Despite being a Google product, Allo doesn't do much with your Google account. To log into Allo on the web, you need to point your single dedicated Allo device at this QR code. Here's the main interface. You can talk to the Google Assistant, or, if you know any living person on Allo, a friend. Emoji! In this case, I get Windows 10 emoji. … [Read more...]

Enlarge / The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Courthouse in San Francisco, California. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images A federal appeals court ruled (PDF) yesterday that a lawsuit alleging that Spokeo's "people search engine" violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act can move forward. Spokeo operates a "people search" engine which gathers publicly available information from social networks, phone books, and real-estate and business websites. The engine then makes the information available via its online search portal. The company's search results tell users that it "does not verify or evaluate each piece of data," and it says the information it shows should not be used to determine "eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, or for any other purposes covered under the FCRA," referring to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Thomas Robins, a Virginia resident, sued Spokeo in 2011. In a proposed class-action complaint, Robins said that … [Read more...]

And then there were four. Now there's an Aston Martin Vanquish for every occasion. Aston Martin The Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake is the latest in a line of two-seat Aston Martin wagons. Just 99 will be made. Aston Martin … [Read more...]

EnlargeMoney - Savings A 32-year-old American man accused of using an eBay account for fake computer-printer transactions to raise funds for a US terror plot pleaded guilty to federal terrorism-related charges Tuesday. Mohamed Elshinawy, whom the government said pledged allegiance to ISIS, told the authorities that the up to $8,700 he received via PayPal was to be used for "operational purposes" (PDF) in the US, like conducting a terror attack. However, he also told the authorities, according to court documents, that he was just ripping off overseas ISIS operatives and had no intention of carrying out an attack in the US. Enlarge / Elshinawy The FBI said in court documents that the authorities began investigating the Maryland man in 2015 after he received a $1,000 Western Union money transfer from Egypt. The Wall Street Journal said the prosecution helped uncover an Islamic State "global financial network" that enabled the terror group to shift funds throughout the world. Seamus … [Read more...]

EnlargeBloomberg / Getty Images A US-based solar-panel components maker called Suniva filed a petition with the International Trade Commission (ITC) this spring, alleging unfair trade practices after the company declared bankruptcy. It was later joined in its petition by SolarWorld America, another US-based solar cell manufacturer. Today, the two companies pleaded their case (PDF) in front of the ITC and are asking for tariffs to be placed on solar-panel materials imported to the US. according to E&E News. Panels and their components have been plummeting in price, and Suniva and SolarWorld say this is mainly due to cheap imports from China and Southeast Asia. The tariffs they seek would apply to solar panel components imported to the US from anywhere in the world, however. “Quite simply, we need the commission’s help to save solar manufacturing in the United States,” Jürgen Stein, chief executive of SolarWorld Americas, said in testimony before the … [Read more...]

EnlargeAurich / Thinkstock The ongoing Waymo v. Uber lawsuit continues to yield more interesting information about the internal plans of the ride-hailing company and its self-driving car ambitions. Uber was recently compelled by the court to hand over copies of text messages sent between former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski. While there's no "smoking gun" in the redacted document that would settle the matter in Waymo's favor, the messages—sent between February and December 2016—do show a particular disregard for Elon Musk and Tesla's autonomous driving project. Waymo says that Levandowski stole more than 14,000 secret files while he worked at Google, then departed to create his own startup, which was purchased last year by Uber for $680 million. Now Uber stands accused of using Google trade secrets in building its self-driving car project—charges which Uber vehemently denies. Levandowski's texts have a particular relevance to the case … [Read more...]

Enlarge / Outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC.Win McNamee / Getty Images News important privacy case pending before the court. The companies, which include Apple, Google, and Microsoft among many others, argue that the current state of the law, which distinguishes between "content" (which requires a warrant) and "non-content" (which does not) "make[s] little sense in the context of digital technologies." The amicus filing by dozens of law professors also concludes that the third-party doctrine "cannot support future application of the Fourth Amendment." The legal theory posits that individuals relinquish their privacy interest in data (like a call record or location data) to a third-party—so the government can access it with a court order rather than a warrant. As Ars reported earlier, this case, Carpenter v. United States, involves a man convicted of six robberies in the Detroit area. Law enforcement was able to obtain 127 days of his cell-site location … [Read more...]

EnlargeJaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images Uber has reached a deal with the Federal Trade Commission to be subject to regular privacy audits, settling a complaint (PDF) in which the FTC accused Uber of violating its own privacy policy. The FTC investigation began following news reports in November 2014 about Uber employees using a mode called "God view" to track journalists. In December 2014, Uber created a system for monitoring employee access to consumer information—but stopped using it less than a year after it was put in place, according to the FTC. Separately, the FTC alleges that Uber did a poor job of securing its data. That allowed an intruder to get personal information about Uber drivers in May 2014, including more than 100,000 driver names and license numbers. "Uber failed consumers in two key ways: First by misrepresenting the extent to which it monitored its employees’ access to personal information about users and drivers, and … [Read more...]

Enlarge / An artist's rendering of the EchoStar 24/ Jupiter 3 satellite, planned for launch in 2021. The satellite will provide 100 Mbps residential Internet service to the Western Hemisphere.EchoStar In March, Hughes Network Systems launched an upgrade of its satellite-based Internet service, HughesNet, that transformed it into the first residential satellite-based Internet service to meet the Federal Communications Commission's definition of "broadband." Now, the company is planning for its next major leap in bandwidth—a 100 Mbps-capable network based on a new satellite to be launched in 2021. HughesNet Gen5, which by June was serving over 100,000 Internet service customers, provides 25 megabit-per-second (Mbps) download speeds and 3 Mbps upload speeds via the EchoStar 18/Jupiter 1 and EchoStar 19/Jupiter 2 satellites. HughesNet has a 60-percent share of satellite-based residential Internet service in the US, and targets the service at rural residential customers … [Read more...]

Enlarge / Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.NYU Stern BHR Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has quit President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council, he announced in a Monday statement. "I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing," Krzanich wrote. Krzanich hinted that his resignation was connected to this weekend's violence in Charlottesville, VA. "I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville," he wrote. "Earlier today I called on all leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence." Trump was slow to call out white supremacists, initially criticizing hatred and violence "on many sides." That outraged critics, who argued that the hatred and violence in Charlottesville came almost entirely from one side—the side that … [Read more...]

The ATLAS detector at the LHC. Light interacts with matter all the time. Blue skies, green leaves, and the colors of the rainbow all come about because of the scattering of light. But light doesn't scatter off itself. In fact, under Maxwell's equations, which originally defined electromagnetism, light can't scatter off itself. As with many other things, however, quantum mechanics showed that what we thought was impossible is possible: a photon can, technically, scatter off another photon. But that was recognized back in the 1930s, and we've not been able to confirm that it actually happens. Until now, that is. Researchers from the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider have found evidence that photons can scatter in cases in which lead atoms barely miss each other. The scattering could provide an independent test of whether there are particles in addition to those predicted by the Standard Model. Scattering is the product of electromagnetic interactions. For photons, this … [Read more...]

Hmmm...HBO Hackers who broke into HBO's computer systems last month continue to release the network's content, including episodes of the return of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which is slated to air in October. The latest content dump, reported earlier today by The Associated Press, also includes episodes of shows like "Ballers" and "Insecure." None of the additional material was related to "Game of Thrones," HBO's current top hit. already released a script of one GoT episode, as well as other internal documents, including personally identifiable data and passwords from at least one senior HBO executive. HBO has declined to comment on the hackers' actions, which it says are part of an effort to get media attention by releasing "bits and pieces of stolen information." Over the weekend, reports emerged that HBO, at one point, offered the hackers $250,000 "as a show of good faith" while they bid for more time. "You have the advantage of having surprised … [Read more...]

Prototype 9 is Infiniti's imagining of a lost 1940s racer. Infiniti Design sketches for Prototype 9. Infiniti We love that interior. … [Read more...]

Enlarge / This data could potentially contain malware.UCSF With everyone from academics to Microsoft looking at the prospect of storing data using DNA, it was probably inevitable that someone would start looking at the security implications. Apparently, they're worse than most people might have expected. It turns out it's possible to encode computer malware in DNA and use it to attack vulnerabilities on the computer that analyzes the sequence of that DNA. The researchers didn't find an actual vulnerability in DNA analysis software—instead, they specifically made a version of some software with an exploitable vulnerability to show that the risk is more than hypothetical. Still, an audit of some open source DNA analysis software shows that the academics who have been writing it haven't been paying much attention to security best practices. DNA sequencing involves determining the precise order of the bases that make up a DNA strand. While the process that generates the … [Read more...]

For this trip, Ferrari provided a night's accommodation in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. LAKEVILLE, Conn.—Anyone lucky enough to be shopping for a mid-engined supercar in 2017 has quite the array of possibilities before them. There's the Lamborghini Huracán, now also available with just rear-wheel drive. McLaren has its new 720S, the follow-up to the sublime 650S we were so smitten with. But the 800-pound gorilla in the supercar market is Ferrari. It might not have been the first Italian company to stick a powerful engine behind the cockpit and wrap it all up in a pretty shape, but 70 years of heritage on and off the racetrack have imbued the brand with unimpeachable credentials. Now that we've finally had a chance to test its 488 GTB, a 661-horsepower (493kW) V8-powered sculpture on wheels, was it worth the wait? After several attempts to secure a shiny 488 from Ferrari's press fleet, the call finally came early in July. Ferrari had a car for us, with one catch: … [Read more...]

For this trip, Ferrari provided a night's accommodation in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The #63 Ferrari 488 GT3 on track at Lime Rock Park. Scuderia Corsa Scuderia Corsa driver Christina Nielsen shows me around her race car. Elle Cayabyab Gitlin … [Read more...]

Enlarge / The UV3 Nautilus in early sea trials in 2008.Frumperino Believe it or not, there's a crowdsourced, open source non-profit attempting to build a sea-launched suborbital rocket. Called Copenhagen Suborbitals, it even had access to a sub. A club associated with the venture completed a submarine in 2008, designed by Peter Madsen, a Danish inventor who is co-founder of the group. That submarine is now at the bottom of the sea, and Madsen is being held by Danish authorities on suspicion of "unlawful killing"—a precursor charge to manslaughter or murder. The UV3 Nautilus was the third and largest submarine effort by the club, costing $200,000 to construct. It served as a workhorse for Copenhagen Suborbitals, helping push the group's Sputnik rocket launch platform into position on a number of occasions. Nautilus is—or was—powered by two diesel engines above the surface and by batteries underwater. While it could hold a crew of four underwater, all of its … [Read more...]

Enlarge / The Generation Identity crowdfunded ship C-Star broke down off Libya's coast this morning.Sea-Eye A right-wing "European identity" group called Generation Identity crowdfunded enough to hire a ship in order to intercept refugees from North Africa trying to reach Europe. But as the effort cast off in July, Patreon cancelled an account being used to fund the efforts. And today, the group's ship lost propulsion off the coast of Libya. The ship that arrived to provide assistance was one operated by Sea-Eye, a non-governmental organization coincidentally working to rescue refugees in distress on the Mediterranean. The C-Star is a 42-year old research and survey ship operated by Marine Global Services Ltd. and registered in the land-locked nation of Mongolia. The vessel was hired in July by the anti-refugee organization using funds from a Patreon campaign called "Defend Europe" that started in May. Through sites such Patreon and WeSearchr, the group … [Read more...]

EnlargeGetty Images | Jenner Images American Internet users are telling the Federal Communications Commission that mobile broadband is not a full replacement for fast home Internet service. This week, the FCC kicked off its annual analysis of broadband deployment and signaled that it might determine that smartphone access is a proper substitute for cable or fiber Internet. In doing so, the FCC could conclude that broadband is already being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, and thus the commission could take fewer steps to promote deployment and competition. There have been over 300 new comments filed since we wrote about this two days ago, almost universally lambasting the FCC's suggestion that Americans might not need fast home Internet service and could make do with mobile broadband only. Mobile is hindered by data caps, limits on tethering, and reliability problems that make it fall short of a wired Internet connection, people … [Read more...]

EnlargeBloomberg / Getty Images News sued Uber in state court in New Jersey on Friday, claiming that a negligent driver caused a significant traffic accident last year. The accident resulted in Katherine Vesce being knocked unconscious and sustaining a "serious knee injury." Vesce was en route to the New York City marathon, but she was hurt so badly that she likely will be unable to run any marathons in the future. The Illinois woman is now suing for negligence, fraud, and other allegations, and she's the latest person in a series of similar lawsuits filed against Uber in recent years. Many of the cases make related claims that Uber’s safety and training procedures are woefully inadequate and can result in this type of unsafe behavior by drivers. In January 2017, Matthew Luber, one of Vesce’s attorneys, also sued Uber on behalf of a man who said he was beaten up by his driver on a wintery evening in Philadelphia. This latest lawsuit comes one day after … [Read more...]