Month: April 2023

Enlarge / The Nest 2020 thermostat is getting Matter support, making it (theoretically) easier to control across multiple smart home platforms, including Apple's Home. (credit: Google)

A major piece of the smart home market now supports the Matter standard. The 2020 Nest Thermostat is the first smart thermostat to join in the slow-going wave and, in doing so, now works in an Apple Home system without additional bridges or hubs.

Take note that only the 2020 redesign of the Nest Thermostat will be updated with Matter support, starting today and rolling out "over the next few weeks," according to a Google Nest Community post. Google has said it is investigating Matter support for the more common Nest (3rd generation) Learning Thermostat and Nest Thermostat E (now mainly available in Europe). Let's hope it does, because the Learning Thermostat has the broadest compatibility across HVAC systems and is the one we see installed in most homes, at about a 100-to-zero rate versus the 2020 version.

If you have a newer Nest, your device will quietly absorb an over-the-air update at some point today or in the next few weeks. After that, you can control your Nest from multiple Matter-compliant systems. Nest already worked with Amazon's Alexa, Samsung's SmartThings, and, of course, Google's Home platform. But with Matter support, you can set it up to interact with other Matter-enabled devices, such as non-Nest temperature sensors or motion detectors.

Enlarge / David Choe. (credit: Rodin Eckenroth / Stringer | FilmMagic)

Netflix is facing calls to boycott its latest hit series Beef after a 2014 podcast clip recently resurfaced, showing Beef actor David Choe graphically detailing what he described then as his own “rapey behavior.” Choe later clarified in a 2014 statement that the podcast clip featured one of his misguided attempts at performance “art” while he was mentally unwell. He insisted that the sexual assault he described was entirely fabricated and declared, “I am not a rapist.”

That clip came back to haunt Choe this month when his performance in Beef drew wide praise, and journalists posted the clip to remind audiences of Choe’s past transgression. The clip quickly went viral on social media, and Choe seemingly decided to do damage control by sending copyright takedown notices through his nonprofit, The David Young Choe Foundation, and successfully getting some of the clips removed from Twitter.

“Several Twitter users—@MediumSizeMeech and @aurabogado have re-uploaded a clip from Episode 106 ‘Erection Quest’ of our DVDASA live podcast and video series that was originally published on March 10, 2014 without our consent,” the takedown request read, specifically noting that the request came directly from Choe.

Enlarge / The CBC's Twitter profile.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Twitter profile has a new label that Elon Musk wrote specifically for Canada's public broadcaster: "69% Government-funded Media." While Musk appears to be enjoying his feud with media outlets, his insistence on using "state-affiliated" and "government-funded" labels for public broadcasters has driven several news organizations to quit the social network that he bought for $44 billion.

"Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they're 'less than 70% government-funded,' so we corrected the label," Musk wrote in a tweet last night. The tweet included a screenshot of CBC's Twitter profile with the new "69% Government-funded Media" label.

The "69% Government-funded" label, while obviously a joke, appears to be inaccurate. The CBC may not have told Musk the exact percentage, but the organization's publicly available 2022 financial report says it received $1.24 billion in government funding and another $651.4 million in revenue from advertising, subscriber fees, and investments. That would mean government allocations accounted for about 66 percent of the CBC's 2022 funding and revenue.

The T700's optional heatsink is installed on the right. (credit: Crucial)

It's still not a good time to buy a PCIe 5.0 SSD. With faster options, less monstrous heatsinks, and lower prices all expected to hit the market eventually, it's wise to wait if you can. Consumer-grade drives started rolling out earlier this year, and this week, reviewers shared early testing results for the Crucial T700 PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD scheduled for May. Being heralded as "the fastest consumer SSD in the world, at least for now," it gets closer to the communication bus's max potential than current options.

But we're still working with speeds under the spec's 14,000MBps theoretical max speed, a heatsink that is improved in size but still chunky, and likely high prices. Crucial hasn't shared MSRPs for the 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB capacities coming out, but we can expect them to be as large as the drive's optional heatsink.

Some caveats

Various publications this week published benchmark results for engineering samples of the 2TB T700. The performance of the final version made available to shoppers may differ. According to PCMag, Micron (which owns Crucial) expects to optimize random writes and power consumption. There are also "regulatory hurdles" and Trusted Computing Group's Opal specifications to address and firmware to finalize.

Enlarge / The modern remake of an infamous Doom clone, Chex Quest HD is now playable on the Steam Deck and other modern Linux PCs. (credit: General Mills)

To play Windows-compatible games in its Linux-based operating system, the Steam Deck relies on a compatibility layer called Proton. It's a collection of different technologies, including the venerable Wine software and software that translates Windows-native Direct3D API calls into Vulkan API calls that Linux can handle.

Proton is continually updated to fix rendering bugs in specific games and to add new games to the compatibility list; version 8.0 was released yesterday and added support for 18 new games (and fixes rendering bugs in tons of others). Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais called the release "our biggest rebase to date."

The new compatibility list includes a few of the big, recognizable titles you'd expect Valve to prioritize, including the 2023 re-release of Dead Space and Square Enix's Forspoken. But there is one oddball game that stood out to me: Chex Quest HD, the remastered version of a 1996 CD-ROM game that was included for free in boxes of Chex cereal for six weeks in the mid-'90s.

Enlarge / One of the chips Team Xecuter offered for sale to alter the Switch's boot process, allowing for custom firmware and, yes, piracy. (credit: Team Xecuter)

Gary Bowser, a member of the notorious Team Xecuter Switch modding group, will soon be allowed to return to his home country of Canada. He will not, however, be able to avoid the $14.5 million in repayment Nintendo will likely be pulling from him for the rest of his life.

Bowser, a key figure in the nominative determinism hypothesis, is often described as a "hacker" but mainly worked in sales and promotion for Team Xecuter (or TX) as "kind of a PR guy." The group developed and sold jailbreaking devices dating back to the original Xbox under various brand and release names. While these devices opened up systems for homebrew, Linux, and other uses, they also made it simple to load pirated ROMs onto devices. Team Xecuter benefited from the open source work of Switch hackers, sold devices at a profit to help others hack their Switches, and were far more explicit about the piracy aspects of their exploits than other groups.

That's why the arrest of Bowser and other TX members shocked the console hacking scene when their indictments came down in October 2020. The Department of Justice arranged for the arrest and extradition of Gary "GaryOPA" Bowser in the Dominican Republic and Max "MaxiMiLiEN" Louarn in France (eventually found in Tanzania but not yet extradited), and it pursued Yuanning "100+1" Chen in Shenzen, China. Charging for products—and being brazen about their piracy uses—seemed to spur Nintendo to action, which in turn pushed the DOJ.

Enlarge / One of the chips Team Xecuter offered for sale to alter the Switch's boot process, allowing for custom firmware and, yes, piracy. (credit: Team Xecuter)

Gary Bowser, a member of the notorious Team Xecuter Switch modding group, will soon be allowed to return to his home country of Canada. He will not, however, be able to avoid the $14.5 million in repayment Nintendo will likely be pulling from him for the rest of his life.

Bowser, a key figure in the nominative determinism hypothesis, is often described as a "hacker" but mainly worked in sales and promotion for Team Xecuter (or TX) as "kind of a PR guy." The group developed and sold jailbreaking devices dating back to the original Xbox under various brand and release names. While these devices opened up systems for homebrew, Linux, and other uses, they also made it simple to load pirated ROMs onto devices. Team Xecuter benefited from the open source work of Switch hackers, sold devices at a profit to help others hack their Switches, and were far more explicit about the piracy aspects of their exploits than other groups.

That's why the arrest of Bowser and other TX members shocked the console hacking scene when their indictments came down in October 2020. The Department of Justice arranged for the arrest and extradition of Gary "GaryOPA" Bowser in the Dominican Republic and Max "MaxiMiLiEN" Louarn in France (eventually found in Tanzania but not yet extradited), and it pursued Yuanning "100+1" Chen in Shenzen, China. Charging for products—and being brazen about their piracy uses—seemed to spur Nintendo to action, which in turn pushed the DOJ.

Enlarge / $400,000 is a steal for a digital gun this blue. (credit: Twitter / Luksusbums)

A major CS:GO skin trader says he has shepherded the sale of a single gun for a record price of over $400,000. The news comes amid a speculative boom in the price of all sorts of CS:GO items, following the news that those skins will be fully compatible with the recently announced Counter-Strike 2.

Danish trader zipeL, who helps manage CS:Go market clearinghouse SkinBid, shared news of a $500,000+ transaction on Twitter earlier this week. While that transaction also included a rare (but "well-worn") Karambit #387 P1 knife, the highlight was a "#1 AK-47 661 ST MW with 4x Titan (Holo)." Seller (and SkinBids cofounder) Luksusbums said last year that he would "entertain offers above $400K" for that gun, a valuation that was apparently met with this sale.

While there are many sought-after skins in CS:GO, the "Seed 661" pattern seen on this AK-47 is "commonly considered the #1 pattern and... is known as the best 'scar pattern'" according to informational site CS Go Blue Gem. The pattern is particularly valued aesthetically for what the site calls "a clean and bright blue all the way through the back with a golden scar close to the rear sight."