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(credit: cinefil_)

Thanks to a judge's order, Google must face another proposed class-action lawsuit over its scanning of Gmail. The issue is a lingering headache for the search giant, which has faced allegations for years now that scanning Gmail in order to create personalized ads violates US wiretapping laws.

In a 38-page order (PDF), US District Judge Lucy Koh rejected Google's argument that the scanning takes place within the "ordinary course of business."

"Not every practice that is routine or legitimate will fall within the scope of the 'ordinary course of business'," Judge Koh wrote.

(credit: Windell Oskay)

Tesla is making headlines this week over some of its communications choices. First Reuters reported that the company dropped the translated term “Autopilot” and “self-driving” on its Chinese language website. Then, the AP reported that Tesla had reversed course and said that removing the term "Autopilot” was a mistake, though the company admitted it had revised some language on the site.

Next, in an unrelated report, the Wall Street Journal did some communications analysis of its own, finding that CEO Elon Musk has made 20 projections for the company that haven’t quite panned out in the timeframe he stated.

The Chinese Autopilot debacle

This weekend, Reuters reported that Tesla had removed the Chinese translation for the terms “self-driving” and “Autopilot” from the company’s website, after a 33-year-old Tesla owner side-swiped an illegally parked Volkswagen. The accident took place in Beijing earlier this month while the car was in Autopilot mode.

Back in 2014, Hello Games' Sean Murray acknowledged in a Game Informer interview that official modding tools were practically a must for No Man's Sky. "I almost feel like we need to give them the [modding] tools; otherwise then they're just going to start making them, tearing apart your game," Murray said at the time. "That's what I have more of a fear of."

Fast forward to today, and some PC No Man's Sky players (who can manage to get the game running) are indeed just tearing apart the game to make their own mods. Despite the current lack of official mod tools, players are extracting game files and tinkering with them to create unsupported mods just days after the game's PC release.

This short video outlines the basic process used to create these unofficial mods. Interestingly enough, the PC version of the game seems to be built on top of a host of files in the PlayStation Archive format, though they've been renamed to the more generic PAK extension for Windows. Regardless, these files can be uncompressed using a PSARC decompiler tool, and then edited and recompiled to get a modified version of the game up and running.

The leak over the weekend of advanced hacking tools contains digital signatures that are almost identical to those in software used by the state-sponsored Equation Group, according to a just-published report from security firm Kaspersky Lab.

"While we cannot surmise the attacker's identity or motivation nor where or how this pilfered trove came to be, we can state that several hundred tools from the leak share a strong connection with our previous findings from the Equation group," Kaspersky researchers wrote in a blog post published Tuesday afternoon.

The finding is significant because it lends credibility to claims made by a mysterious group calling itself ShadowBrokers. When members of the previously unknown group claimed in a blog post that they hacked Equation Group and obtained never-before-seen exploits and implants it used, outsiders were understandably skeptical. The publication of state-sponsored hacking tools is an extremely rare if not unprecedented event that is sure to catch the attention of leaders all over the world.

(credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX appears to be betting big on carbon fiber composites, which could increase the capacity of its future rockets to get people and supplies into space—and eventually to the surface of Mars. According to a report in Nikkei Asian Review, SpaceX has signed an agreement with Toray Carbon Fibers estimated to be worth $2 billion to $3 billion. The total price and delivery dates have yet to be finalized.

It is not immediately clear exactly when, and in which launch vehicles, these lightweight composites will be employed by SpaceX. But the company is not alone in its interest—NASA and other aerospace companies have been experimenting with the materials because of their potential to increase the amount of payload that can be carried by a rocket. They could also lower overall manufacturing cost.

The scale of the deal seems telling, however. If the value of the deal as reported is correct, in the billions of dollars, it seems probable that the carbon fiber composites would be used in SpaceX's proposed Mars Colonial Transporter rocket. This is the very large (but still under development) rocket the company plans to use to transport humans to Mars. SpaceX is already far along in the production of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which is based on the Falcon 9 core stage. The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which SpaceX has successfully been landing this year, has tank walls and domes built from an aluminum lithium alloy. (Ars has reached out to SpaceX for comment on this story and will update accordingly).

(credit: NBCUniversal)

Warning: This piece contains minor spoilers for the most recent episode of Mr. Robot (S2E6)

Last week on Mr. Robot, the intrepid hackers of fsociety went back to command-line school. They didn't need the training, of course. In order to access an FBI system on location at E-Corp headquarters—which currently houses a temporary FBI division after last season's cyber-attacks—the hacker collective needed someone on the inside. Their only option was a relative n00b: Elliot Alderson's family-friend-turned-E-Corp-employee Angela Moss.

The episode ends on a slight cliff-hanger. As Angela continues to execute instructions pumped into her headphones from fsociety, the show's new FBI character, Dom DiPierro, arrives at her side to request a quick interview. Until that point, this newly made hacker had successfully socially engineered her way into an FBI space, executed some code in a bathroom stall, and then dropped a femtocell at an official workstation. For a show that prides itself so much on accuracy in hacking, does having a novice best the FBI go one step too far?

(credit: Intel)

Intel will be opening up its newest chip factories to companies making ARM mobile processors, according to joint press releases from both Intel and ARM. Companies designing chips based on ARM's Artisan Physical IP will be able to manufacture them on Intel's upcoming 10nm FinFET process, giving those chip companies an option aside from the currently dominant Samsung and TSMC. It sounds like ARM licensees who use ARM's off-the-shelf technology will be able to use Intel's fabs to create chips but that licensees like Qualcomm who use a lot of their own custom CPUs and GPUs won't be able to.

"The initial POP IP will be for two future advanced ARM Cortex-A processor cores designed for mobile computing applications in either ARM big.LITTLE™ or stand-alone configurations," according to ARM's press release. Intel's release says that LG will be using the process to "produce a world-class mobile platform based on Intel Custom Foundry's 10nm design platform."

The Intel Custom Foundry business has slowly been expanding since Intel first offered 22nm capacity to Achronix back in 2010, though its list of customers is still fairly small. Initially, Intel mostly offered capacity to chip companies that didn't compete with Intel in any significant markets, and in at least one case, Intel has actually purchased a company it was doing business with. But Intel dramatically scaled back its smartphone SoC plans a few months ago after years of poor sales and few design wins, so letting ARM SoC makers use Intel's factories could now be Intel's best option for making money in the mobile SoC business. The company is also continuing to work on its modems, one of which is rumored to be included in the next-generation iPhones.