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Enlarge / Information officer wearing protective mask, gloves, and goggle, as prevention of novel coronavirus epidemic, at international arrival gate of Bali Ngurah Rai International Airport in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia on February 4, 2020. (credit: Getty | Nur Photo)

The Chinese businesswoman who spread the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) to four colleagues in Germany while reportedly experiencing no symptoms of the infection actually did have symptoms, according to a news report in Science.

The woman’s case, published January 30 in The New England Journal of Medicine, was considered the most clearly documented evidence that the novel viral infection could spread silently from asymptomatic people. Public health experts have been particularly anxious about such transmission because it could potentially ease disease spread and negate outbreak control efforts, including screening travelers for symptoms, such as fever.

“The fact that asymptomatic persons are potential sources of 2019-nCoV infection may warrant a reassessment of transmission dynamics of the current outbreak,” the authors of the NEJM article concluded.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

If you're looking for a pair of wireless noise-cancelling headphones but don't want to shell out the big bucks, today's Dealmaster should be of interest. Our roundup today is headlined by a joint low price on Anker's Soundcore Life Q20 Bluetooth headphones, which are down to $40 from an already affordable street price of $60.

Though we don't have a formal review of the Soundcore Life Q20 on Ars, we have tested them for future gift and buying guides and can verify that they're good value for a low-cost set of noise-cancelling cans. To be clear, they're still a clear step (or three) down from premium pairs like Sony's WH-1000XM3 or Bose's Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, particularly with regard to the strength of their active noise cancellation. They just aren't going to cut out as much noise in a plane or a busy office. Their bass-heavy sound isn't as nuanced as those higher-end options, either. But they're far from bad in either regard. They're comfortable for a headphone in any price range, and their battery gets more than 30 hours on a charge, which is excellent. If you want a comfy pair of headphones that can still provide decent ANC in a pinch, you could do way worse for less than $50, particularly in a market where sub-$100 options are usually worth avoiding altogether.

If you don't need a new set of headphones, we have plenty more deals on Logitech mice, the latest Pokemon games, lots of Apple devices, and more. You can check out the full list below.

Enlarge / This is the face of SSL certificate renewal failure. (credit: Microsoft)

Yesterday, Microsoft Teams—a combination instant messaging, chat, and collaboration package competing with Slack and the new version of Google Hangouts—was inaccessible for several hours, from approximately 8:30am to 11:30am ET.

By 10:30am, Microsoft acknowledged on Twitter that the outage was the result of an expired SSL certificate. Approximately an hour later, they had secured a replacement certificate and began deploying it in production, with service widely restored by Monday afternoon.

This isn't Microsoft's first major public embarrassment due to a service renewal failure. The company was responsible for one of the most famous "oops, we accidentally the whole domain" incidents in 1999, when it allowed the domain registry for passport.com to expire. The domain was responsible for authentication for a variety of Microsoft services, including Hotmail.com and Microsoft Messenger.

Enlarge / Volunteers tally votes during the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus at the Southridge Mall in Des Moines, Iowa, US, on Monday, Feb. 3, 2020. The app used to submit the results turned out not to be seamless, scalable or robust. (credit: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Iowa's Democratic Party turned to an untested software platform tied to a mobile application to streamline reporting from its presidential caucuses last night. What could possibly go wrong?

In a collapse that echoed the failure of a canvassing application used by Sen. Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential bid, the caucus reporting app repeatedly hung as precinct leaders attempted to submit returns. A backup hotline was jammed for hours. And as of the morning after the caucuses, the full results are still not tallied.

The application was built on technology provided by Shadow Inc.—a technology company that received seed funding from the nonprofit ACRONYM. Shadow's CEO, Gerard Niemiria, previously ran the software tool development team for Hillary Clinton's campaign organization. He left an executive position at ACRONYM to launch the company last year.