Month: September 2022

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Matt Anderson Photography)

The Federal Communications Commission has collected precise broadband availability information from Internet service providers for the first time and aims to release a first draft of a new broadband map in November, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote Friday.

The FCC last week "completed the first filing window for submitting data on where broadband service is and is not available," a milestone in the years-long process of creating an accurate US broadband map, she wrote. "For the first time ever, we have collected extensive location-by-location data on precisely where broadband services are available, and now we are ready to get to work and start developing new and improved broadband maps."

The resulting map should show whether fixed broadband service is available at each residence or business location. The FCC's inaccurate broadband maps have long made it difficult to distribute deployment grants where they're needed most.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

Google engineers have issued an emergency update for the Chrome browser to fix a high-severity vulnerability that can be exploited with code that’s already available in the wild.

The vulnerability, which Google disclosed on Friday, is the result of “insufficient data validation in Mojo,” a Chrome component for messaging across inter- and intra-process boundaries that exist between the browser and the operating system it runs on. The vulnerability, which is tracked as CVE-2022-3075, was reported to Google last Tuesday by an anonymous party.

“Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2022-3075 exists in the wild,” the company said. The advisory didn’t provide additional details, such as whether attackers are actively exploiting the vulnerability or are simply in possession of exploit code.

Enlarge / Apple's iPhone 12 Pro. (credit: Samuel Axon)

The Brazilian government has suspended the sales of iPhones without chargers, it announced today. Apple is also facing a BRL$12,275,500 fine (about $2.3 million) from Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP). This is on top of a reported $2 million fine Apple incurred in 2021 after announcing its first smartphone to ship without a power adapter in the box, the iPhone 12 series. Apple can appeal Brazil's decision.

The MJSP also ordered the iPhone 12's registration with Anatel, Brazil's national telecomms agency, to be canceled.

In 2021, the Brazilian state of São Paulo's consumer protection agency, Procon-SP, fined Apple $2 million over the iPhone 12. It said Apple sold what the country considers to be an incomplete product. Since then, Apple hasn't worked to "minimize the damage and continues to sell cell phones without chargers," according to a Google translation of the announcement in Portuguese.

Enlarge / Porsche knows the road to a Le Mans win involves tens of thousands of miles of testing. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA.—Car companies like to keep new models far from prying eyes during the development process. That goes doubly so when they’re going racing, like Porsche is with its new 963, which made our invitation to watch the car test on Friday, while still in development, a rare chance to watch expertise at work. Doubly so considering that Porsche's partner with the 963 is Penske Racing, an organization that has racked up more than 600 wins across a range of disciplines over the past 56 years.

The 963 has been built to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans and endurance races like it and will compete next year in IMSA's new GTP category as well as the FIA WEC's Hypercar class. Built to a rule set known as LMDh, it's more of a collaboration than the Porsche crest on the nose might lead you to expect. Multimatic in Canada provides the car's carbon-fiber spine, or chassis. Xtrac supplies the transmission, Williams Advanced Engineering provides the lithium-ion traction battery, and Bosch is responsible for the electric motor/generator unit, all three of which are tightly packaged together.

But Porsche has built the twin-turbocharged 4.6L V8, which traces its roots back to the mid-2000s RS Spyder race car, with a road-going derivative also found in the 918 Spyder hypercar. Power is capped at 680 hp (500 kW) for the internal combustion engine and hybrid system working together and is measured by sensors to ensure no one gets over-creative.

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  To launch split-screen mode, you can drag an item from the taskbar. (That two-finger swipe gesture looks neat, too.) [credit: Samsung ]

Google may have already moved on to Android 13, but Android's biggest manufacturer, Samsung, is only now getting around to updating devices to Android 12L. Android 12L came out in March, so Samsung's update time is clocking in at around six months.

Yesterday, the company announced Android 12L for the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3, which both launched with Android 11 last year. Just before the weekend, Samsung announced Android 12L for its flagship tablet, too, with the Galaxy Tab S8 Series first on deck for updates.

Both of these devices are great candidates for Android 12L, since that release was mostly focused on big-screen devices and foldables. The headline feature is the bottom taskbar, which shows icons from recent apps, letting you easily switch between them. There are new split-screen features like the ability to see three apps at once, and you can easily launch split-screen by dragging an app out of the taskbar. There's also a new split-pane notification panel.

Enlarge / Archaeologists discovered what may be the skeleton of a 17th-century female "vampire" near Bydgoszcz, Poland. (credit: Mirosław Blicharski/Aleksander Poznań)

Vampire folklore across cultures is filled with various tips on how to keep a recently deceased person from rising from the grave as an undead fiend who preys on the living. Now archaeologists have uncovered an unusual example of people using these tips in a 17th century Polish cemetery near Bydgoszcz: a female skeleton buried with a sickle placed across her neck, as well as a padlock on the big toe of her left foot.

Tales of vampire-like creatures date back at least 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. For instance, the Assyrians feared a demon goddess called Lamastu (literally, “she who erases”), who they said killed babies in their cribs or while still in the womb. Ancient Jewish texts mention a similar creature, Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who steals away infants and unborn children. Neither of these could be considered “vampires” in the modern sense, but they are the precursors to the Greek legend of Lamia, an immortal monster who sucked the blood from young children.

In Chinese folklore, another type of proto-vampire, called the k’uei, were reanimated corpses that rose from the grave and preyed on the living, as were the Russian upir, Indian vetala, Romanian strigoi, and Greek vrykolakas. News reports specifically referencing vampires didn't appear in English until 1732, as suspected "epidemics" of vampirism caused a mass hysteria that swept across Eastern Europe. By the 19th century, most of Europe was consumed by vampire hysteria, inspiring writers like John Polidori ("The Vampyre," 1819), Sheridan LeFanu (Carmilla, 1872), and of course, Bram Stoker, whose Dracula (1897) pretty much spawned the modern vampire genre.

Enlarge / Hyper says its new 140 W wall charger is 24 percent smaller than Apple's original, while also charging two other USB devices (though that drops the fastest charger to 100 W). (credit: Hyper)

Fast-charging the 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro at 140 W isn't something most people need to do that often, but it stands out as a kind of horsepower test among charging accessory brands. Entering into this drag race is Hyper, which is touting a new 140 W wall charger the company claims is 24 percent smaller than Apple's own charger while also sporting two more ports.

Hyper, a sub-brand of Targus that has been making hubs, docks, and charging gear for more than seven years, sometimes through crowdfunding, is using gallium nitride (GaN) technology to achieve improved heat, power, and size characteristics. Apple's original 140 W charger was also built on gallium nitride, has one port, measures 3.78×2.95×1.1 inches (96×75×28 millimeters), and weighs 8.01 ounces (277 grams). Hyper's three-port, 140 W charger measures 2.87×2.92×1.14 inches (73×74.1×29 mm) and weighs 9.03 oz (256 g), according to Hyper.

Hyper's 140 W stacked up against Apple's original 140 W charger. (credit: Hyper)

From that smaller package, you can draw 140 W through a USB Type-C Power Delivery (PD) 3.1 port, 100 W at a USB-C PD port, and 30 W from a Type-A Quick Charge (QC) port. Those are not simultaneous limits; Hyper's product page shows that the full-speed MacBook charging port (which requires Apple's USB-C-to-MagSafe cable) requires solitary operation but can provide 100 W when the other ports are in use.