Month: July 2022

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A security firm and the US government are advising the public to immediately stop using a popular GPS tracking device or to at least minimize exposure to it, citing a host of vulnerabilities that make it possible for hackers to remotely disable cars while they’re moving, track location histories, disarm alarms, and cut off fuel.

An assessment from security firm BitSight found six vulnerabilities in the Micodus MV720, a GPS tracker that sells for about $20 and is widely available. The researchers who performed the assessment believe the same critical vulnerabilities are present in other Micodus tracker models. The China-based manufacturer says 1.5 million of its tracking devices are deployed across 420,000 customers. BitSight found the device in use in 169 countries, with customers including governments, militaries, law enforcement agencies, and aerospace, shipping, and manufacturing companies.

BitSight discovered what it said were six “severe” vulnerabilities in the device that allow for a host of possible attacks. One flaw is the use of unencrypted HTTP communications that makes it possible for remote hackers to conduct adversary-in-the-middle attacks that intercept or change requests sent between the mobile application and supporting servers. Other vulnerabilities include a flawed authentication mechanism in the mobile app that can allow attackers to access the hardcoded key for locking down the trackers and the ability to use a custom IP address that makes it possible for hackers to monitor and control all communications to and from the device.

Enlarge / This is Amazon Prime Video's new look. (credit: Amazon)

Amazon Prime Video may have a compelling value proposition and some great original series to watch, but its interface has always been hideous compared to what competitors offer. Granted, the current state of affairs is what it is partly because the one we're using now is a decade old, give or take. But it wasn't all that attractive even back then.

Fortunately, Amazon is completely overhauling the Amazon Prime Video design at long last. The updated interface will start rolling out to users this week.

At first glance, the redesign is all about modernizing the look and making the experience more similar to what you get with just about every other streaming service. But it also addresses one of the biggest user complaints that isn't just about looks: It offers a more elegant way to tell which videos are available free to Prime subscribers, and which ones you have to pay a la carte for.

Enlarge (credit: Al Drago / Contributor | CQ-Roll Call, Inc.)

For years, people have wondered not if, but how much, the Department of Homeland Security accesses mobile location data to monitor US citizens. This week, the American Civil Liberties Union released thousands of heavily redacted pages of documents that provide a “glimpse” of how DHS agencies came to leverage “a shocking amount” of location data, apparently purchasing data without following proper protocols to ensure they had the authority to do so.

Documents were shared with the ACLU "over the course of the last year through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit." Then Politico got access and released a report confirming that DHS contracted with two surveillance companies, Babel Street and Venntel, to scour hundreds of millions of cellphones from 2017 to 2019 and access “more than 336,000 location data points across North America.” The collection of emails, contracts, spreadsheets, and presentation slides provide evidence that “the Trump administration’s immigration enforcers used mobile location data to track people’s movements on a larger scale than previously known,” and the practice has continued under Biden due to a contract that didn’t expire until 2021.

The majority of the new information details an extensive contract DHS made with Venntel, a data broker that says it sells mobile location data to solve “the world’s most challenging problems.” In documents, US Customs and Border Patrol said Venntel’s location data helped them improve immigration enforcement and investigations into human trafficking and narcotics.

Enlarge / Close-up of a Tokay gecko's toe pads. They have many tiny hairs per foot called setae, each of which splits off into hundreds of even smaller bristles called spatulae. These help maximize contact with a surface. (credit: Yi Song)

Geckos are known for being expert climbers, able to stick to any surface thanks to tiny hair-like structures on the bottoms of their feet. Along with colleagues in Oregon, Denmark, and Germany, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) took a closer look at those structures using high-energy synchrotron, revealing that they are coated with an ultra-thin layer of lipid molecules in an upright orientation, according to a recent paper published in the journal Biology Letters.

Those tiny microscopic hairs are called setae, each of which splits off into hundreds of even smaller bristles called spatulae. It has long been known that at microscopic size scales, the so-called van der Waals forces—the attractive and repulsive forces between two dipole molecules—become significant.

Essentially, the tufts of tiny hairs on gecko feet get so close to the contours in walls and ceilings that electrons from the gecko hair molecules and electrons from the wall molecules interact with each other and create an electromagnetic attraction. That's what enables geckos to climb smooth surfaces like glass effortlessly. Spiders, cockroaches, beetles, bats, tree frogs, and lizards all have varying-sized sticky footpads that use these same forces.

Enlarge / The official Z Fold 4 render. (credit: Evan Blass / 91Mobiles)

Samsung's next big product launch event is officially August 10. After an earlier leak from Evan Blass, aka Evleaks, nailing down this date, Samsung's Twitter account more or less confirmed the report with a puzzle with "081022" as the answer. Expected at the show are the Galaxy Z Fold 4, Galaxy Z Flip 4, Galaxy Watch 5, and the Buds2 Pro earbuds. Samsung has great timing because more leaks have also come out today. Evan Blass and 91Mobiles have posted official renders of both the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4.

The exterior design of both devices hasn't changed much, but rumor has it we're looking at a lot of dimension and internal changes. Leaker Ice universe claims the Galaxy Fold is once again expected to get a bit shorter and wider. The exterior Fold 3 screen is very short and skinny, which can lead to layout problems, a general cramped feeling, and a small keyboard. Going shorter and wider with the Z Fold 4 will get the front screen closer to a normal phone aspect ratio. On the inside, shorter and wider should help with media and split-screen content, where the split will be closer to two normal smartphones next to each other.

Don't believe the claims that Fold4 and Fold3 are very similar.
The Fold4 design has changed a lot, especially the hinge. pic.twitter.com/aHKSQ5Cmoq

— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) June 1, 2022

If you want to see the Z Fold 4 from more angles, these unofficial renders from Onleaks and Smartprix are your best bet. There are conflicting reports about the device's thickness. The Onleaks render has the Z Fold 4 dimensions at 155×130×7.1 mm. That's shorter, wider, and thicker than the 158.2×128.1×6.4 mm Fold 3. Meanwhile Ice Universe keeps saying the Fold 4 is "thinner" than the Fold 3 while stilling keeping a 4400 mAh battery (same as the Fold 3).

Enlarge / Satellite photo of an algal bloom in western Lake Erie, July 28, 2015. (credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

Midsummer is the time for forecasts of the size of this year’s “dead zones” and algal blooms in major lakes and bays. Will the Gulf of Mexico dead zone be the size of New Jersey, or only as big as Connecticut? Will Lake Erie’s bloom blossom to a human health crisis, or just devastate the coastal economy?

We are scientists who each have spent almost 50 years figuring out what causes dead zones and what it will take to resuscitate them and reduce risks of toxic blooms of algae. Researchers can forecast these phenomena quite well and have calculated the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution cuts needed to reduce them.

These targets are now written into formal government commitments to clean up Lake Erie, the Gulf, and the Chesapeake Bay. Farmers and land owners nationwide received $30 billion to support conservation, including practices designed to reduce water pollution, from 2005 to 2015, and are scheduled to receive $60 billion more between 2019 and 2028.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Chesnot )

Elon Musk has lost his attempt to delay the Twitter trial until next year. Delaware Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick scheduled a five-day trial for October, rejecting Musk's request for a trial in February 2023.

McCormick's ruling came far closer to Twitter's preferred timeline than to Musk's. Twitter, which is suing Musk to force him to complete their agreed-upon merger, was seeking a four-day trial in September 2022.

"The reality is delay threatens irreparable harm to the sellers," McCormick said today, as reported by Reuters. "Those concerns are on full display in the present case," she also said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "Typically, the longer the merger transaction remains in limbo, the larger the cloud of uncertainty cast over the company and the greater the risk of irreparable harm to the sellers."