Month: October 2023

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

If your organization uses servers that are equipped with baseboard management controllers from Supermicro, it’s time, once again, to patch seven high-severity vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to gain control of them. And sorry, but the fixes must be installed manually.

Typically abbreviated as BMCs, baseboard management controllers are small chips that are soldered onto the motherboard of servers inside data centers. Administrators rely on these powerful controllers for various remote management capabilities, including installing updates, monitoring temperatures and setting fan speeds accordingly, and reflashing the UEFI system firmware that allows servers to load their operating systems during reboots. BMCs provide these capabilities and more, even when the servers they’re connected to are turned off.

Code execution inside the BMC? Yup

The potential for vulnerabilities in BMCs to be exploited and used to take control of servers hasn’t been lost on hackers. In 2021, hackers exploited a vulnerability in BMCs from HP Enterprise and installed a custom rootkit, researchers from Amnpardaz, a security firm in Iran, reported that year. ILObleed, as the researchers named the rootkit, hid inside the iLO, a module in HPE BMCs that’s short for Integrated Lights-Out.

Enlarge / Vials of quantum dots with gradually stepping emission from violet to deep red. (credit: Antipoff/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Once thought impossible to make, quantum dots have become a common component in computer monitors, TV screens, and LED lamps, among other uses. Three of the scientists who pioneered these colorful nanocrystals—Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus, and Alexei I. Ekimov—have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.” The news had already leaked in the Swedish news media—a rare occurrence—when Johan Aqvist, chair of the Academy's Nobel committee for chemistry, made the official announcement, complete with five flasks containing quantum dots of many colors lined up before him as a visual aid.

A quantum dot is a small semiconducting bead with a few tens of atoms in diameter. Billions could fit on the head of a pin, and the smaller you can make them, the better. At those small scales, quantum effects kick in and give the dots superior electrical and optical properties. They glow brightly when zapped with light, and the color of that light is determined by the size of the quantum dots. Bigger dots emit redder light; smaller dots emit bluer light. So, you can tailor quantum dots to specific frequencies of light just by changing their size.

Physicists had thought since the 1930s that particles at the nanoscale would behave differently. That's because, according to quantum mechanics, there is much less space for electrons when particles are that small, squeezing electrons together so tightly that material properties can change dramatically. Scientists succeeded in making nanoscale-thin films on top of bulk materials in the 1970s that had size-dependent optical properties, in keeping with those earlier predictions. But making those films required ultra-high vacuum conditions and temperatures near absolute zero, so nobody expected them to have much practical use.

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon, alleging that the online retailer was illegally maintaining a monopoly. Much of the FTC's complaint against Amazon was redacted, but The Wall Street Journal yesterday revealed key details obscured in the complaint regarding a secret algorithm. The FTC alleged that Amazon once used the algorithm to raise prices across the most popular online shopping destinations.

People familiar with the FTC's allegations in the complaint told the Journal that it all started when Amazon developed an algorithm code-named "Project Nessie." It allegedly works by manipulating rivals' weaker pricing algorithms and locking competitors into higher prices. The controversial algorithm was allegedly used for years and helped Amazon to "improve its profits on items across shopping categories" and "led competitors to raise their prices and charge customers more," the WSJ reported.

The FTC's complaint said:

Enlarge / iPhones running iOS 17. (credit: Apple)

When Apple released its statement about iPhone 15 Pro overheating issues earlier this week, the company indicated that an iOS update would be able to partially address that issue. That update has arrived today in the form of iOS 17.0.3, an update which claims to address "an issue that may cause iPhone to run warmer than expected," as well as patching a pair of security exploits.

Apple also said that specific apps like Instagram and Uber were also causing phones to heat up and that it was working with developers on fixes. The iPhonedo YouTube channel recently demonstrated that version 302.0 of the Instagram app running on iOS 17 could also make iPhone 14 Pro phones and even an iPad Pro run hot, confirming that the issue wasn't unique to the new phones.

Initial reports claimed that the iPhone 15 Pro's new Apple A17 Pro chip, its new 3 nm manufacturing process, and/or the phone's new titanium frame could be causing or exacerbating the heat problems. Apple has denied these claims. Even after the fix, you can still expect a new iPhone to run a bit warm during and immediately after initial setup, as it downloads apps and data and performs other background tasks.

Enlarge / Claus Scholz is offered tea and moral encouragement by his robots, MM7 and MM8, also known as "Psychotrons," in 1950 Vienna. This could be us, but many home automation platforms are only playing at being helpful. (credit: Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Google today released a new Android OS with some modest improvements, a smartwatch with an old-but-still-newer chip, and a Pixel 8 whose biggest new feature is seven years of updates. But buried inside all the Google news this week is something that could be genuinely, actually helpful to the humans who get into this kind of gear—help for people setting up automations in their homes.

It's easy to buy smart home gear, and it's occasionally easy to set it up, but figuring out all the ways that devices can work with one another can be daunting. Even smart home systems with robust scripting abilities mostly let users develop great ideas for connecting two or more devices. That's where, according to Google, AI can help.

Google says it will use AI (the company's broad definition of AI, at least) at two different levels. At an app level, Google Home can start condensing all the notifications from cameras, sensors, and other devices into a streamlined summary, patched together by generative AI, and which you can respond to with natural language.

Enlarge / A courtroom sketch of Sam Bankman-Fried in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday. (credit: AP)

Sam Bankman-Fried has been painted as a “cartoon villain” by prosecutors whose case depends largely on hindsight, the former crypto tycoon’s lawyers told a Manhattan jury on Wednesday as they laid out their defense at the start of the hotly anticipated criminal trial.

In opening arguments earlier on Wednesday, US prosecutors had accused Bankman-Fried of committing “fraud on a massive scale,” lying to investors, lenders and customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchanges.

“This man stole billions of dollars from thousands of people,” assistant US attorney Thane Rehn told jurors, pointing forcefully at Bankman-Fried, who sat impassively at the defense table.

• 

  Tsubame Industries' Archax robot. [credit: Robot Start/YouTube ]

Robots are already cleaning our homes and patrolling our cities. Now, they're ready to embody our favorite mecha-themed science fiction indulgences—if you have 400 million yen (about $2.7 million) to splurge.

Tsubame Industries, a Tokyo-based startup, currently has five Archax units, a pilotable robot, available for preorder, as reported by Reuters this week. Tsubame unveiled the robot this summer and plans on demoing the robot at the Japan Mobility Show from October 26 through November 5. Tsubame won't just have a giant robot on display; the robot will demonstrate movement of its upper body and arms, according to a Google translation of an August report from Japanese publication Robot Start.

Built with human-like proportions, Archax has moving rear legs and front legs and uses front-wheel steering. It also has a movable head (left and right), waist (left and right), shoulders (up and down), elbows, wrists, and fingers.