Month: January 2022

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Apple has been taking its time fixing an iOS bug that makes it easy for miscreants to completely disable an iOS device unless the victim performs a factory restore and follows other cumbersome steps, a researcher said.

HomeKit is an Apple-designed communication protocol that allows people to use their iPhones or iPads to control lights, TVs, alarms, and other home or office appliances. Users can configure their devices to automatically discover appliances on the same network, and they can also share those settings with other people so they can use their own iPhones or iPads to control the appliances. The sharing feature makes it easy to allow new people—say, a housesitter or babysitter—to control a user’s appliances.

Trevor Spiniolas, a self-described programmer and “beginning security researcher,” said recently that a bug in the feature allows someone to send an iOS device into an unending crash spiral. It can be triggered by using an extremely long name—up to 500,000 characters in length—to identify one of the smart devices and then getting a user to accept an invitation to that network.

Enlarge / Change in government space budgets over time. (credit: Euroconsult)

Nations around the world spent a total of $92 billion on the "space sector" in 2021, the market intelligence firm Euroconsult reports. This represents an 8 percent increase in spending from the year 2020.

In the latest edition of the report "Government Space Programs," the consulting firm says that civilian space activities accounted for $53 billion of the spending, and defense activities $39 billion. However the report noted that the proportion of defense spending is increasing.

"Geopolitical tensions, increasing rivalry between leading space powers, and the value of space as the ultimate high ground drive the militarization of space trend, with leaders increasing their investments in defense space assets and technologies," a news release about the report states.

Enlarge / General Motors Chair and CEO Mary Barra confirmed during her 2022 CES keynote address that Chevrolet will launch the Chevrolet Equinox EV in the 2024 model year.

Chevrolet's headline news at CES this year was its forthcoming Silverado EV, a truck that—initially at least—will carry a lot of lithium ion, and a six-figure price tag to reflect that. When seen together with the bombastic Hummer EV, it's easy to get the impression that General Motors' product planners see the first wave of Ultium battery electric vehicles as just for the well-off.

But GM's battery platform is modular, and while it can accommodate huge 200 kWh packs to give bluff-faced pickup trucks a potential 400 miles of range, you can also design a car around a six-module battery with 50 kWh. If I had to guess, I'd say that's the pack we'll find in another new electric Chevrolet—the Equinox EV—which goes on sale in fall 2023.

The Equinox EV got a brief mention in GM's CES keynote, and the company isn't sharing any more details on the crossover right now other than that fall 2023 arrival and the fact that the model will start "around $30,000."