Month: June 2022

Enlarge / A vial of the current Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. (credit: Getty | Ivan Romano)

A combination COVID-19 booster dose that targets the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2 and the initial omicron variant, BA.1, appears to outperform the current booster against both of those versions of the virus, Moderna reported Wednesday.

Specifically, Moderna says the combination booster increased neutralizing antibodies against omicron 8-fold, while the original booster only increased antibody levels around 4.4-fold.

The vaccine maker is angling to have this bivalent shot—dubbed mRNA-1273.214—be the go-to booster for seasonal shots this fall. The company will be submitting its data to the Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks and says it hopes to have the bivalent booster available by late summer, if not early fall.

Enlarge / This cutaway view of a Western Digital 18TB Gold drive shows off its nine platters and triple-stage actuators. (credit: Western Digital)

According to a report from Tom's Hardware, Microsoft plans to make PC makers ship solid-state boot drives in all Windows PCs starting in 2023 or 2024, putting an end to the days of spinning hard drives for most of the PCs that still include them.

Trendfocus analyst John Chen claims that Microsoft initially tried to make the change in 2022, but that resistance from manufacturers meant "it has been pushed out to sometime next year." Microsoft and the PC manufacturers are still negotiating the timeline and possible exceptions, "but things are still in flux."

Ars contacted Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Acer for comment; most haven't responded. A Dell representative pointed out that nearly all of its systems already ship with SSDs, but couldn't confirm or deny the analyst's claims.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Sometime last year, Tesla issued an update that made its vehicles easier to start after being unlocked with their NFC Key Cards. Now, a researcher has shown how the feature can be exploited to steal cars.

For years, drivers who used their Tesla NFC Key Card to unlock their cars had to place the card on the center console to begin driving. Following the update, which was reported here last August, drivers could operate their cars immediately after unlocking them with the card. The NFC card is one of three means for unlocking a Tesla; a key fob and a phone app are the other two.

An image from Herfurt's recent presentation at the REcon conference in Montreal. (credit: https://trifinite.org/Downloads/20220604_tempa_presentation_recon22_public.pdf)

Enrolling your own key

Martin Herfurt, a security researcher in Austria, quickly noticed something odd about the new feature: Not only did it allow the car to automatically start within 130 seconds of being unlocked with the NFC card, but it also put the car in a state to accept entirely new keys—with no authentication required and zero indication given by the in-car display.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Twitter now plans to comply with Elon Musk's demand for user data that he says is needed to determine whether the company's spam estimates are accurate, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

"After a weeks-long impasse, Twitter's board plans to comply with Elon Musk's demands for internal data by offering access to its full 'firehose,' the massive stream of data comprising more than 500 million tweets posted each day, according to a person familiar with the company's thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the state of negotiations," the Post wrote.

Twitter declined comment on the Post report when contacted by Ars today but pointed to its statement from Monday that "Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement."

Enlarge / Jurassic World: Dominion, out this week exclusively in theaters, brings the gang back together—but that's maybe not a good thing. (credit: Universal)

How low can you set your expectations for Jurassic World: Dominion?

If you can burrow those expectations deep into the earth, perhaps so far that researchers don't discover them for thousands of years, you may have a good time. That goes double for parents who are looking for a movie to watch with amped-up, pre-teen dinosaur aficionados. The film's ideal audience agrees with its filmmakers about what matters here: the dinosaurs, not the humans.

This is the kind of film in which a Quetzalcoatlus appears on the horizon, and a character responds by saying its name briskly yet accurately, just before the majestic flying dino emerges in terrifying and detailed fashion. This creature gets better and fuller justification for its actions than pretty much any actor in the film—which might have been fine, had Dominion's writers not spent so much time trying, and failing, to stitch its characters' motivations together.

Enlarge / The new research hasn't made a breakthrough, but it has shrunk the size of the question mark a bit. (credit: NASA)

How can we understand environments that can't be replicated on Earth? That's a challenge astrophysicists face all the time. In some cases, it's largely a matter of figuring out how well-understood physics applies to extreme conditions and then comparing the output of those equations to observations. But a notable exception to that is a neutron star, where the relevant equations get completely intractable, and observations don't provide many details.

So, while we're pretty sure there's a layer of nearly pure neutrons near the surface of these bodies, we're very uncertain as to what might exist deeper in their interiors.

This week, Nature is publishing a study that tries to move us closer to an understanding. It doesn't give us an answer—there's still a lot of uncertainty. But it's a great opportunity to look at the process of how scientists can take data from a huge range of sources and start whittling away at those uncertainties.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

It's Wednesday, which means the time has come for another dispatch from the Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best tech deals from around the web includes a couple of rare discounts on Sonos speakers, with the Sonos Move and Sonos Roam currently down to $319 and $143, respectively. Both discounts mark the lowest price we've tracked for each portable speaker. Normally, the Move retails for $399, while the Roam goes for $179.

We do not see discounts from Sonos very often, especially outside of the holiday season. Typically, the best way to save on the company's devices has been to go through its certified refurbished shop, but these deals effectively match the prices you'd get for a pre-owned model. The offers are available through Sonos' own website and various third-party retailers. Sonos says they'll last through June 12.

We've recommended the Move in past buying guides, and of the two devices on sale, it's still the better option for most. It's bigger and pricier, but its beefier size allows it to pump out a fuller sound than most of its wireless peers—despite the fact that it's technically a mono speaker. Like most Sonos devices, it has a clean and well-balanced sound profile that's rich in detail. Bass response is strong for the category as well, though you won't get too much in the way of deep sub-bass by default. The speaker can connect over both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth—albeit not simultaneously—and has a convenient cutout on its back that makes it easier to carry around and outside of the house. It can charge over USB-C or an included charging dock, and its battery lasts about 10 hours per go. It's IP56-rated, too, so it can withstand splashes of water.