Could the 1,400 hp van beat Volkswagen’s record? We’ll find out on Sunday.
Enlarge/ This bewinged creation is the Ford Supervan 4.2. It looks (a bit) like the Ford E-Transit but goes much, much faster. (credit: Ford)
When Ford let Ars drive its new electric E-Transit van in early 2022, I probably annoyed the heck out of the engineers and executives by repeatedly suggesting they make a Supervan version. While I don't think for a minute that my bugging them had any effect, the company did just that, building a souped-up version of its electric commercial vehicle with almost 2,000 hp (1,400 kW) and aerodynamic appendages that would not look out of place on a Fokker Triplane. And this weekend, it's sending Supervan 4 to one of the hardest races in the world—the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
Supervan?
Ford's Transit van occupies roughly the same place in the European and British psyche as the pickup truck in the US. It's the default tradesperson's vehicle, available in various configurations and beloved by everyone from plumbers and builders to tour bands.
In 1970 or 1971, some bright spark at Ford UK had an idea to promote the Transit's image. A Transit body shell was mated to the chassis of a GT40 race car, complete with 400 hp (298 kW) V8 engine. The Supervan was born, and it made its debut at a 1971 race meeting at Brands Hatch, just outside of London. Its performance was unlike any Transit van at the time, if a little pedestrian 52 years later—a zero to 60 mph time of seven seconds. For comparison, the current electric E-Transit is 0.6 seconds quicker off the line.
Since 2012, Kim Dotcom has been fighting extradition to the United States where he faces serious charges related to cloud storage site Megaupload. During that time, very little has been said about Megaupload graphic designer, Julius Bencko. A wanted man in the U.S., Bencko was arrested this month by armed police in the Czech Republic, who filmed the event and published it online.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
The wheels of justice in the Megaupload case may have moved at a glacial pace over the last 11 years but there’s no doubt they continue to move.
After entering into a plea deal with New Zealand authorities, last week former Megaupload coders Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk were sentenced at the High Court in Auckland to a total of five years in prison, to be served in New Zealand.
Kim Dotcom is still wanted in the United States but seems more comfortable fighting extradition than cutting a deal that requires him to admit guilt. Ortmann and van der Kolk had held out for many years, but the prospect of not being imprisoned in the United States was too good to refuse.
Whether former Megaupload programmer Andrus Nomm negotiated his fate is still unknown. After being indicted along with the others in 2012, the Estonian was reported as living in the Netherlands. In February 2015, Nomm suddenly surfaced in Alexandria, Virginia, the district where the Megaupload indictment had been filed three years earlier. Within days he was serving a one-year prison sentence but was a free man within months.
Julius Bencko, Graphic Designer
In the United States government’s superseding indictment dated February 16, 2012, Julius Bencko is described as a citizen and resident of Slovakia. A talented graphic designer, Bencko was responsible for Megaupload’s logo and ensuring that other sites in the group looked good and accommodated advertising properly.
According to the United States government, this work earned Bencko more than $1 million in 2010 alone. Even for the guy responsible for integrating Megaupload’s Flash player, that was still pretty good money.
The important context here is that Bencko was the director and sole shareholder of Basemax International Limited and through that entity, he effectively held 2.5% of Megaupload’s shares. For someone who supposedly played a key role in the most significant piracy conspiracy of all time, the allegations against Bencko were underwhelming and, at times, borderline comical.
Around October 4, 2007, Bencko sent an email to van der Kolk asking for a favor. “Can u pls get me some links to the series called ‘Seinfeld’ from MU?” Less than two weeks later an apologetic Bencko emailed again. “Sorry to bother but if you would have a second to find me some links for the ‘Grand Archives’ band i’d be very happy.”
If being polite was a crime, Bencko had been caught in the act at least twice but the indictment offered even more. In at least two emails sent by Dotcom to Bencko and his colleagues, all were roundly criticized for deleting too much content in response to copyright holder complaints.
“I told you many times not to delete links that are reported in batches of thousands from insignificant sources,” Dotcom wrote, according to the indictment. “I would say that those infringement reports from MEXICO of ‘14,000’ links would fall into that category. And the fact that we lost significant revenue because of it justifies my reaction.”
Fugitive on the Run?
Unlike his colleagues, Bencko didn’t fly to New Zealand to celebrate Dotcom’s birthday in January 2012. That meant he also missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be targeted by dozens of armed officers from the Special Tactics Group, New Zealand’s elite anti-terror force.
With his former colleagues’ names rarely out of the media for long, Bencko spent much of 2012 and early 2013 retweeting news about the Megaupload case. “I miss my MEGA friends / colleagues,” he declared in a rare personal tweet in July 2013. A year later, Bencko was posting videos of car restorations under his Pixelhood brand, but showing no obvious concerns about his fate in the Megaupload case.
At this point, various explanations seemed potentially reasonable. Had designing logos and making websites look pretty begun to look less attractive to prosecuting authorities than they had done a couple of years earlier? Maybe Bencko had agreed to sing like a canary in exchange for the ‘freedom’ depicted in this January 2016 tweet?
While that seemed unlikely, almost anything seemed more likely than the Slovakian freely walking around Europe being polite to people, because nobody cared about the indictment anymore.
It was more than 11 years in the making but earlier this month, authorities in Europe organized a smaller armed raid just for Bencko.
Czech Police Executed International Arrest Warrant
The announcement on the Czech police website does not name Julius Bencko as the person of interest but supporting information makes it extremely unlikely it could be anyone else.
The statement reveals that after obtaining information relating to the movements of a wanted man, officers from the Department of Foreign Police (which handles illegal migration, crimes involving foreigners, and cross-border crime) arrested a 46-year-old man in Prague.
Police report that the man was the subject of an international arrest warrant issued in Virginia, United States, after being “convicted of several crimes such as extortion, copyright infringement, or money laundering.”
Police Arrest Bencko at Prague Hotel
The authorities say that police received information that their target was staying at a hotel in the Prague 1 district. Bodycam footage shows armed police approaching a hotel room marked ’43’ at 01:19 on June 7, 2023. A man responds to a quiet knock on the door before the officers immediately push inside to restrain him.
“A sleepy man opened the door for [officers] in the middle of the night, and the police immediately arrested him,” the official report reads. Police say the man “was armed with several knives” but thanks to the “very quick intervention of the police, he was unable to put up any resistance.”
Nothing in the video indicates that Bencko was armed with a knife or that he even considered any kind of struggle. At one point the officers ask Bencko for documents, but at least 13 minutes pass before the graphic designer is handcuffed and led outside to a waiting police car.
“After the arrest, the forty-six-year-old foreigner was taken to the police station, from where he was escorted to the issuing custody after all police actions had been performed,” Czech police continue.
“Upon request, he will travel back to the United States, where he will serve out his many-year sentence.”
The Asus ExpertCenter PN42 is a small fanless desktop computer with an Intel N100 quad-core processor based on Alder Lake-N architecture, support for up to three displays, and two 2.5 GbE Ethernet ports. Asus unveiled the mini PC earlier this year, an…
The Asus ExpertCenter PN42 is a small fanless desktop computer with an Intel N100 quad-core processor based on Alder Lake-N architecture, support for up to three displays, and two 2.5 GbE Ethernet ports. Asus unveiled the mini PC earlier this year, and now it’s up for pre-order from B&H for $220 and up. The starting price […]
DuckDuckGo is best known for its privacy-focused search engine. But the company also makes browser extensions and full-fledged web browsers for Android, iOS, Mac, and now Windows. After launching a desktop app for Mac users last year, DuckDuckGo has r…
DuckDuckGo is best known for its privacy-focused search engine. But the company also makes browser extensions and full-fledged web browsers for Android, iOS, Mac, and now Windows. After launching a desktop app for Mac users last year, DuckDuckGo has released a public beta of the DuckDuckGo Browser for Windows. Unsurprisingly the key features that set […]
Apple has released new minor updates for iOS 16, macOS 13 Ventura, and most of its other actively supported operating systems that fix a pair of serious security bugs that the company says "may have been actively exploited." You should install the iOS and iPadOS 16.5.1, macOS 13.4.1, and watchOS 9.5.2 updates at your earliest convenience, if you haven't already.
One of the vulnerabilities, CVE-2023-32434, is a kernel-level flaw that can allow apps to "execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges." The other, a WebKit bug labeled CVE-2023-32439, can allow the execution of arbitrary code after processing "maliciously crafted web content."
The iOS and iPadOS 16.5.1 updates also fix a non-security bug "that prevents charging with the Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter."
“I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite.”
Enlarge/ Musk versus Zuckerberg in a cage match? Probably not. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images ( David Paul Morris | Nathan Laine))
The Internet is aflame this morning with the prospect of a cage match between two of the tech industry's most prominent and controversial leaders. Ready to rumble in the red corner is Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. And in the blue corner, we have the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.
As the BBC and multiple other outlets have confirmed, Zuckerberg was entirely serious when he accepted Musk's offer of a cage match by saying "send me location." On Wednesday evening, Musk then replied with "Vegas Octagon." This was a reference to the fenced-in area used for Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts in Las Vegas.
Given the humorous nature of Musk's other responses to the proposed fight, such as "I have this great move that I call 'The Walrus', where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing," it seems probable that he is not overly serious. While Musk has the definite advantage in size, he is 12 years older than Zuckerberg, and the Facebook founder frequently trains in mixed-martial arts.
Amazon bietet die tragbare Powerstation N1200P von Necespow zum Tiefpreis an. Noch bis Sonntag winken Ersparnisse über mehrere Hundert Euro. (Powerstation, Technik/Hardware)
Amazon bietet die tragbare Powerstation N1200P von Necespow zum Tiefpreis an. Noch bis Sonntag winken Ersparnisse über mehrere Hundert Euro. (Powerstation, Technik/Hardware)
“Microsoft’s actions following… acquisition of ZeniMax speak louder than… words.”
Enlarge/ The fact that Starfield won't be on PlayStation means Microsoft could conceivably make the same decision for Call of Duty, the FTC argues.
For months now, Microsoft has sworn up and down that it has no interest in making Call of Duty exclusive to the Xbox if and when its proposed $69 billion Activision acquisition is approved. But as the FTC's request for an injunction stopping that acquisition heads toward opening arguments this week, the federal regulator cites one piece of what it calls "powerful evidence" that it can't trust Microsoft's assurances. In short, as the FTC puts it, "Microsoft's actions following its 2021 acquisition of ZeniMax speak louder than Defendants' words."
Longtime readers and game industry watchers may remember that, before Microsoft's ZeniMax purchase was complete, executives from both companies made vague noises suggesting future Bethesda games might not become Xbox exclusives. Once the ink was dry on the final deal, though, Microsoft quickly announced console exclusivity for some future Bethesda titles, a list that would come to include Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI.
Ahead of the Activision deal closing, Microsoft has made much stronger commitments as far as keeping Call of Duty a multi-platform franchise. Taking Call of Duty off of PlayStation would be nonsensical, Microsoft says in a recent legal filing. The franchise is "profitable precisely because [it] generate[s] sales on many different platforms," and the deal as structured can't be profitable for Microsoft without those PlayStation Call of Duty revenues, the company writes. Making Call of Duty exclusive would make for "a worse game and enrage the gaming community, because much of the game's popularity stems from the way it brings together players who use competing consoles," Microsoft writes.
Shokz hat seinen ersten Bluetooth-Hörstöpsel vorgestellt. Anders als bisher wird keine Knochenschalltechnik verwendet und dennoch wird ein offenes Design genutzt. (Bluetooth-Hörstöpsel, Audio/Video)
Shokz hat seinen ersten Bluetooth-Hörstöpsel vorgestellt. Anders als bisher wird keine Knochenschalltechnik verwendet und dennoch wird ein offenes Design genutzt. (Bluetooth-Hörstöpsel, Audio/Video)
Vom europäischen Weltraumbahnhof aus kann die Rakete des Start-ups auch zum Mond fliegen. (
Amazon bietet die tragbare Powerstation N1200P von Necespow zum Tiefpreis an. Noch bis Sonntag winken Ersparnisse über mehrere Hundert Euro. (
Shokz hat seinen ersten Bluetooth-Hörstöpsel vorgestellt. Anders als bisher wird keine Knochenschalltechnik verwendet und dennoch wird ein offenes Design genutzt. (
You must be logged in to post a comment.