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Uber hires researchers who hacked Chrysler Uconnect

Less than a month after their command performances at the Black Hat and Def Con security conferences in Las Vegas, security researchers Charlie Miller (late of Twitter) and Chris Valasek (formerly of the security firm IOActive) have been poached by Uber—which ironically had security flaws in its own in-car technology exposed by University of California-San Diego researchers this month as well. According to a report from Reuters , Uber will announce the hiring of Miller and Valasek on Monday. Miller and Valasek’s research on Fiat Chrysler’s Uconnect system  exposed vulnerabilities in the design of the system that allowed them to take remote control of many of the systems of a targeted vehicle—as they demonstrated by shutting down the throttle of a 2014 Jeep Cherokee while it was being driven on an interstate by Wired reporter Andy Greenberg . The research, coordinated with Fiat Chrysler, led to the distribution of a fix by Chrysler and blocking of vulnerable ports by Sprint, the mobile carrier providing the network for Uconnect. But the attention garnered by the video led to Chrysler announcing a recall of 1.4 million vehicles to accelerate the installation of the software patches. Uber announced grants to the University of Arizona to fund autonomous vehicle technology earlier this week. The hiring of Miller and Valasek is likely part of an effort to ensure that Uber’s autonomous vehicle development work remains secure and may be partially prompted by the findings of the UCSD researchers Ian Foster, Andrew Prudhomme, Karl Koscher, and Stefan Savage. The group presented research at the Usenix Security conference two weeks ago that showed a telematics device used by Uber and some auto insurers could be compromised to take remote control of systems in a similar fashion to Miller and Valasek’s hack of the Jeep. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Uber hires researchers who hacked Chrysler Uconnect

PSA: Classic Bethesda titles available DRM-free on GOG

Bethesda Softworks is mining its library of good, old games and offering many of them up without any digital protections on GOG starting today. Eleven titles from the venerable Doom , Quake , Fallout , and Elder Scrolls series are now available on the service, and are being offered at discounts if you buy them in bundles before September 2. Here are the details. The Elder Scrolls Bundle : 33% off if purchased together Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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PSA: Classic Bethesda titles available DRM-free on GOG

Office 2016 for Windows coming on September 22

A leaked image from a Microsoft intranet site has disclosed that Office 2016 for Windows will be released on September 22. Office 2016 for Mac is already available to Office 365 subscribers . When that was launched in July, Microsoft said that regular retail copies would be released in September. While we’re not certain, it seems likely that September 22 will be the release date for that, too. Office 2016 is an incremental update . It makes styling between Windows, OS X, and the mobile apps a little more consistent—by default each app gets a boldly colored title bar that reflects the icon color, just like the mobile apps—and includes improved collaborative editing, rights management, and data analysis capabilities. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Office 2016 for Windows coming on September 22

Elon Musk’s hyperloop is actually getting kind of serious

The hyperloop sounds like science fiction, Elon Musk’s pipe dream: leapfrog high speed rail and go right to packing us into capsules that fling us across the country in hours using what are, essentially, pneumatic tubes. It sounds crazy, when you think about it. It’s starting to look a little less crazy. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced today that it has signed agreements to work with Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and global engineering design firm Aecom. The two companies will lend their expertise in exchange for stock options in the company, joining the army of engineers from the likes of Boeing and SpaceX already lending their time to the effort. Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Elon Musk’s hyperloop is actually getting kind of serious

New record temperature for a superconductor

Superconductivity was first seen in metals cooled down to close to absolute zero. But after exhausting every metal on the periodic table, the critical temperature at which the metal transitions to superconductivity never budged far from those extremely low temperatures. That changed dramatically with the development of cuprate superconductors, copper-containing ceramics that could superconduct in liquid nitrogen—still very cold (138K or −135°C), but relatively easy to achieve. But progress has stalled, in part because we don’t have a solid theory to explain superconductivity in these materials. Now, taking advantage of the fact that we do understand what’s going on in superconducting metals, a German research team has reached a new record critical temperature: 203K, or -70°C, a temperature that is sometimes seen in polar regions. The material they used, however, isn’t a metal that appears on the periodic table. In fact, they’re not even positive they know what the material is, just that it forms from hydrogen sulfide at extreme pressures. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New record temperature for a superconductor

No more endless CDs for pennies: Columbia House files for bankruptcy

It’s a sad day for the musical childhood of many generations. The Associated Press is reporting that the parent company of Columbia House, the organization behind the famous music and DVD clubs of yore, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The move comes after nearly 20 years of declining sales according to the AP. Filmed Entertainment (Columbia House’s parent company) told the wire service that revenue hit a high of $1.4 billion in 1996. In 2014, that figure fell to $17 million (or roughly 1 percent of its peak, the AP notes). While Chapter 11 protection doesn’t necessarily mean Filmed Entertainment intends to go out of business, it’s not looking good. Companies like RadioShack and Kodak  have done this in recent years to obtain a certain period of time within which to rebuild itself and shield itself from creditors. Kodak at least emerged from its situation. The service started in 1955 with vinyl records, and Columbia House introduced pop culture fans to many, many film and music entities over the years through its service. It operated on offers like eight CDs for 1¢ (plus shipping!) or an 8-track tape of the month club (relying on a “return or pay to keep” philosophy). But physical media at large has gradually fallen out of favor over the years, and services from Napster to Netflix to iTunes all overlap with what Columbia House intended to do. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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No more endless CDs for pennies: Columbia House files for bankruptcy

Spaniard fatally gored while trying to film bull run on smartphone

While the Spanish town of Pamplona hosts the world’s most well-known running of the bulls, other cities in Spain, Portugal, and nearby nations host their own annual runs where bulls run through city streets while locals and tourists run alongside—or away from—the giant beasts. For one participant of a Sunday bull run in Villasecra de la Sagra, Spain, trying to share his experience by way of a smartphone recording ended traumatically. According to details ascertained from a local Spanish-language report , an English-language AFP report , and bystander video of the incident, a 32-year-old man was gored from behind while attempting to film that city’s annual bull run. The bystander video, posted Sunday on Instagram (not linked here due to its graphic nature), showed the currently unidentified victim standing near a barricade so that he was behind other viewers and away from the general fray of the bull run. However, a stray bull appeared to become separated from the general herd, at which point it ran at full speed behind the crowd and struck the 32-year-old while he was holding a smartphone to film in the opposite direction. According to reports, after receiving brief treatment at a nearby bullring’s medical center, the victim was transferred to a hospital in nearby Toledo, where he was soon pronounced dead from neck and thigh wounds. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Spaniard fatally gored while trying to film bull run on smartphone

Last New Zealand coal plant reaches the end of the line

Yesterday, one of New Zealand’s major energy producers announced that it is planning on shuttering the last of the country’s coal-fired power stations in 2018. The plant’s extended life comes despite the fact that running it has become economically marginal—the company that runs it says it is locked into a coal delivery contract until mid-2017 and has substantial stockpiles on site. New Zealand is fortunate to have abundant renewable energy sources, including a number of large hydroelectric plants. Fossil fuels have mostly been used to supplement the hydroelectric production during years of lower rainfall. But the country has also benefitted from trends that are seen in most other industrialized nations. Energy demand has largely been stable due to increased efficiency, while the cost of other renewable power sources has dropped. In New Zealand’s case, those new sources are wind and geothermal (part of the country sits atop a subduction zone). As the costs of developing wind and geothermal have dropped, the coal fired plant was being used less frequently. “These units have largely been operating at the margin of the market for a number of years, at very low utilisation rates,” said company CEO Albert Brantley. Shuttering them is expected to save the company over NZ$20 million a year. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Last New Zealand coal plant reaches the end of the line

A new polymer that can boost capacitors

From hybrid and electric vehicles to underground exploration of fossil-fuels, our search for energy solutions has increasingly placed us in situations demanding electricity storage and delivery under extreme conditions. Though batteries are the reigning storage technology, capacitors are an alternative with several advantages: they’re lightweight, they can be charged and discharged relatively quickly, and they don’t lose their storage capacity over time. In order to function properly, capacitors require dielectric materials, which behave as insulators and are essential for charge storage. Polymeric dielectrics have enhanced performance over other materials, and they can operate under more intense electric fields without failing (termed higher breakdown strength) and greater reliability. They also have the added benefit of practicality, being scalable, lightweight, and easily manipulated. Right now, their major drawback as a material is their inability to work at high temperatures, like those required in many applications. But a composite polymer has finally been developed that seems to break down the traditional limitations of these materials, promising to open up a broader range of uses. Scientists made the new material by crosslinking a traditional polymer embedded with flakes of boron nitride nano sheets. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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A new polymer that can boost capacitors

Where broadband is a utility, 100Mbps costs just $40 a month

There’s been a lot of debate over whether the United States should treat Internet service as a utility . But there’s no question that Internet service is already a utility in Sandy, Oregon, a city of about 10,000 residents, where the government has been offering broadband for more than a decade. “ SandyNet ” launched nearly 15 years ago with DSL and wireless service, and this summer it’s putting the final touches on a citywide upgrade to fiber. The upgrade was paid for with a $7.5 million revenue bond, which will be repaid by system revenues. Despite not being subsidized by taxpayer dollars, prices are still low: $40 a month for symmetrical 100Mbps service or $60 a month for 1Gbps. There are no contracts or data caps. “Part of the culture of SandyNet is we view our citizens as owners of the utility,” City IT Director and SandyNet GM Joe Knapp told Ars in a phone interview. “We’ve always run the utility on a break-even basis. Any profits we do have go back into capital improvements and equipment upgrades and things like that.” Read 34 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Where broadband is a utility, 100Mbps costs just $40 a month