necessary changes to allow outside payment systems, so this stay comes at the last possible moment. When Judge Gonzalez Rogers rejected Apple's initial request to stay the ruling, the company went on to appeal to the ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. It is that appeal that has led to this new development.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

The Tor anonymity service and anticensorship tool has come under fire from two threats in recent weeks: The Russian government has blocked most Tor nodes in that country, and hundreds of malicious servers have been relaying traffic.

Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media, known as Roskomnadzor, began blocking Tor in the country on Tuesday. The move left Tor users in Russia—said by Tor Project leaders to number about 300,000, or about or 15 percent of Tor users—scrambling to find ways to view sites already blocked and to shield their browsing habits from government investigators.

“Illegal content”

Tor Project managers on early Tuesday said some ISPs in Russia began blocking Tor nodes on December 1 and that Roskomnadzor had threatened to block the main Tor site. A few hours later, the Russian government body made good on those threats.

Enlarge / The official Stadia Controller in "clearly white." (credit: Google)

In arguably the first good news for Stadia in 2021, Google's beleaguered game-streaming service has finally landed on a single company's TVs—and only those manufactured in 2020 and beyond.

That's not necessarily a reason to strike up the band and throw a "Stadia is back" party (especially without any exclusive Stadia games on the horizon.) But the gaming service's arrival on modern LG televisions late Tuesday is still fascinating, mostly because of how neatly and seamlessly it works. The results make me wonder how much better the Stadia story might have turned out if app support like this had been in place from the start.

Got any extra-long USB cables lying around?

Since its limited November 2019 launch, Google's Stadia service has been added to many platforms, including laptops and desktops, Android and iOS devices, and Google TV-branded streaming devices. But smart TV support has been scattershot, with popular device families like Amazon Fire, Roku, and Apple TV missing out on Stadia. There has also been a lack of built-in smart TV support from major manufacturers like Samsung and LG. (It's worth noting that Amazon Luna and Apple Arcade compete as subscription-based gaming services.)

Enlarge / Anker's Soundcore Life Q30 noise-canceling headphones. (credit: Jeff Dunn)

It's tough to find quality noise-canceling headphones for less than $100, but Anker's Soundcore Life Q30 are one of the few budget-friendly sets we've tested that are worth your while. We named them a top budget-friendly pick in a recent guide to wireless noise-canceling headphones at their normal going rate of $80, but today the Q30 is down to $60 as part of an Amazon "Deal of the Day" promotion.

This is technically $10 higher than the lowest price the headphones have had, but that cut lasted less than a day, and this price matches the best price we've seen outside of that. Because this is a Deal of the Day promo, it's also worth noting that the offer will likely only be available through Wednesday.

As for the headphones themselves, the Soundcore Life Q30 isn't as effective at neutralizing outside sounds as our top picks like Sony's WH-1000XM4 or Apple's AirPods Max, but that's to be expected. For significantly less cash, we found it to be effective enough at tuning out low-end rumbles, like plane and train engines, and capable of providing at least some resistance to higher-pitched sounds as well. It's not world-beating, but it's solid, which is more than we can say for most over-ear pairs we've used in this price range.

Enlarge / Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos Inc., arrives at federal court in San Jose, California, on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021. Confronted with tough questions on the witness stand last week, as she defends herself against criminal fraud charges, Holmes admitted to errors on several occasions. (credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

In Elizabeth Holmes’ sixth day on the stand, the prosecution sought to undermine her previous testimony one piece of evidence at a time.

On the stand, Holmes admitted to some mistakes. For other mistakes, she placed the blame on her colleagues. And in many cases, she simply couldn’t recall what had happened. The prosecution, though, had plenty of testimony, emails, and documents to refresh her memory.

Prosecutor Robert Leach asked Holmes about the Fortune cover article by Roger Parloff, the one that she proudly sent around to investors. The article contained many errors because Holmes either gave him incorrect information or never bothered to correct him.