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  The new Roku Ultra. [credit: Roku ]

Today was a big day for streaming-box manufacturer Roku: the San Jose-based company announced new products and software features, including another entry into the world of home-theater audio and an update to a popular existing device that adds some of the most requested features.

First up, Roku is making several changes to its highest-end streaming box, the Roku Ultra. It still costs $99, and most of its features are the same. So what's new? Well, wireless signal has long been a thorn in Roku's side—many households have weak or suboptimally placed routers. To that end, Roku claims that the new Ultra manages 50 percent more wireless range. It also adds Bluetooth connectivity for the first time, so you'll be able to use wireless headphones and the like.

The big addition, though, is the introduction of Dolby Vision HDR support (and Dolby Atmos, too). We knocked some prior Roku devices for supporting only the HDR-10 standard, but this update means the Ultra can now deliver good HDR on a whole range of content that was optimized for Dolby Vision.

Enlarge / Whoever wins this case will get a llama full of prizes.

Federal District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers heard arguments this morning regarding Epic's request for a temporary injunction in its case against Apple. That injunction would force Apple to put Fortnite back on the iOS App Store during the trial, following the game's removal last month over Epic's skirting of Apple's in-app purchase rules.

The hearing gave the clearest indication yet of both parties' best arguments in the matter and of which positions seem most likely to hold sway with Rogers as the case heads toward a full trial.

When is a monopolist not a monopolist?

A central issue in the case is Epic's contention that Apple's exclusive control over the iOS App Store constitutes an illegal monopoly that hinders competition. Today's discussion of Epic's claim centered heavily on what market, exactly, Apple is allegedly monopolizing.

Enlarge (credit: portal gda / Flickr)

September has been a busy month for malicious Android apps, with dozens of them from a single malware family alone flooding either Google Play or third-party markets, researchers from security companies said.

Known as Joker, this family of malicious apps has been attacking Android users since late 2016 and more recently has become one of the most common Android threats. Once installed, Joker apps secretly subscribe users to pricey subscription services and can also steal SMS messages, contact lists, and device information. Last July, researchers said they found Joker lurking in 11 seemingly legitimate apps downloaded from Play about 500,000 times.

Late last week, researchers from security firm Zscaler said they found a new batch comprising 17 Joker-tainted apps with 120,000 downloads. The apps were uploaded to Play gradually over the course of September. Security firm Zimperium, meanwhile, reported on Monday that company researchers found 64 new Joker variants in September, most or all of which were seeded in third-party app stores.

Enlarge (credit: ESA)

In recent decades, we've become aware of lots of water on Earth that's deep under ice. In some cases, we've watched this water nervously, as it's deep underneath ice sheets, where it could lubricate the sheets' slide into the sea. But we've also discovered lakes that have been trapped under ice near the poles, possibly for millions of years, raising the prospect that they could harbor ancient ecosystems.

Now, researchers are applying some of the same techniques that we've used to find those under-ice lakes to data from Mars. And the results support an earlier claim that there are bodies of water trapped under the polar ice of the red planet.

Spotting liquids from orbit

Mars clearly has extensive water locked away in the forum of ice, and some of it cycles through the atmosphere as orbital cycles make one pole or the other a bit warmer. But there's not going to be pure liquid water on Mars—the temperatures just aren't high enough for very long, and the atmospheric pressures are far too low to keep any liquid water from boiling off into the atmosphere.

(credit: Gerardo Aguirre-Díaz)

Maya civilization was blossoming into its golden age when a volcano erupted at the southern edge of the Maya region, in what is now El Salvador. Tens of meters of ash and debris buried the densely populated, fertile farming valleys around the Ilopango caldera. Aerosols blasted into the stratosphere by the eruption settled as far away as Greenland and Antarctica. While the wider Maya civilization was mostly unaffected, it took a century and a half for life to resume in the shadow of Ilopango.

In a recent study, Oxford University archaeologist Victoria Smith and her colleagues used tree rings from a stump caught in a pyroclastic flow, along with data from polar ice cores obtained more than 7,000km (4,300 miles) away. These dated the eruption to 431 CE, the early part of the Maya Classic Period. The date may help future archaeologists and climate researchers better understand the impacts of the eruption on Central America and the rest of the world.

Buried by Tierra Blanca Joven

Volcanoes make dangerous neighbors, but they have ways of drawing people close despite the risks. Fertile volcanic soils in the valleys of El Salvador supported dense populations in Maya villages and urban centers like Chalchuapa. By the beginning of the Maya Classic Period, around 250 BCE, the rulers at Chalchuapa had built temples and a ball court at the site. Artifacts found among the ruins reveal trade connections as far away as central Mexico.