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Jester Poker is one game you can play virtually at MGM Resorts in Vegas. (credit: easyPLAY)

MGM Resorts on Wednesday unveiled what it's billing as the nation's first "real-money" mobile tournament gambling platform. The new platform enables gamblers 21 and older, who are connected to the Wi-Fi network of an MGM-owned hotel in Las Vegas, to throw down their kids' college funds for the chance to strike gold—all from their mobile phone, tablet, or laptop.

The easyPLAY Mobile Tournaments platform allows resort guests "at nine iconic Las Vegas resorts to compete with other players in a variety of tournament games using their own mobile devices whether they are at the pool, sipping cocktails at the bar, or simply relaxing in their rooms," the company said.

Bettors compete against fellow resort guests in bingo, slots, and video poker. Other methods of throwing away your hard cash are in the works, the company said. There are plenty of Vegas-based, MGM-owned resorts where bettors can play, too. They include ARIA Resort & Casino, Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Monte Carlo, Luxor, New York-New York, and Excalibur. What could go wrong? It has all been approved by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

Enlarge (credit: Vectra Networks)

For more than two decades, Microsoft Windows has provided the means for clever attackers to surreptitiously install malware of their choice on computers that connect to booby-trapped printers, or other devices masquerading as printers, on a local area network. Microsoft finally addressed the bug on Tuesday during its monthly patch cycle.

The vulnerability resides in the Windows Print Spooler, which manages the process of connecting to available printers and printing documents. A protocol known as Point-and-Print allows people who are connecting to a network-hosted printer for the first time to automatically download the necessary driver immediately before using it. It works by storing a shared driver on the printer or print server and eliminates the hassle of the user having to manually download and install it.

Researchers with security firm Vectra Networks discovered that the Windows Print Spooler doesn't properly authenticate print drivers when installing them from remote locations. The failure makes it possible for attackers to use several different techniques that deliver maliciously modified drivers instead of the legitimate one provided by the printer maker. The exploit effectively turns printers, printer servers, or potentially any network-connected device masquerading as a printer into an internal drive-by exploit kit that infects machines whenever they connect.

After assembling suicide bomb vests for the attacks that slaughtered 130 people in Paris last November, Najim Laachroui went underground in his native Brussels.

The 24-year-old explosives expert wasn't just hiding from the biggest manhunt in Europe's recent history. He was plotting. In a dingy apartment converted into a bomb factory, Laachroui exchanged a series of messages in French with Abu Ahmed, a shadowy commander in the Islamic State based in Syria.

If law enforcement agencies had intercepted the communications, they would have been immediately alarmed. Laachroui asked militants in Syria to test chemical mixtures so he could assemble powerful bombs. He discussed his hopes to strike France again and disrupt a soccer championship there. He reported that he and half a dozen other fugitives from the Paris attacks had split up among three safe houses, according to Belgian and French counterterror officials.

NASA Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green (left) and other key science officials celebrate Juno's orbital insertion on Monday night. (credit: NASA)

Carlos Entrena, one of the bright young minds in aerospace, asked a fair question last week in the wake of the Juno mission's successful insertion into orbit around Jupiter: "So why is a spacecraft doing a pre-planned burn a big deal again?" He was right, it did seem a relatively straightforward maneuver.

Another young scientist, Christopher Stelter, offered a series of answers that put the Juno spacecraft's 35-minute engine burn into perspective. Among the reasons, he said, was that, "Most burns a spacecraft does are not critical. If there's a glitch, you can try again later. Not this time. And it's a very long burn."

This exchange captured my attention because NASA in recent years has made the extremely difficult—flying robotic probes throughout the Solar System—look easy. The agency's record of achievement appears more impressive still when compared to other space agencies. In reality, no other country or space agency can really be considered NASA's peer, especially when it comes to Mars and beyond. (Admittedly, the Soviet Union does have a better record with Venus).

(credit: Twitch)

So you want to play Pokemon Go, but you're stuck at the office and/or too lazy to get up and walk around? You could go to the trouble of jury-rigging an elaborate Pokemon Go emulator on your PC. Or you could just go on Twitch and help control a similar emulator with a few hundred strangers.

Yes, nearly two years after Twitch Plays Pokemon first hit the scene, the idea has now evolved into Twitch Plays Pokemon Go, a new stream (from a different creator) that lets users collaborate on the mobile-gaming hit. Players vote on what area of the screen to tap using an alphanumeric grid system, with a new command entered every few seconds. The stream can even virtually walk around the map using some GPS spoofing (sorry, no Segway-powered robots here... yet).

The stream creators over at HackNY say they realize that this method of playing is technically against the game's terms of service. "If Niantic or Nintendo wish to ban the account that we're playing with we would understand, but we assume they know this is all in good fun," they write in the stream's description.