Author name: Mike M.

doj-subpoenas-nvidia-in-deepening-ai-antitrust-probe,-report-says

DOJ subpoenas Nvidia in deepening AI antitrust probe, report says

AI chips, antitrust, Antitrust law, Artificial Intelligence, competition law, GPUs, Jensen Huang, monopoly, NVIDIA, Policy, run:ai / /
DOJ subpoenas Nvidia in deepening AI antitrust probe, report says

The Department of Justice is reportedly deepening its probe into Nvidia. Officials have moved on from merely questioning competitors to subpoenaing Nvidia and other tech companies for evidence that could substantiate allegations that Nvidia is abusing its “dominant position in AI computing,” Bloomberg reported.

When news of the DOJ’s probe into the trillion-dollar company was first reported in June, Fast Company reported that scrutiny was intensifying merely because Nvidia was estimated to control “as much as 90 percent of the market for chips” capable of powering AI models. Experts told Fast Company that the DOJ probe might even be good for Nvidia’s business, noting that the market barely moved when the probe was first announced.

But the market’s confidence seemed to be shaken a little more on Tuesday, when Nvidia lost a “record-setting $279 billion” in market value following Bloomberg’s report. Nvidia’s losses became “the biggest single-day market-cap decline on record,” TheStreet reported.

People close to the DOJ’s investigation told Bloomberg that the DOJ’s “legally binding requests” require competitors “to provide information” on Nvidia’s suspected anticompetitive behaviors as a “dominant provider of AI processors.”

One concern is that Nvidia may be giving “preferential supply and pricing to customers who use its technology exclusively or buy its complete systems,” sources told Bloomberg. The DOJ is also reportedly probing Nvidia’s acquisition of RunAI—suspecting the deal may lock RunAI customers into using Nvidia chips.

Bloomberg’s report builds on a report last month from The Information that said that Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and other Nvidia rivals were questioned by the DOJ—as well as third parties who could shed light on whether Nvidia potentially abused its market dominance in AI chips to pressure customers into buying more products.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, the DOJ is worried that “Nvidia is making it harder to switch to other suppliers and penalizes buyers that don’t exclusively use its artificial intelligence chips.”

In a statement to Bloomberg, Nvidia insisted that “Nvidia wins on merit, as reflected in our benchmark results and value to customers, who can choose whatever solution is best for them.” Additionally, Bloomberg noted that following a chip shortage in 2022, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said that his company strives to prevent stockpiling of Nvidia’s coveted AI chips by prioritizing customers “who can make use of his products in ready-to-go data centers.”

Potential threats to Nvidia’s dominance

Despite the slump in shares, Nvidia’s market dominance seems unlikely to wane any time soon after its stock more than doubled this year. In an SEC filing this year, Nvidia bragged that its “accelerated computing ecosystem is bringing AI to every enterprise” with an “ecosystem” spanning “nearly 5 million developers and 40,000 companies.” Nvidia specifically highlighted that “more than 1,600 generative AI companies are building on Nvidia,” and according to Bloomberg, Nvidia will close out 2024 with more profits than the total sales of its closest competitor, AMD.

After the DOJ’s most recent big win, which successfully proved that Google has a monopoly on search, the DOJ appears intent on getting ahead of any tech companies’ ambitions to seize monopoly power and essentially become the Google of the AI industry. In June, DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter confirmed to the Financial Times that the DOJ is examining “monopoly choke points and the competitive landscape” in AI beyond just scrutinizing Nvidia.

According to Kanter, the DOJ is scrutinizing all aspects of the AI industry—”everything from computing power and the data used to train large language models, to cloud service providers, engineering talent and access to essential hardware such as graphics processing unit chips.” But in particular, the DOJ appears concerned that GPUs like Nvidia’s advanced AI chips remain a “scarce resource.” Kanter told the Financial Times that an “intervention” in “real time” to block a potential monopoly could be “the most meaningful intervention” and the least “invasive” as the AI industry grows.

DOJ subpoenas Nvidia in deepening AI antitrust probe, report says Read More »

i-added-a-ratgdo-to-my-garage-door,-and-i-don’t-know-why-i-waited-so-long

I added a ratgdo to my garage door, and I don’t know why I waited so long

Apple, home assistant, home automation, homekit, ratgdo, Tech / /
Photograph of a ratgdo

Enlarge / A ratgdo, version 2.53i.

I live in suburbia, which means I’ve got a garage (or a carhole, if you’re not so fancy). It’s a detached garage, so part of my nightly routine when I check to make sure the house is all locked up is to peek out the back window. I like to know the garage door is closed and our cars are tucked in safely.

But actually looking out a window with my stupid analog eyeballs is lame, so I figured I could make things easier by adding some smarts to my garage. The first thing I did was use this fellow’s instructions (the original site is sadly offline, but the Wayback Machine is forever) to cobble together a Raspberry Pi-based solution that would fire off an email every time the garage door opened or closed. I couldn’t remotely open or close the door from inside the house myself (well, I mean, I could with the actual garage door opener remote control), but I could just glance at my inbox to see if the garage door was open or shut in the evenings.

This worked great for a couple of years, until Texas summers murdered the poor Pi. (This was possibly my fault, too, because of the PoE hat that I’d slapped onto the Pi, which resulted in extra heat.) So, I was back to peeking out my window to check on the garage in the evenings. Like a sucker.

There had to be a better way.

Insultingly, offensively awful OEM solutions

I had just two requirements in my search for that better way. First, whatever automation solution I settled on had to be compatible with my garage door opener. Secondly, anything I looked at needed to interoperate with Apple’s HomeKit, my preferred home automation ecosystem.

The first thing I looked at—and quickly discarded—was using my garage door opener’s built-in automation functionality. My particular garage door opener is a LiftMaster, which means that it’s part of a big group of garage door opener brands under the “Chamberlain” banner. The OEM-sanctioned way to do what I want, therefore, is to use Chamberlain’s “MyQ” solution, which—and I am being generous here—is total garbage.

MyQ requires an accessory the company doesn’t sell or support anymore in order to hook into HomeKit, and Chamberlain would really, really, really like you to install their adds-nothing-of-value-to-me app in order to actually control things—likely so they can have a shot at collecting and monetizing my personal and/or behavioral data. (To be clear, I have no proof that that’s what they’d do with personal data, but monetizing and selling it would definitely be playing to type.) Given that the Chamberlain Group is owned by a big value-removing private equity firm with a history of poor stewardship over personal data, this all tracks.

privacy page. It’s about as gross as you might expect.” data-height=”1226″ data-width=”2560″ href=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/ratgdomyqprivacy.jpg”>A snippet from the MyQ <a href=privacy page. It’s about as gross as you might expect.” height=”306″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/ratgdomyqprivacy.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / A snippet from the MyQ privacy page. It’s about as gross as you might expect.

That’s gonna be a “no” from me, dawg. I’d rather jam bamboo under my fingernails than install Chamberlain’s worthless app just for the privilege of controlling an accessory in my own home while facing the potential risk of having my personal information sold to enrich some vampire capitalists.

So what else to do?

I added a ratgdo to my garage door, and I don’t know why I waited so long Read More »

tv-viewers-get-screwed-again-as-disney-channels-are-blacked-out-on-directv

TV viewers get screwed again as Disney channels are blacked out on DirecTV

DIRECTV, directv disney, directv disney blackout, Disney, Policy / /

Disney/DirecTV blackout —

Two days into blackout, DirecTV will fight Disney “as long as it needs to.”

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A TV camera that says

Disney

Disney-owned channels have been blacked out on DirecTV for the past two days because of a contract dispute, with both companies claiming publicly that they aren’t willing to budge much from their negotiating positions. Until it’s resolved, DirecTV subscribers won’t have access to ABC, ESPN, and other Disney channels.

While there have been many contentious contract negotiations between TV providers and programmers, this one is “not a run-of-the-mill dispute,” DirecTV CFO Ray Carpenter said today in a call with reporters and analysts, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “This is not the kind of dispute where we’re haggling over percentage points on a rate. This is really about changing the model in a way that gives everyone confidence that this industry can survive.”

Carpenter was quoted as saying that DirecTV will fight Disney “as long as it needs to” and accused Disney of timing the blackout before big sporting events “to put the most pain and disruption on our customers.” Carpenter also said DirecTV doesn’t “have any dates drawn in the sand” and is “not playing a short-term game,” according to Variety.

On Sunday, Disney issued a statement attributed to three executives at Disney Entertainment and ESPN. “DirecTV chose to deny millions of subscribers access to our content just as we head into the final week of the US Open and gear up for college football and the opening of the NFL season,” the Disney statement said. “While we’re open to offering DirecTV flexibility and terms which we’ve extended to other distributors, we will not enter into an agreement that undervalues our portfolio of television channels and programs.”

DirecTV users must apply for $20 credits

DirecTV is offering $20 credits to affected customers, but the TV firm is not applying those credits automatically. Customers need to go to this webpage to request a bill credit.

AT&T owns 70 percent of DirecTV after spinning it off into a new entity in 2021. AT&T explored options for selling its 70 percent stake almost a year ago. Private equity firm TPG owns the other 30 percent.

Based on previous TV carriage fights, a DirecTV/Disney agreement could be reached within days. A similar dispute between Disney and Charter Communications happened almost exactly a year ago and was resolved after eight days.

Carpenter said today that DirecTV wants to sell smaller channel packages and that Disney’s proposed terms conflict with that goal. Variety summarized his comments:

At the heart of the dispute, says Carpenter, is a desire by DirecTV to sell “skinnied down” packages of programming tailored to various subscriber interests, rather than forcing customers to take channels they may not want or watch very often. The company believes such a model would help retain subscribers, even if they were paying less. There is also interest in helping customers find other content, even if it’s not sold directly on the service, Carpenter says.

Streaming add-ons and “skinny” bundles

Last year’s agreement between Disney and Charter included access to the Disney+ and ESPN+ streaming services for Charter’s Spectrum cable customers. Carpenter was quoted by the Hollywood Reporter as saying there is “value” in that kind of deal, “but what’s important is that it’s not a replica of the model that got us here in the first place, where it has to be distributed and paid for by 100 percent or a large percentage of the customers.”

A lobby group that represents DirecTV and other TV providers, the American Television Alliance, blasted Disney for “seek[ing] to raise rates and force distributors to carry an unwieldy ‘one-size fits all’ bundle of more than a dozen channels to the vast majority of their subscribers.” The group said Disney’s proposed terms would require TV companies to sell “fat bundles” that “force consumers to pay for programming they don’t watch.”

Disney’s statement on Sunday claimed that DirecTV rejected its offer of “a fair, marketplace-based agreement.”

“DirecTV continues to push a narrative that they want to explore more flexible, ‘skinnier’ bundles and that Disney refuses to engage,” Disney said. “This is blatantly false. Disney has been negotiating with them in good faith for weeks and has proposed a variety of flexible options, in addition to innovative ways to work together in making Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming services available to DirecTV’s customers.”

We contacted both companies today and will update this article if there are any major developments.

Disclosure: The Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which owns 12.4 percent of Charter, is part of Advance Publications, which also owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast.

TV viewers get screwed again as Disney channels are blacked out on DirecTV Read More »

oprah’s-upcoming-ai-television-special-sparks-outrage-among-tech-critics

Oprah’s upcoming AI television special sparks outrage among tech critics

ABC, AI, AI criticism, AI lawsuit, Bill Gates, Biz & IT, Brian Merchant, chatgpt, chatgtp, Dr. Margaret Mitchell, Ed Zitron, image synthesis, Karla Ortiz, large language models, machine learning, openai, Oprah Winfrey, sam altman / /

You get an AI, and You get an AI —

AI opponents say Gates, Altman, and others will guide Oprah through an AI “sales pitch.”

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An ABC handout promotional image for

Enlarge / An ABC handout promotional image for “AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special.”

On Thursday, ABC announced an upcoming TV special titled, “AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special.” The one-hour show, set to air on September 12, aims to explore AI’s impact on daily life and will feature interviews with figures in the tech industry, like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Bill Gates. Soon after the announcement, some AI critics began questioning the guest list and the framing of the show in general.

“Sure is nice of Oprah to host this extended sales pitch for the generative AI industry at a moment when its fortunes are flagging and the AI bubble is threatening to burst,” tweeted author Brian Merchant, who frequently criticizes generative AI technology in op-eds, social media, and through his “Blood in the Machine” AI newsletter.

“The way the experts who are not experts are presented as such 💀 what a train wreck,” replied artist Karla Ortiz, who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against several AI companies. “There’s still PLENTY of time to get actual experts and have a better discussion on this because yikes.”

The trailer for Oprah’s upcoming TV special on AI.

On Friday, Ortiz created a lengthy viral thread on X that detailed her potential issues with the program, writing, “This event will be the first time many people will get info on Generative AI. However it is shaping up to be a misinformed marketing event starring vested interests (some who are under a litany of lawsuits) who ignore the harms GenAi inflicts on communities NOW.”

Critics of generative AI like Ortiz question the utility of the technology, its perceived environmental impact, and what they see as blatant copyright infringement. In training AI language models, tech companies like Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI commonly use copyrighted material gathered without license or owner permission. OpenAI claims that the practice is “fair use.”

Oprah’s guests

According to ABC, the upcoming special will feature “some of the most important and powerful people in AI,” which appears to roughly translate to “famous and publicly visible people related to tech.” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who stepped down as Microsoft CEO 24 years ago, will appear on the show to explore the “AI revolution coming in science, health, and education,” ABC says, and warn of “the once-in-a-century type of impact AI may have on the job market.”

As a guest representing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Sam Altman will explain “how AI works in layman’s terms” and discuss “the immense personal responsibility that must be borne by the executives of AI companies.” Karla Ortiz specifically criticized Altman in her thread by saying, “There are far more qualified individuals to speak on what GenAi models are than CEOs. Especially one CEO who recently said AI models will ‘solve all physics.’ That’s an absurd statement and not worthy of your audience.”

In a nod to present-day content creation, YouTube creator Marques Brownlee will appear on the show and reportedly walk Winfrey through “mind-blowing demonstrations of AI’s capabilities.”

Brownlee’s involvement received special attention from some critics online. “Marques Brownlee should be absolutely ashamed of himself,” tweeted PR consultant and frequent AI critic Ed Zitron, who frequently heaps scorn on generative AI in his own newsletter. “What a disgraceful thing to be associated with.”

Other guests include Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology, who aim to highlight “emerging risks posed by powerful and superintelligent AI,” an existential risk topic that has its own critics. And FBI Director Christopher Wray will reveal “the terrifying ways criminals and foreign adversaries are using AI,” while author Marilynne Robinson will reflect on “AI’s threat to human values.”

Going only by the publicized guest list, it appears that Oprah does not plan to give voice to prominent non-doomer critics of AI. “This is really disappointing @Oprah and frankly a bit irresponsible to have a one-sided conversation on AI without informed counterarguments from those impacted,” tweeted TV producer Theo Priestley.

Others on the social media network shared similar criticism about a perceived lack of balance in the guest list, including Dr. Margaret Mitchell of Hugging Face. “It could be beneficial to have an AI Oprah follow-up discussion that responds to what happens in [the show] and unpacks generative AI in a more grounded way,” she said.

Oprah’s AI special will air on September 12 on ABC (and a day later on Hulu) in the US, and it will likely elicit further responses from the critics mentioned above. But perhaps that’s exactly how Oprah wants it: “It may fascinate you or scare you,” Winfrey said in a promotional video for the special. “Or, if you’re like me, it may do both. So let’s take a breath and find out more about it.”

Oprah’s upcoming AI television special sparks outrage among tech critics Read More »

sony-is-shutting-down-concord,-refunding-players-after-just-two-weeks

Sony is shutting down Concord, refunding players after just two weeks

gaming / /

We hardly knew ye —

Team-based shooter eight years in the making had just 25,000 estimated sales.

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This team-based FPS combat scene was apparently too familiar to attract all that many players to <em>Concord</em>.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/concord-800×450.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / This team-based FPS combat scene was apparently too familiar to attract all that many players to Concord.

Sony

Sony’s team-based online shooter Concord has been removed from sale and will be taken offline on Friday, September 6, just two weeks after its August 23 launch. Firewalk Studios Game Director Ryan Ellis said in an announcement Tuesday that publisher Sony will offer refunds to all players who purchased the game on PC or PlayStation 5.

Sony may not need to pay out that many refunds. GameDiscoverCo analyst Simon Carless told IGN last week that he estimated an underwhelming 25,000 total sales for the game across PS5 and PC. Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, meanwhile, said that just 0.2 percent of all active PS5 players were playing the game last Monday, making it the 147th most-played title for that day.

The Steam version of the game peaked at well under 700 players just after launch, according to SteamDB tracking. On PlayStation, popular opt-in trophy tracking site PSNProfiles logged just over 1,300 players who owned Concord, a relatively small showing compared to popular recent releases like Star Wars Outlaws (4,300 PSNProfiles owners) and Black Myth: Wukong (16,000 PSNProfiles-tracked owners).

“While many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended,” Ellis wrote.

What went wrong?

Suffice it to say, this quick shutdown is not what Firewalk or Sony envisioned for the game. Just under a month ago, Ellis was talking up Concord‘s impending launch by teasing a “major content drop” planned for October and the long-term potential for custom crew buildouts.

“We see launch as just the beginning,” Ellis said in the August promotional post. “The beginning of not only the vision we’ve set out for Concord, but also the beginning of how we support and grow the game with our players.”

Concord was the first game from Firewalk Studios, which formed in 2018 before being acquired by Sony just last year. The game has been in development for around eight years, according to lead character designer Jon Weisnewski, meaning work on the title started when Blizzard’s Overwatch was a hot new concept rather than the aging progenitor of a crowded genre.

Concord was teased at Sony’s PlayStation Showcase last May and was first shown in a rough playable form this May. By August’s launch, though, it was clear there was little market appetite for yet another live service team shooter that didn’t bring much new to the table. Concord was only recommended by 24 percent of reviewers tracked by OpenCritic and is sitting at an extremely underwhelming score of 65 on Metacritic.

Concord‘s fate brings to mind that of Amazon’s Crucible, another newcomer that found it hard to find a place in a crowded shooter market. That game managed to limp along for just six months before being shut down, though it was delisted from Steam well before that death.

Despite Concord‘s quick shutdown, the door has been left open just a crack for a potential revival at some point. Ellis writes that Firewalk and Sony will “determine the best path ahead” and “explore options, including those that will better reach our players” in the future. Perhaps another increasingly common pivot to a free-to-play model is in Concord‘s future?

Sony is shutting down Concord, refunding players after just two weeks Read More »

yubikeys-are-vulnerable-to-cloning-attacks-thanks-to-newly-discovered-side-channel

YubiKeys are vulnerable to cloning attacks thanks to newly discovered side channel

2fa, Biz & IT, cryptography, ecdsa, elliptic curve digital signature algorithm, Encryption, Security, side channels, two-factor authentication / /

ATTACK OF THE CLONES —

Sophisticated attack breaks security assurances of the most popular FIDO key.

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YubiKeys are vulnerable to cloning attacks thanks to newly discovered side channel

Yubico

The YubiKey 5, the most widely used hardware token for two-factor authentication based on the FIDO standard, contains a cryptographic flaw that makes the finger-size device vulnerable to cloning when an attacker gains brief physical access to it, researchers said Tuesday.

The cryptographic flaw, known as a side channel, resides in a small microcontroller used in a large number of other authentication devices, including smartcards used in banking, electronic passports, and the accessing of secure areas. While the researchers have confirmed all YubiKey 5 series models can be cloned, they haven’t tested other devices using the microcontroller, such as the SLE78 made by Infineon and successor microcontrollers known as the Infineon Optiga Trust M and the Infineon Optiga TPM. The researchers suspect that any device using any of these three microcontrollers and the Infineon cryptographic library contains the same vulnerability.

Patching not possible

YubiKey-maker Yubico issued an advisory in coordination with a detailed disclosure report from NinjaLab, the security firm that reverse-engineered the YubiKey 5 series and devised the cloning attack. All YubiKeys running firmware prior to version 5.7—which was released in May and replaces the Infineon cryptolibrary with a custom one—are vulnerable. Updating key firmware on the YubiKey isn’t possible. That leaves all affected YubiKeys permanently vulnerable.

“An attacker could exploit this issue as part of a sophisticated and targeted attack to recover affected private keys,” the advisory confirmed. “The attacker would need physical possession of the YubiKey, Security Key, or YubiHSM, knowledge of the accounts they want to target and specialized equipment to perform the necessary attack. Depending on the use case, the attacker may also require additional knowledge including username, PIN, account password, or authentication key.”

Side channels are the result of clues left in physical manifestations such as electromagnetic emanations, data caches, or the time required to complete a task that leaks cryptographic secrets. In this case, the side channel is the amount of time taken during a mathematical calculation known as a modular inversion. The Infineon cryptolibrary failed to implement a common side-channel defense known as constant time as it performs modular inversion operations involving the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm. Constant time ensures the time sensitive cryptographic operations execute is uniform rather than variable depending on the specific keys.

More precisely, the side channel is located in the Infineon implementation of the Extended Euclidean Algorithm, a method for, among other things, computing the modular inverse. By using an oscilloscope to measure the electromagnetic radiation while the token is authenticating itself, the researchers can detect tiny execution time differences that reveal a token’s ephemeral ECDSA key, also known as a nonce. Further analysis allows the researchers to extract the secret ECDSA key that underpins the entire security of the token.

In Tuesday’s report, NinjaLab co-founder Thomas Roche wrote:

In the present work, NinjaLab unveils a new side-channel vulnerability in the ECDSA implementation of Infineon 9 on any security microcontroller family of the manufacturer.This vulnerability lies in the ECDSA ephemeral key (or nonce) modular inversion, and, more precisely, in the Infineon implementation of the Extended Euclidean Algorithm (EEA for short). To our knowledge, this is the first time an implementation of the EEA is shown to be vulnerable to side-channel analysis (contrarily to the EEA binary version). The exploitation of this vulnerability is demonstrated through realistic experiments and we show that an adversary only needs to have access to the device for a few minutes. The offline phase took us about 24 hours; with more engineering work in the attack development, it would take less than one hour.

After a long phase of understanding Infineon implementation through side-channel analysis on a Feitian 10 open JavaCard smartcard, the attack is tested on a YubiKey 5Ci, a FIDO hardware token from Yubico. All YubiKey 5 Series (before the firmware update 5.7 11 of May 6th, 2024) are affected by the attack. In fact all products relying on the ECDSA of Infineon cryptographic library running on an Infineon security microcontroller are affected by the attack. We estimate that the vulnerability exists for more than 14 years in Infineon top secure chips. These chips and the vulnerable part of the cryptographic library went through about 80 CC certification evaluations of level AVA VAN 4 (for TPMs) or AVA VAN 5 (for the others) from 2010 to 2024 (and a bit less than 30 certificate maintenances).

YubiKeys are vulnerable to cloning attacks thanks to newly discovered side channel Read More »

the-new-glenn-rocket’s-second-stage-set-to-roll-to-the-launch-pad-on-monday

The New Glenn rocket’s second stage set to roll to the launch pad on Monday

blue origin, new glenn, Science, Space / /

Rings of power —

The large rocket will attempt to land on its debut flight.

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Image of the New Glenn second stage on its mobile test stand.

Enlarge / Image of the New Glenn second stage on its mobile test stand.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin plans to enter the final phase of its launch preparations for the New Glenn rocket on Monday by rolling the vehicle’s second stage to Launch Complex 36 in Florida. Pending weather and other final considerations, a rollout could occur as early as Monday afternoon.

This is the flight version of the vehicle, with the exception of a fixed adaptor for weather protection during a test campaign. The launch company is targeting a hot fire test of the upper stage, which is powered by two BE-3U engines, within the next week or so.

The launch company, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is closing in on the debut launch of the massive New Glenn rocket, which will be one of the most powerful launch vehicles in the world. With a fully reusable first stage, New Glenn has a lift capacity of 45 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

A tight launch window

NASA has contracted with Blue Origin for the first launch of New Glenn, seeking to boost two relatively small spacecraft to Mars. These ESCAPADE orbiters have a tight launch window, from October 13 to October 21. Managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, the ESCAPADE spacecraft will analyze the Martian magnetic field.

It is an open question as to whether Blue Origin can integrate, test, and launch ESCAPADE within the launch window, which opens in less than six weeks. Between now and then the company must successfully test fire the second stage, and then roll the first stage out to the company’s facilities at the Cape Canaveral launch complex.

The company’s plan is to mate the second and first stages of the rocket, and add the payload fairing with the spacecraft inside of it, before conducting a short hot fire test of the first stage. If all goes well, Blue Origin plans to attempt a launch during the October window for ESCAPADE. These spacecraft arrived at the company’s launch facilities a couple of weeks ago.

This seems like an ambitious timeline for the new rocket, as final integration of stages is often where issues are discovered with new launch vehicles. However, Blue Origin has found a new sense or urgency under chief executive Dave Limp, who joined the company in December—hence the frenetic activity with the second stage over the Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States.

The road to commercial heavy lift

Limp led devices and services at Amazon for more than a decade, which included oversight of the Project Kuiper satellite project. In his nine months at Blue Origin, he has prioritized completion and launch of the New Glenn rocket amid a large portfolio of projects at the company.

New Glenn will join SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Starship rockets as privately developed, heavy lift rockets. Its debut will confirm the trend in US spaceflight toward commercial developed large rockets that can be reused. Both Bezos and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have identified lower cost, rapidly reusable rockets as a key to expanding human activity in outer space. Bezos would like to see mining and other destructive industrial activities moved off world in order to preserve the natural vitality of Earth.

Whether it launches ESCAPADE next month, or some other payload on its debut flight after October, New Glenn will attempt an ambitious drone ship landing of the first stage on its debut launch. Success is unlikely—SpaceX did not manage to land its first Falcon 9 at sea until the 23rd launch of this rocket.

However, Bezos and Blue Origin are determined to gather all of the data possible from New Glenn’s initial flight in order to reach reusability of the larger booster as soon as possible. The attempt, whether successful or not, should make for compelling viewing.

The New Glenn rocket’s second stage set to roll to the launch pad on Monday Read More »

audi-replaces-its-bestseller—here’s-the-next-q5-suv

Audi replaces its bestseller—here’s the next Q5 SUV

Audi Q5, Cars / /

q continuum —

Yet again, the US misses out on some options, like the mild hybrid.

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A blue Audi SQ5 and a black Audi Q5 seen in a studio

Enlarge / The third-generation Audi SQ5 (blue) and Q5 (black) go on sale early next year.

Audi

MUNICH—Germany’s triumvirate of luxury automakers made their reputations off the backs of sedans, but the uncomfortable fact is that these days, they sell far more in the way of SUVs and crossovers, particularly in North America, where the prevailing sentiment is that station wagons belong with bell bottom jeans in the suburbs of the ’70s and hatchbacks are reserved for college kids. The ur-Quattro might have made Audi famous, but the Q5 is what keeps it profitable.

There’s a new Q5 on the way, the third in its line. As global electrification timelines are proving to be a little slower than once predicted, automakers are responding accordingly, and at Audi, that has meant developing Premium Platform Combustion, a new flexible architecture for internal combustion engine-powered vehicles (including hybrids) that combines the latest in software-defined vehicle technology with more fuel-efficient powertrains and the latest active and passive safety standards.

In mid-July, we published our first look at the first car to use PPC, the next Audi A5. Expect the SUV you see in this article to be a far more common sight in the US.

The new Q5 is a curvier-looking car than I expected given Audi’s propensity for designing and producing cars with complicated creased body panels—here, that’s relegated to the treatment along the lower parts of the doors. Audi’s growing expertise in streamlining its electric vehicles has been applied to the Q5 as well, although exactly how much it has helped fuel efficiency will remain unclear until closer to the Q5 actually going on sale in the US early next year.

  • The new Q5 gets bigger holes in the radiator grille, which is now more of a 3D design. The grille also conceals the forward-looking sensors. And the air vents are real air vents, not just for show.

    Audi

  • The new Q5 has more room inside for rear passengers and cargo.

    Audi

  • The Q5’s spoiler projects a brake light onto the rear window across its entire length, in addition to providing direct light.

    Audi

  • The SQ5 is the sportier version.

    Audi

  • SQ6s get round tailpipes.

    Audi

  • The interior layout is quite cosseting.

    Audi

When that happens, we’ll be restricted to a pair of models. There’s a 268 hp (200 kW) 2.0 L four-cylinder TSFI engine that powers the Q5, or a 362 hp (270 kW) 3.0 L V6, which powers the SQ5. Both are all-wheel drive, and both use seven-speed dual-clutch transmissions. But we won’t get a less-powerful 2.0 L Q5 here, nor the 48 V mild-hybrid powertrain.

The US is also set to miss out on the animations in the Q5’s taillights. Like the A5, A6 e-tron, and Q6 e-tron, our cars will still arrive with three-dimensional OLED light clusters, but owners will have to content themselves with the ability to pick between eight different static themes. And don’t expect to be able to order a Q5 with a cloth interior—American Audi customers just want leather, apparently.

The similarities with the A5 continue on the inside. There’s more headroom, and it’s an airier cabin generally given the larger internal volume, but the layout of the dash, console, and infotainment screens is basically the same, including the optional passenger infotainment screen, which has an active privacy mode, so the driver can’t see what’s being displayed while the car is moving.

Pricing should be available closer to the Q5 going on sale in early 2025.

Audi replaces its bestseller—here’s the next Q5 SUV Read More »

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Rocket Report: Blue Origin flies six to space; when will Starship launch again?

Science, Space / /

Nat-sec bonafides —

It seems like we’ll have to wait a bit for ABL to put another rocket on the launch pad.

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The first stage of the RFA One rocket collapses on its launch pad in Scotland after an aborted test-firing.

Enlarge / The first stage of the RFA One rocket collapses on its launch pad in Scotland after an aborted test-firing.

Welcome to Edition 7.09 of the Rocket Report! When will SpaceX launch the next test flight of Starship? It certainly doesn’t look to be imminent, with SpaceX ground teams in Texas feverishly working to beef up the launch pad in preparation for an attempt to catch the rocket’s massive Super Heavy booster when it returns to the launch site on the next flight. Meanwhile, the FAA is reviewing SpaceX’s proposal to recover the booster on land for the first time. And on Thursday, a NASA official monitoring SpaceX’s Starship effort said the next test flight was scheduled for launch in the “fall,” suggesting it could be a month or more away. Also, we’ve listed the next three launches as “TBD” (To Be Determined) because SpaceX is waiting for FAA approval to resume Falcon 9 launches following a booster landing failure this week, and the Polaris Dawn mission is on hold due to an unfavorable weather forecast.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Firefly has a new chief executive. Jason Kim, former head of Boeing-owned satellite-maker Millennium Space Systems, has been appointed CEO of Firefly Aerospace effective October 1, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Kim joins Firefly as the ambitious space transportation startup, which has raised close to $600 million from investors since its 2021 founding, looks to launch a commercial lunar lander for NASA before the end of the year. Firefly is also working on a medium-lift rocket in partnership with Northrop Grumman, with the goal of competing for missions to resupply the International Space Station and launch payloads for the US military and commercial customers.

Kim brings national security chops … At Millennium, Kim shepherded several national security space missions to completion, including Victus Nox, a responsive satellite and launch mission for the US Space Force. Millennium manufactured the satellite for the Victus Nox mission, and Firefly Aerospace successfully launched it on an Alpha rocket just 27 hours after receiving the launch order from the military. This required Millennium and Firefly to integrate the satellite with the Alpha rocket on short notice. Kim replaces Bill Weber, who left the CEO role at Firefly in July after allegations he had an improper relationship with a female employee.

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

New Shepard flies again. Blue Origin launched six passengers, including a NASA-sponsored researcher and the youngest woman to fly in space, on a sub-orbital trip out of the lower atmosphere Thursday in the company’s eighth crewed spaceflight, CBS News reports. University of Florida researcher Rob Ferl, philanthropist Nicolina Elrick, adventurer Eugene Grin, Vanderbilt University cardiologist Elman Jahangir, American-Israeli entrepreneur Ephraim Rabin, and University of North Carolina senior Karsen Kitchen lifted off from Jeff Bezos’ West Texas launch site on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. Kitchen became the youngest woman to fly higher than 100 kilometers (62 miles), and Ferl was the first NASA-funded researcher to fly on a suborbital rocket. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, its competitor in the suborbital human spaceflight market, have long touted their vehicles’ ability to support human-tended research in microgravity.

Three good chutes … This was Blue Origin’s first New Shepard flight since May 19, when one of the crew capsule’s three main parachutes failed to open fully on the descent. The passengers on that flight were fine, and Blue Origin says the capsule can return safely with just a single parachute if two fail. Blue Origin said it identified the cause of the parachute issue on the May flight, but didn’t offer details other than that the investigation “focused on the dis-reefing system that transitions the parachutes from the reefed to the disreefed state that did not function as designed on one of the three parachutes on NS-25,” Space News reports.

ABL’s rocket test failure damaged ground systems. A fiery malfunction on an Alaska launch pad last month not only destroyed the RS1 rocket ABL Space Systems was preparing for launch, but also damaged some ground systems at the site, ABL said in an update posted on X. The company said a fire developed “external to RS1’s base” after the booster’s 11 engines shut down during an aborted test-firing at Kodiak Island, Alaska. The fire was fed by fuel leaks from two of the engines, and ABL’s launch team was able to use water and inert gases to suppress the fire for more than 11 minutes. But the remote launch site doesn’t have a direct water supply, and mobile water tanks ran dry, causing the fire to grow until the rocket collapsed. ABL said a majority of the plumbing and electrical connections to the launch mount were damaged, but the launch mount’s structure, flame deflector, and other equipment were unharmed.

Few details on next steps … ABL published a detailed update on its investigation into the test failure, and its openness is worth noting. Engineers found two of the engines—the ones that leaked and fueled the fire—experienced “combustion instability” during their startup sequence. ABL said it believes differences in this RS1 rocket, called a Block 2 design, resulted in a higher-energy startup than expected. The company will return its damaged ground support equipment from Alaska to a facility in Long Beach, California, for refurbishment, and ABL says its next RS1 rocket is “well into production.” But the company didn’t share any information on corrective actions or a timeline for implementing them and returning to the launch pad with RS1. ABL aims to compete with other, more established small satellite launch companies like Rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace, but its RS1 rocket hasn’t made it far from the launch pad. ABL’s first orbital launch attempt in January 2023 ended when the RS1 rocket lost power and fell back on its launch pad.

Rocket Report: Blue Origin flies six to space; when will Starship launch again? Read More »

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Agatha All Along’s latest teaser hints at one character’s true identity

Agatha All Along, culture, Disney Plus, mcu, MCU Phase Five, streaming television / /

Some intriguing speculation —

“This journey… it’s a death wish.”

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Kathryn Hahn reprises her WandaVision role as Agatha Harkness in the spinoff series Agatha All Along.

Disney introduced the poster and first full trailer for Agatha All Along during its annual D23 Expo earlier this month. And now Marvel Studios has dropped a one-minute teaser that has fans wildly speculating about the possible true identity of one character in particular, who might just be a future Young Avenger.

(Spoilers for WandaVision below.)

As previously reported, the nine-episode series, starring Kathryn Hahn, is one of the TV series in the MCU’s Phase Five, coming on the heels of Secret Invasion, Loki S2, What If…? S2, and Echo. Agatha All Along has been in the works since 2021, officially announced in November of that year, inspired by Hahn’s breakout performance in WandaVision as nosy neighbor Agnes—but secretly a powerful witch named Agatha Harkness who was conspiring to steal Wanda’s power. The plot twist even inspired a meta-jingle that went viral. WandaVision ended with Wanda victorious (of course) and Agatha robbed of all her powers, trapped in her nosy neighbor persona. This new series picks up where WandaVision left Agatha, and apparently we can expect a few more catchy tunes. Per the official premise:

The infamous Agatha Harkness finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious goth teen helps break her free from a distorted spell. Her interest is piqued when he begs her to take him on the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing. Together, Agatha and this mysterious teen pull together a desperate coven, and set off down, down, down The Road…

In addition to Hahn, the cast includes Aubrey Plaza as warrior witch Rio Vidal; Joe Locke as Billy, a teenaged familiar; Patti LuPone as a 450-year-old Sicilian witch named Lilia Calderu; Sasheer Zamata as sorceress Jennifer Kale; Ali Ahn as a witch named Alice; and Miles Gutierrez-Riley as Billy’s boyfriend. Debra Jo Rupp reprises her WandaVision role as Sharon Davis (“Mrs. Hart” in the meta-sitcom), here becoming a member of Agatha’s coven. Also reprising their WandaVision roles: Emma Caulfield Ford as Sarah Proctor (aka “Dottie Jones”); David Payton as John Collins (“Herb”); David Lengel as Harold Proctor (“Phil Jones”); Asif Ali as Abilash Tandon (“Norm”); Amos Glick (pizza delivery man “Dennis”); Kate Forbes as Agatha’s mother, Evanora; and Brian Brightman as the Eastview, New Jersey, sheriff.

This latest teaser opens with Billy fanboying over Agatha, newly released from her spell, admitting that he knows “an egregious amount about you”—ever since he discovered her history during “the Salem days.” WandaVision fans will recall that’s when Agatha absorbed all the power in her then-coven, killing them in the process—including her own mother. Billy admires the fact that Agatha is the only witch to have ever survived the Witches’ Road. But when she asks him who he is, a magical script covers his mouth and garbles his answer. Naturally Agatha finds this intriguing.

Given that the squiggly script resembles an ornate “M,” (or possibly a “W” and “V”) fans are speculating that Billy is connected to Wanda Maximoff—possibly a young Billy Kaplan, who goes on to become Wiccan of the Young Avengers, one of Wanda and Vision’s twin sons. Those sons technically ceased to exist when Wanda ended her reality-warping spell in WandaVision‘s finale. But does anybody ever really cease to exist in the MCU? (The twins were eventually reborn in the comics, with Tommy becoming Speed.)

The first two episodes of Agatha All Along drop on September 18, 2024, on Disney+, with episodes airing weekly after that through November 6. It looks like dark, spooky fun, just in time for the Halloween season.

Listing image by YouTube/Marvel

Agatha All Along’s latest teaser hints at one character’s true identity Read More »

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City of Columbus sues man after he discloses severity of ransomware attack

Biz & IT, lawsuits, personal information, Policy, ransomware, Security / /

WHISTLEBLOWER IN LEGAL CROSSHAIRS —

Mayor said data was unusable to criminals; researcher proved otherwise.

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A ransom note is plastered across a laptop monitor.

A judge in Ohio has issued a temporary restraining order against a security researcher who presented evidence that a recent ransomware attack on the city of Columbus scooped up reams of sensitive personal information, contradicting claims made by city officials.

The order, issued by a judge in Ohio’s Franklin County, came after the city of Columbus fell victim to a ransomware attack on July 18 that siphoned 6.5 terabytes of the city’s data. A ransomware group known as Rhysida took credit for the attack and offered to auction off the data with a starting bid of about $1.7 million in bitcoin. On August 8, after the auction failed to find a bidder, Rhysida released what it said was about 45 percent of the stolen data on the group’s dark web site, which is accessible to anyone with a TOR browser.

Dark web not readily available to public—really?

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said on August 13 that a “breakthrough” in the city’s forensic investigation of the breach found that the sensitive files Rhysida obtained were either encrypted or corrupted, making them “unusable” to the thieves. Ginther went on to say the data’s lack of integrity was likely the reason the ransomware group had been unable to auction off the data.

Shortly after Ginther made his remarks, security researcher David Leroy Ross contacted local news outlets and presented evidence that showed the data Rhysida published was fully intact and contained highly sensitive information regarding city employees and residents. Ross, who uses the alias Connor Goodwolf, presented screenshots and other data that showed the files Rhysida had posted included names from domestic violence cases and Social Security numbers for police officers and crime victims. Some of the data spanned years.

On Thursday, the city of Columbus sued Ross for alleged damages for criminal acts, invasion of privacy, negligence, and civil conversion. The lawsuit claimed that downloading documents from a dark web site run by ransomware attackers amounted to him “interacting” with them and required special expertise and tools. The suit went on to challenge Ross alerting reporters to the information, which ii claimed would not be easily obtained by others.

“Only individuals willing to navigate and interact with the criminal element on the dark web, who also have the computer expertise and tools necessary to download data from the dark web, would be able to do so,” city attorneys wrote. “The dark web-posted data is not readily available for public consumption. Defendant is making it so.”

The same day, a Franklin County judge granted the city’s motion for a temporary restraining order against Ross. It bars the researcher “from accessing, and/or downloading, and/or disseminating” any city files that were posted to the dark web. The motion was made and granted “ex parte,” meaning in secret before Ross was informed of it or had an opportunity to present his case.

In a press conference Thursday, Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein defended his decision to sue Ross and obtain the restraining order.

“This is not about freedom of speech or whistleblowing,” he said. “This is about the downloading and disclosure of stolen criminal investigatory records. This effect is to get [Ross] to stop downloading and disclosing stolen criminal records to protect public safety.”

The Columbus city attorney’s office didn’t respond to questions sent by email. It did provide the following statement:

The lawsuit filed by the City of Columbus pertains to stolen data that Mr. Ross downloaded from the dark web to his own, local device and disseminated to the media. In fact, several outlets used the stolen data provided by Ross to go door-to-door and contact individuals using names and addresses contained within the stolen data. As has now been extensively reported, Mr. Ross also showed multiple news outlets stolen, confidential data belonging to the City which he claims reveal the identities of undercover police officers and crime victims as well as evidence from active criminal investigations. Sharing this stolen data threatens public safety and the integrity of the investigations. The temporary restraining order granted by the Court prohibits Mr. Ross from disseminating any of the City’s stolen data. Mr. Ross is still free to speak about the cyber incident and even describe what kind of data is on the dark web—he just cannot disseminate that data.

Attempts to reach Ross for comment were unsuccessful. Email sent to the Columbus mayor’s office went unanswered.

A screenshot showing the Rhysida dark web site.

Enlarge / A screenshot showing the Rhysida dark web site.

As shown above in the screenshot of the Rhysida dark web site on Friday morning, the sensitive data remains available to anyone who looks for it. Friday’s order may bar Ross from accessing the data or disseminating it to reporters, but it has no effect on those who plan to use the data for malicious purposes.

City of Columbus sues man after he discloses severity of ransomware attack Read More »

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Boeing will try to fly its troubled Starliner capsule back to Earth next week

Boeing, commercial crew, Commercial space, human spaceflight, international space station, NASA, Science, Space, starliner / /

Destination desert —

The two astronauts who launched on Starliner will stay behind on the International Space Station.

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Boeing's Starliner spacecraft undocks from the International Space Station at the conclusion of an unpiloted test flight in May 2022.

Enlarge / Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft undocks from the International Space Station at the conclusion of an unpiloted test flight in May 2022.

NASA

NASA and Boeing are proceeding with final preparations to undock the Starliner spacecraft from the International Space Station next Friday, September 6, to head for landing at White Sands Space Harbor in southern New Mexico.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were supposed to return to Earth inside Starliner, will remain behind on the space station after NASA decided last week to conclude the Boeing test flight without its crew on board. NASA officials decided it was too risky to put the astronauts on Starliner after the spacecraft suffered thruster failures during its flight to the space station in early June.

Instead, Wilmore and Williams will come home on a SpaceX Dragon capsule no earlier than February, extending their planned stay on the space station from eight days to eight months. Flying on autopilot, the Starliner spacecraft is scheduled to depart the station at approximately 6: 04 pm EDT (22: 04 UTC) on September 6. The capsule will fire its engines to drop out of orbit and target a parachute-assisted landing in New Mexico at 12: 03 am EDT (04: 03 UTC) on September 7, NASA said in a statement Thursday.

NASA officials completed the second part of a two-day Flight Readiness Review on Thursday to clear the Starliner spacecraft for undocking and landing. However, there are strict weather rules for landing a Starliner spacecraft, so NASA and Boeing managers will decide next week whether to proceed with the return next Friday night or wait for better conditions at the White Sands landing zone.

Over the last few days, flight controllers updated parameters in Starliner’s software to handle a fully autonomous return to Earth without inputs from astronauts flying in the cockpit, NASA said. Boeing has flown two unpiloted Starliner test flights using the same type of autonomous reentry and landing operations. This mission, called the Crew Flight Test (CFT), was the first time astronauts launched into orbit inside a Starliner spacecraft, and was expected to pave the way for future operational missions to rotate four-person crews to and from the space station.

With the Starliner spacecraft unable to complete its test flight as intended, there are fundamental questions about the future of Boeing’s commercial crew program. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said last week that Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, told him the aerospace company remained committed to Starliner. However, Boeing will be on the hook to pay for the cost of resolving problems with overheating thrusters and helium leaks that hamstrung the CFT mission. Boeing hasn’t made any public statements about the long-term future of the Starliner program since NASA decided to pull its astronauts off the spacecraft for its return to Earth.

Preparing for a contingency

NASA is clearly more comfortable with returning Wilmore and Williams to Earth inside SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, but the change disrupts crew operations at the space station. This week, astronauts have been reconfiguring the interior of a Dragon spacecraft currently docked at the outpost to support six crew members in the event of an emergency evacuation.

With Starliner leaving the space station next week, Dragon will become the lifeboat for Wilmore and Williams. If a fire, a collision with space junk, a medical emergency, or something else forces the crew to leave the complex, the Starliner astronauts will ride home on makeshift seats positioned under the four regular seats inside Dragon, where crews typically put cargo during launch and landing.

At least one of the Starliner astronauts would have to come home without a spacesuit to protect them if the cabin of the Dragon spacecraft depressurized on the descent. This has never happened on a Dragon mission before, but astronauts wear SpaceX-made pressure suits to mitigate the risk. The four astronauts who launched on Dragon have their suits, and NASA officials said a spare SpaceX suit already on the space station fit one of the Starliner astronauts, but they didn’t identify which one.

A pressure suit for the other Starliner crew member will launch on the next Dragon spacecraft—on the Crew-9 mission—set for liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than September 24. Starliner’s troubles have also disrupted plans for the Crew-9 mission.

On Friday, NASA announced it would remove two astronauts from the Crew-9 mission, including its commander, Zena Cardman, who is a spaceflight rookie. Veteran astronaut Nick Hague will move from the pilot’s seat to take over as Crew-9 commander. Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will join him.

NASA and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, have an agreement to launch Russian cosmonauts on Dragon missions and US astronauts on Russian Soyuz flights to the station. In exchange for NASA providing a ride for Gorbunov, NASA astronaut Don Pettit will fly to the space station on a Soyuz spacecraft next month.

The so-called “seat swap” arrangement ensures that, even if Dragon or Soyuz were grounded, there is always at least one US astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut on the station overseeing each partner’s segment of the outpost, maintaining propulsion, power generating, pointing control, thermal control, and other critical capabilities to keep the lab operational.

Boeing will try to fly its troubled Starliner capsule back to Earth next week Read More »