Tag: wired

How the USPS targeted a drug dealer via his IP address

A federal drug case in Massachusetts has shed new light on how the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) law enforcement unit uses something as simple as IP logs on the postal tracking website to investigate crimes. According to a December 2013 affidavit  of an ongoing federal criminal case in Rockland, Massachusetts (20 miles southeast of Boston), one alleged drug dealer named Harold Bates was found out simply by his digital trail left on the USPS’ Track n’ Confirm website. The affidavit was added to the court docket in January 2015, and the case was first reported on by Motherboard . Bates was charged back in March 2014 with conspiracy to import methylone (also known as “molly”), importation of methylone, and possession with intent to distribute methylone, among other crimes. Last month, the judge in the case ruled against Bates in his attempt to supress evidence seized in those packages. Read 24 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How the USPS targeted a drug dealer via his IP address

Meta analysis finds self-braking cars reduce collisions by 38 percent

While we’re still some way off seeing full-blown, self-driving cars winding their way across continental Europe, a more modest autonomous technology has found approval with safety bods. Research conducted by the European road safety research organisation Euro NCAP concluded that having a car automatically slam on the brakes to avoid low-speed accidents leads to a 38 percent reduction in rear-end crashes. The notable statistic was the result of a meta-analysis of various Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) cars, comparing them to cars without the technology in accidents where the car either struck a car in front, or was being struck from behind. Euro NCAP, with support of Australian safety organisation ANCAP, pooled data from five European countries and Australia using a standard analysis format, as well as a prospective meta-analysis approach. In non-AEB cars, the split between striking and being struck was close to 50/50, improving significantly for cars with AEB. However, despite the apparent success of the study, the researchers noted that in order to get the best results out of the technology, widespread adoption was required; slamming on the brakes to avoid an accident requires following traffic to be alert enough to react to the situation and not cause a cascade. They also noted that AEB cars might be more likely to be struck from behind, as an unintended consequence of AEB’s better reaction time, compared to a human driver. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Meta analysis finds self-braking cars reduce collisions by 38 percent

Why the Verizon-AOL deal just might work: Mobile video ads are worth a lot

For many onlookers, Verizon’s $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL  this week echoed another multibillion dollar deal—AOL’s own $162 billion acquisition of Time Warner  more than 15 years ago. That deal famously collapsed before the end of the decade. But Verizon’s move may differ because of one salient fact: there’s a ton of money in the video advertising being increasingly  watched  on mobile devices. “AOL was in no position to monetize Time Warner Online properties last time around,” Rebecca Lieb , of the Altimeter Group, told Ars. “Time Warner, in essence, bought what was then an ISP. The thinking was ‘this Internet thing is going to be big,’ but beyond that there was little synergy. This time around, an ISP, Verizon, is buying a former ISP. AOL is no longer an Internet service provider or a portal. It’s an advertising technology company.” From that perspective, the deal makes plenty of sense. Money is in no short supply for Verizon, and the deal costs less than  half of the company’s total profits in 2014 . Beyond that, Verizon has been trying to launch a video service for years now. It wants a slice of the mobile video advertising market, and AOL can help with its new “ONE by AOL” ad platform . AOL’s media properties may have been the topic of debate on Twitter, but over three-quarters of the company’s revenue came from advertising in 2014. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Why the Verizon-AOL deal just might work: Mobile video ads are worth a lot

Don’t look now, but 3DS emulation is becoming a thing

Given enough time and attention from the development community, it’s practically inevitable that any video game console can and will be emulatable on a general-use computer. Hardware makers, always wary of the piracy implications of such a development, may hope that doesn’t happen until many years after that console ceases to be commercially viable. Unfortunately for Nintendo, that seems unlikely in the case of the 3DS. The Citra emulation project has been in the works for at least a year , but developers reached a breakthrough last December when they managed to load Ocarina of Time 3D for the first time. That title has now been shown running at nearly full speed on Citra with the help of an OpenGL renderer (though some visual artifacts still exist). Since then, compatibility work has continued on a seemingly game-by-game basis.  Virtual Console titles were shown off in February, and just this week team members posted evidence of Animal Crossing New Leaf , Super Monkey Ball 3D , and even the system’s home menu  running through emulation. There are a few homebrew demos available as well, including emulators for other systems running inside of the 3DS emulator and the kind of Minecraft port that’s seemingly required for all emulation projects these days. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Don’t look now, but 3DS emulation is becoming a thing

Nvidia turns on 1080p 60 FPS streaming for its Grid cloud gaming service

Starting today, Nvidia has enabled 1080p 60 FPS streaming from its Grid cloud gaming service . To use the new mode, you need to be part of the public Shield Hub beta group , have a Shield device, and at least a 30Mbps connection to the Internet. For the moment, around 35 Grid games support 1080p60 streaming, with Nvidia promising that rest (another 14 at the moment) will get a resolution bump after a server-side hardware refresh. Nvidia won’t say what that hardware refresh entails, but did confirm that its servers would be using the same Kepler-based Grid GPUs. Grid streaming remains free until June 30, after which Nvidia will offer a paid-for premium tier in addition to the free service. While Nvidia still won’t spill the beans on exactly what the premium tier gets you, or how much it’ll cost, we can confirm that 1080p streaming will not require a premium subscription. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Nvidia turns on 1080p 60 FPS streaming for its Grid cloud gaming service

With vinyl sales on the rise, this startup lets anyone press their own LP

We often talk about the lost magic of owning a physical thing , whether that’s books, CDs, or the wondrous black slab of plastic that is the vinyl record. Holding that object in your hand, flicking through its dog-eared pages and admiring its intricately crafted artwork, imparts a sense of ownership that you just can’t replicate with a Kindle or a convenient subscription to Spotify. The trouble is, making physical objects is hard , not to mention expensive. That’s especially true of the vinyl record, where pressing plants aren’t exactly ten a penny. And yet, despite the high cost of manufacturing and end price to the consumer, vinyl sales are very much on the up. According to Nielsen , vinyl album sales in the US have grown an impressive 260 percent since 2009, reaching 9.2 million units last year, while in the UK sales reached a 20-year high of 1.29 million in 2014 . Of course, these numbers are but a tiny fraction of music sales as a whole, but—regardless of whether it’s customers chasing that creamy analogue sound, or there are just a lot more hipsters around these days—there’s a demand to be satisfied. But if you’re not a big record label with deep pockets, getting the capital together to produce a run of vinyl is tricky. Even if you do raise the cash, how do you decide how many to make? Too few and people are left wanting; too many and you’re left with stock you can’t sell. It’s a problem that the recently launched Qrates  is hoping to solve. Qrates is an intriguing mix of the old and the new, consisting of a vinyl pressing service, a crowdfunding system, and a digital store all rolled into one. Using the site’s online tool, you can upload your music, design the label and sleeve, choose your preferred playing speed (33 or 45), the weight and colour of the actual record, and how many you’d like (there’s currently a nice low minimum order of 100). Qrates gives you an estimated cost, and then works with a regional pressing plant to fulfil your order. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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With vinyl sales on the rise, this startup lets anyone press their own LP

AT&T to fix Internet congestion before it can be hit with complaint

With a month left before net neutrality complaints can be filed to the Federal Communications Commission, Internet service providers are continuing to sign agreements to prevent network congestion and a potential scolding from regulators. The latest agreement was announced today between AT&T and Level 3 , an Internet backbone operator that has accused broadband providers like AT&T of not upgrading interconnection points, allowing Internet performance for consumers to be degraded. A month ago, Level 3 told National Journal  that it was “evaluating our options” and “still experiencing interconnection point congestion as some large consumer ISPs continue to attempt to leverage control over access to their users to extract arbitrary tolls.” While the FCC’s net neutrality order  bans paid prioritization of traffic after it enters providers’ networks, it doesn’t ban payments for interconnection, which happens at the edges of the network. However, the FCC set up a complaint process so it can decide whether particular demands are unreasonable and prod companies into providing enough capacity to prevent Internet slowdowns. Complaints can be filed beginning June 12. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T to fix Internet congestion before it can be hit with complaint

In rare move, Silicon Valley county gov’t kills stingray acquisition

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has halted a plan to approve the purchase of a cell-site simulator , better known as a stingray. The secretive surveillance devices can be used to determine a phone’s location, but they can also intercept calls and text messages. During the act of locating a phone, stingrays also sweep up information about nearby phones—not just the target phone. Earlier this year, Ars reported on how the FBI is actively trying to “prevent disclosure” of how these devices are used in local jurisdictions across America. The move, happening in one of the primary counties in Silicon Valley, marks an unusual occasion that a local government has turned away from federal funds that would be used to acquire such a device. The device was approved initially during a February 24, 2015 meeting, despite a testy exchange between the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office and Supervisor Joe Simitian, a former state senator with a penchant for an interest in privacy issues. Simitian’s office didn’t immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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In rare move, Silicon Valley county gov’t kills stingray acquisition

Comcast to pay you $20 each time a technician is late for an appointment [Updated]

UPDATE : After publication, we learned Comcast has been making the $20 guarantee for more than two years  before this week’s announcement. The other parts of the announcement, including the hiring boost, store renovations, and changes to technology and training, appear to be new. Comcast is once again pledging to overhaul its legendarily bad customer service, hiring more than 5,500 new customer service employees and making “major investments in technology and training,” the company announced yesterday . Part of the hiring boost will add “hundreds of additional technicians across the country,” with a goal to always be on time for customer appointments by Q3 2015, sometime between July and August. To prove how serious it is, Comcast is making a new promise: “If a technician doesn’t arrive on time for an appointment, Comcast will automatically credit the customer $20,” the cable company said. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Comcast to pay you $20 each time a technician is late for an appointment [Updated]

AT&T finally ramps down throttling of unlimited LTE customers

AT&T’s long-standing policy of throttling LTE service for unlimited data customers has finally been changed so that customers are throttled only when they connect to congested cell towers. Until now, AT&T customers who used 5GB of data in a single monthly billing period were throttled for the rest of the month at all times, receiving barely usable service, despite paying for “unlimited” data. AT&T is facing a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission over the practice and has denied wrongdoing , but it promised that it would change the policy to make it more lenient before the end of 2015. AT&T did not make any official announcement of the change, but it is now apparent in the policy detailed on its website : Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T finally ramps down throttling of unlimited LTE customers