Month: June 2023

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Organizations big and small are falling prey to the mass exploitation of a critical vulnerability in a widely used file-transfer program. The exploitation started over the Memorial Day holiday—while the critical vulnerability was still a zeroday—and continues now, some nine days later.

As of Monday evening, payroll service Zellis, the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, British Airways, the BBC, and UK retailer Boots were all known to have had data stolen through the attacks, which are fueled by a recently patched vulnerability in MOVEit, a file-transfer provider that offers both cloud and on-premises services. Both Nova Scotia and Zellis had their own instances or cloud services breached. British Airways, the BBC, and Boots were customers of Zellis. All of the hacking activity has been attributed to the Russian-speaking Clop crime syndicate.

Widespread and rather substantial

Despite the relatively small number of confirmed breaches, researchers monitoring the ongoing attacks are describing the exploitation as widespread. They liken the hacks to smash-and-grab robberies, in which a window is broken and thieves grab whatever they can, and warned that the quick-moving heists are hitting banks, government agencies, and other targets in alarmingly high numbers.

Enlarge / Vision Pro: The computer you can keep using while grabbing unbranded sparkling water from the fridge (credit: Apple)

We're still reeling a bit from today's announcement of Vision Pro, Apple's biggest new platform/hardware product rollout in years. The enormity of the entirely new computing interface the company is trying to sell here is matched only by the augmented reality headset's significant $3,499 starting price.

Whether or not Apple's gambit here can succeed in a headset-curious but still largely headset-skeptical market will depend in large part on the quality of the "immersive" experience Apple can deliver, and the answers to questions that can only be answered by actually putting this thing on our heads. Before we get that eyes- and hands-on time, though, here are some immediate thoughts on how to position Vision Pro in the market and in your mind.

Don't judge Vision Pro by the standards of VR

Comparing the Vision Pro to the current state of the art in virtual reality makes its value proposition seems like a real uphill climb for Apple. After all, for the same price as just one Vision Pro you could buy three-and-a-half Quest Pro headsets (after its recent price drop to $999) or a full seven of Meta's upcoming Quest 3 headsets (one for every day of the week).

Enlarge / Vision Pro: The computer you can keep using while grabbing unbranded sparkling water from the fridge (credit: Apple)

We're still reeling a bit from today's announcement of Vision Pro, Apple's biggest new platform/hardware product rollout in years. The enormity of the entirely new computing interface the company is trying to sell here is matched only by the augmented reality headset's significant $3,499 starting price.

Whether or not Apple's gambit here can succeed in a headset-curious but still largely headset-skeptical market will depend in large part on the quality of the "immersive" experience Apple can deliver, and the answers to questions that can only be answered by actually putting this thing on our heads. Before we get that eyes- and hands-on time, though, here are some immediate thoughts on how to position Vision Pro in the market and in your mind.

Don't judge Vision Pro by the standards of VR

Comparing the Vision Pro to the current state of the art in virtual reality makes its value proposition seems like a real uphill climb for Apple. After all, for the same price as just one Vision Pro you could buy three-and-a-half Quest Pro headsets (after its recent price drop to $999) or a full seven of Meta's upcoming Quest 3 headsets (one for every day of the week).

Enlarge / Artist's illustration of NASA's Psyche spacecraft, now set to launch in October 2023. The Psyche mission will explore a metal-rich asteroid of the same name that lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)

One year after NASA announced an indefinite delay of a much-anticipated mission to visit a metal-rich asteroid, the agency said Monday that the Psyche spacecraft is back on track. The Psyche mission is now scheduled to launch in four months on a Falcon Heavy rocket, and everyone involved in the project feels good about that date.

"We believe Psyche is on a positive course for an October 2023 launch," said Thomas Young, who chaired an independent review board that NASA convened last summer after the mission was delayed.

If the mission does launch this fall, the spacecraft will reach asteroid Psyche in August 2029. There, it will go into orbit for 26 months to gain insights into planetary formation, understand the interior of terrestrial planets like Earth, and examine a world that is made largely of metal. The mission is also of interest to the nascent asteroid mining community, which seeks to learn about the potential value harbored by these relatively rare, metallic asteroids.