With this cast, Pacific Rim 2 is poised to rule the world

More kaiju, more giant robots, more EVERYTHING.

Kaiju vs. jaeger total badass action mania freakout OMG this is the greatest seriously I watched this video like twenty times.

Let's savor all the things. First, the Pacific Rim 2 movie is actually happening, after a year of swirling rumors. And now it's being cast, with John Boyega (Finn from Star Wars: The Force Awakens) joining the team as the son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba). That means Mako Maki has a brother! Will she be drifting with Boyega's character? We have no idea, because no details of the story have been released yet, but shooting starts late this year. In fact, Pacific Rim director Guillermo del Toro has even hinted that he's at work on a script for the third movie in the franchise.

Said del Toro in a statement about Boyega's casting: "I am very proud and happy to welcome John into a fantastic sandbox. The Pacific Rim universe will be reinforced with him as a leading man as it continues to be a multicultural, multi-layered world. ‘The World saving the world’ was our goal and I couldn’t think of a better man for the job." Fans of the original movie loved the way it developed complex, heart-breaking characters while never scrimping on the kaiju vs. jaeger action. Universal will release the sequel everywhere except China—but given that the first film was huge in that country, there will likely be a local distributor. Indeed, Pacific Rim's success was largely due to the global market. It was a film that translated well across every continent, and it made most of its money overseas.

Though del Toro will be working as a producer of the new film, the director will be award-winning screenwriter Steven S. DeKnight, known for helming several of the Spartacus series for Starz and for his work on Daredevil and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. DeKnight has also written for several comics, and he has a flair for combining white-hot action with meaty stories. The movie couldn't be in better hands.

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Star Trek Beyond will be one extended HPE commercial, according to HPE

HP spinoff says its memristor-based dream tech gave Star Trek writers “creative runway.”

Enlarge / Star Trek Beyond might be good or it might be bad, but either way it belongs in the canon. (credit: Paramount Pictures)

Hewlett-Packard Enterprises (HPE) gleefully announced on Monday that it has been working with Paramount over the last few months to “develop three conceptual technologies” for Star Trek Beyond, the latest in the new Star Trek movies.

In an HPE press release, the company writes: “Without giving any spoiler alerts [editor's note: I think you simply mean "spoilers" here, HPE], we collaborated on three different technological concepts in the film: The quarantine, the diagnostic wrap, and the book. Each of these concepts showcase HPE’s vision for the future of technology, but are rooted in developments we hope to introduce much sooner.”

That futuristic technology that HPE is promising “much sooner” is related to a product called “The Machine,” which a larger, less-fractured HP promised in 2014. The Machine would use memristors (technology theorized in the ‘70s and built in 2008 by HP to employ flexible electrical resistance as memory) as well as optical interconnects to create a new genre of hardware that was supposed to revolutionize supercomputers and mobile devices alike. The company was sufficiently gung-ho about its R&D to claim in 2014 that it would commercialize the technology in The Machine within the next few years “or fall on its face trying.”

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Mobilfunk: Vodacom und Huawei bringen 1 GBit/s nach Südafrika

In Südafrika laufen bereits Versuche für sehr schnelles LTE. In einem riesigen Einkaufszentrum sei von Huawei und Vodacom gezeigt worden, dass sich LAA die Frequenz mit WiFi teilen kann. (Snapdragon, Notebook)

In Südafrika laufen bereits Versuche für sehr schnelles LTE. In einem riesigen Einkaufszentrum sei von Huawei und Vodacom gezeigt worden, dass sich LAA die Frequenz mit WiFi teilen kann. (Snapdragon, Notebook)

Man indicted for disabling red light cameras faces 7 years in prison

Yellow-light times changed from 5 to 3 seconds—creating more tickets.

A New York man who identifies himself as the "Red Light Robin Hood" pleaded not guilty Friday to a 17-count indictment accusing him of cutting the wires of more than a dozen red light cameras in Suffolk County. This modern-day digital do-gooder has no apologies and wants a jury trial.

(credit: Facebook)

Stephen Ruth, who remains free on bail, was arrested in April shortly after he told a CBS affiliate that he was the culprit and that he dismantled the cameras "in order to save lives." He said the county shortened the yellow light duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in a bid to make more money.

He's accused of 17 felonies and faces a maximum seven-year prison sentence if convicted on all the charges. He pleaded not guilty Friday in a local court and wants to go to trial for snipping the wires on as many as 16 red light cameras on intersections on Route 25 between Coram and Centereach.

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Galaxy S7 Active brings a massive battery to AT&T’s airwaves

Galaxy S7 Active brings a massive battery to AT&T’s airwaves

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge went on sale back in March, but customers in the U.S. were still waiting for the company’s ruggedized remix. Now, the Galaxy S7 Active has launched — as an AT&T exclusive.

AT&T’s made a habit of that, of course, having brought the previous 3 Galaxy Active phones to its users. Like the S7 and S7 Edge, this year’s Active arrives with a number of refinements.

Continue reading Galaxy S7 Active brings a massive battery to AT&T’s airwaves at Liliputing.

Galaxy S7 Active brings a massive battery to AT&T’s airwaves

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge went on sale back in March, but customers in the U.S. were still waiting for the company’s ruggedized remix. Now, the Galaxy S7 Active has launched — as an AT&T exclusive.

AT&T’s made a habit of that, of course, having brought the previous 3 Galaxy Active phones to its users. Like the S7 and S7 Edge, this year’s Active arrives with a number of refinements.

Continue reading Galaxy S7 Active brings a massive battery to AT&T’s airwaves at Liliputing.

RIAA Fails to Take Down Pirate Bay Domain, For Now

The RIAA has sent a formal letter to the Public Interest Registry, asking it to suspend Pirate Bay’s .ORG domain. The registry hasn’t complied with the request but has forwarded it to Pirate Bay’s registrar EasyDNS who insist the domain will stay up. So the question now is will the RIAA take the matter to court?

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

thepirateEarlier today we wrote about the Copyright Alliance’s critique of the US-based Public Interest Registry (PIR), which is responsible for .ORG domains.

The group called out the registry as hypocritical, as it allows “criminal” sites such as The Pirate Bay to use its service. A few hours later it turns out that this criticism didn’t come out of nowhere.

The Pirate Bay’s registrar EasyDNS reveals that the RIAA sent PIR a letter last week, urging it to suspend the Pirate Bay’s domain.

The music group lists several European court decisions against The Pirate Bay, including the criminal convictions of its founders in Sweden. It states that the torrent site is clearly operating illegally, and hopes the registry will take its domain name out of circulation.

According to the RIAA, The Pirate Bay violates PIR’s anti-abuse policy and terms of service. As such, it hopes that a court order isn’t required for the registry to take action.

“When, as in this case, there is overwhelming evidence of infringing and abusive activity on a domain, along with court orders from several jurisdictions with well-developed copyright jurisprudence, it cannot be the ‘right thing’ or ‘in the community interest’ to hold out for those decisions to be processed before the U.S. courts before taking action,” the RIAA writes.

RIAA’s letter to the Public Interest Registry

The RIAA’s letter was sent last week and thus far PIR has not taken any steps against the domain. Instead, it forwarded the RIAA’s letter to Pirate Bay’s registrar, the Canadian-based EasyDNS.

TorrentFreak spoke with EasyDNS CEO Mark Jeftovic, who informs us that he doesn’t want to be seen as a refuge for torrent sites. However, he is committed to protecting due process, and for now he sees no reason to suspend the domain name.

EasyDNS forwarded the letter to TPB and intriguingly, the site’s operator replied that they are DMCA compliant. In addition, they waved away any concerns about malware that was distributed through third-party ads.

Infringements or not, EasyDNS says its abuse policy only covers net abuse, not copyright matters. This means that in order to get a domain suspended the RIAA would need to present a local court order, or a foreign one that’s served through the Ontario Sheriff’s Office.

“We would need some kind of legal finding here in Ontario, or a foreign legal finding that has been duly served to us via the Ontario Sheriff’s Office,” Jeftovic tells us.

Alternatively, EasyDNS says it will accept the outcome of a formal proceeding under ICANN’s rules and regulations. However, it won’t take action against a one-sided complaint.

All in all, this means that the RIAA’s letter is unlikely to achieve the result they desire. This also begs the question, what’s next?

Although the RIAA would prefer to avoid a legal case against The Pirate Bay in the United States, if only to avoid the media attention, it appears that they have few other options left than to go to court.

Court case or not, the TPB team isn’t worried. They are not tied to the .ORG domain and can easily switch to an alternative.

“TPB is more than just a domain, it’s a movement, and taking down one domain will have zero effect on our inalienable right to share culture with our peers,” TPB’s Spud17 told us earlier today.

And so the whack-a-mole game is likely to continue.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Protecting your PC from ransomware gets harder with EMET-evading exploit

Bad guys score a victory in their never-ending arms race with defenders.

Drive-by attacks that install the once-feared TeslaCrypt crypto ransomware are now able to bypass EMET, a Microsoft-provided tool designed to block entire classes of Windows-based exploits.

The EMET-evading attacks are included in Angler, a toolkit for sale online that provides ready-to-use exploits that can be stitched into compromised websites. Short for Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit, EMET has come to be regarded as one of the most effective ways of hardening Windows-based computers from attacks that exploit security vulnerabilities in both the operating system or installed applications. According to a blog post published Monday by researchers from security firm FireEye, the new Angler attacks are significant because they're the first exploits found in the wild that successfully pierce the mitigations.

"The level of sophistication in exploit kits has increased significantly throughout the years," FireEye researchers wrote. "Where obfuscation and new zero days were once the only additions in the development cycle, evasive code has now been observed being embedded into the framework and shellcode."

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Alfa Romeo’s 4C Spider is the junior supercar Ferrari hasn’t built

Constructed like a million-dollar hypercar, it’ll make you feel like Schumacher.

Alfa Romeo's 4C Spider is a car of won'ts and nots. Aside from the fully carbon-fiber tub—like a million-dollar LaFerrari—you won't find much high-tech zootery (or is that high-zoot tech-ery?). You won't find autonomous lane-keeping, radar-fed cruise control, crash-avoidance software, or inductive charging mats. It does not have luggage space where a normal suitcase will fit. Power steering or power retractable roof? Not so much. You’d even be challenged to find basic cruise control at all, unless you look hard, because it's hidden pretty well. But, you won't care.

You will find a laser-focused sports car, nimbleness, and a big dose of driving magic it otherwise takes Ferrari money to obtain. Yes, this is the $64,000 "baby Ferrari" question that nearly no one asked for ($76,495 with options as tested). It's as simultaneously brilliant and flawed as actual Ferraris of 10 or 15 years ago. In that sense, a "best of times / worst of times" sports car. Dickensian.

Throw the lightweight little Alfa (2,487 lbs/1,128 kg) around a track or your own favorite set of switchbacks, and you quickly discover why this car is here on Earth. The Alfa snicks and sticks everywhere, making you a driving champion mentally. This is a Michael Schumacher maker for your mind.

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T-Mobile giving free ownership shares to postpaid customers

One free share to start, earn up to 100 more a year by recommending T-Mobile.

(credit: T-Mobile)

T-Mobile USA's latest promotion, announced today, is an unusual one. Millions of customers will be able to become part owners of the company with a gift of one full share of T-Mobile US (TMUS) common stock.

The "Stock Up" promotion is "something no other publicly traded company has done before," T-Mobile's announcement said.

“At T-Mobile, we already wake up every day working for our customers—so I’ve decided to make it official and turn T-Mobile customers into T-Mobile owners by offering them stock," T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in his usual understated manner.

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Hackers break the connected Mitsubishi Outlander hybrid wide open

Mitsubishi went for local Wi-Fi instead of LTE, but it’s not secure.

Remote functions via Wi-Fi, but easily hacked. (credit: Mitsubishi)

According to research firm Forrester, 35 percent of Americans—few of them Ars readers, we think—want Internet connectivity in their next vehicle. The car and tech industries are busy trying to make that happen. New cars increasingly come with their own LTE modem (and monthly bill), enabling remote apps that can give you a vehicle diagnostic or unlock your doors from the comfort of your phone or smartwatch. This is usually done in the cloud with plenty of thought given to security we're told—except in cases where there's no security at all.

But Mitsubishi's Outlander hybrid does things a bit differently, as the people over at PenTestPartners recently discovered. Instead of fitting the Outlander with a cellular modem for connectivity, you access its remote functions by connecting to the car's own Wi-Fi network. No monthly data plan needed, at the cost of connectivity only within range of the vehicle. Oh, and apparently Mitsubishi did a really bad job securing things.

The outfit bought its own Outlander to investigate the car's security, finding the pre-shared key easily crackable and the default SSID too formulaic. Once connected to a vehicle, one can play with the lights or climate control—similar to the Nissan exploit. But the researchers also discovered they could lock or unlock the doors remotely, and, perhaps more seriously, they were also able to disable the car's alarm.

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