Critical rocket escape system motor for NASA’s Orion spacecrafy aces final test

https://www.space.com/nasa-orion-launch-escape-attitude-control-motor-final-test-video.html

NASA’s Orion spacecraft has achieved a new milestone with a successful final test of the vehicle’s attitude-control motor (ACM) Tuesday (Feb. 25). 

Orion is designed to carry astronauts to the moon for NASA’s planned 2024 Artemis mission. The ACM steers and orients Orion’s launch-abort system, which would carry the crew to safety in the event of an emergency during launch or ascent. 

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February 28, 2020 at 06:13AM

Baldur’s Gate III Devs Open Up About Stadia Exclusivity, Suggest Game Wouldn’t Run On PS4/Xbox One

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/baldurs-gate-iii-devs-open-up-about-stadia-exclusi/1100-6474215/?ftag=CAD-01-10abi2f

Baldur’s Gate III has been unveiled, featuring a turn-based combat system and some powerful cinematics. Now, with the game being shown at PAX East, more information is coming to light about the game as outlets talk to the creative forces behind it. One that that has come up a few times is the fact that the game is skipping PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but will be available for Google Stadia.

Talking to Eurogamer, design producer David Walgrave says that he isn’t convinced the game would run efficiently on the other consoles. “I don’t think that current-gen consoles would be able to run it,” Walgrave says. “There’s a lot of technical upgrades and updates that we did to our engine, and I don’t know if it would be capable of being able to actually run on those things.”

He concedes that it might work if they tweaked the textures, but “It wouldn’t look as cool anymore.” He also says that the game will come to PC and Stadia simultaneously in early access; although Stadia does not have an official term for Early Access as of yet, he says that it will largely be the same as it is on PC.

Meanwhile, speaking to USGamer, Walgrave has spoken further on working with the Stadia platform. “We know where they’re going, we know what to implement with their API, so we just implement that,” he told the site. He says that the team “follow(s) the news” and is aware that not everyone loves the system, but that’s okay–“”We also think that there are certain features that we’re building thanks to Stadia.”

For more on the game, check out GameSpot’s own interview with Larian creative director Swen Wincke about how the game will continue on the series’ legacy.

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February 27, 2020 at 10:30PM

Microlino bubble car-inspired EV reboots at Geneva auto show

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/02/27/updated-microlino-ev-bubble-car-debuts/

The original Micro Mobility Systems (MMS) Microlino electric vehicle never made it to series production, but the car is already getting a second generation. Set to debut at the 2020 Geneva Motor Show, the Microlino 2.0 will feature a new design, more space, better driving dynamics, and a safer structure. With about 17,000 reservations in hand, MMS is now planning production to begin in 2021. But there’s a lot more to this story to tell.

The Microlino has been around for less than five years, but it has had a complicated path. To produce the electric bubble car, which MMS adamantly says is not associated with the Iso or BMW Isetta, MMS first teamed up with an electric vehicle (EV) company called Tazzari. Under the Tazzari umbrella, a company called TMI was set to develop and manufacturer the Microlino. But in 2018, TMI was sold to Artega, the same Artega that proposed the Henrik Fisker-designed GT (now the Chinese Saleen S1), and the Scalo EV

Without consulting MMS, Artega tried to launch its own rebadged version of the Microlino under the name Karolino, according to InsideEVs. After some legal wrangling (including attempts to block the Karolino from the 2019 Geneva Auto Show), MMS settled with Artega and TMI out of court. In the end, the companies agreed to part ways in a manner that benefitted both parties. Artega would be allowed to sell the rebadged Microlino 1.0 as the renamed Karo, and MMS would work with a new partner, Italian company CECOMP, to produce the upgraded Microlino 2.0.

Making things stranger than fiction, MMS also announced it has hired former Porsche and BMW product manager Peter Müller to be the new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and a member of the board of Microlino AG. Müller was also the Chief Operating Officer (COO), then the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Artega from 2009 to 2012. 

As part of the process of developing Microlino 2.0, the 17,000 customers who had submitted pre-orders took a feedback survey and helped pick the design of the new vehicle, which has fresh sleek exterior. It also has a wider rear track for better stability, a redesigned chassis for improved handling, and a wholly redesigned vehicle structure for increased safety. The A-pillar is thinner for better visibility, and MMS says the interior will be much roomier and more ergonomic than the previous model. This includes a new fixed steering column rather than a foldable column. 

As for power and efficiency, the Microlino 2.0 claims to have a “stronger and more efficient e-motor,” though no specs were provided. The old model made 15 horsepower and 74 lb-ft of torque and had two batteries options: an 8-kWh battery provided up to 77 miles of range or a 14.4-kWh battery provided up to 124 miles. With a stated weight of 1,131 pounds, the Microlino 1.0 could do run to 31 mph in five seconds. The base price of the Microlino does not change from the original and will start at a little more than $13,000. Production of the Microlino 2.0 is now scheduled for 2021.

Along with the Microlino 2.0, MMS will also show a new three-wheel mobility scooter called the Microletta at the 2020 Geneva Motor Show.

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February 27, 2020 at 12:01PM

China Pulls Plague Inc. From App Store

https://kotaku.com/china-pulls-plague-inc-from-app-store-1841955831

The creators of the popular plague simulator say it was taken down by China’s Cyberspace Administration over “illegal” content.

“We’ve just been informed that Plague Inc. ‘includes content that is illegal in China as determined by the Cyberspace Administration of China’ and has been removed from the China App Store,” Ndemic Creations said in a statement on its website today. “This situation is completely out of our control.”

First released in 2012, Plague Inc. challenges players to try and wipe out the human race by creating a deadly pathogen. The more people fall sick, the more DNA points you accrue with which to mutate and become even deadlier. Because China is the most populous country on earth, it’s a popular place for players to put their patient zero.

The game’s removal comes amidst the ongoing outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. According to a report by the World Health Organization earlier this week, the virus has infected over 79,000 people globally with 77,262 of those cases appearing in China. It’s unclear if the game’s sudden removal from China’s App Store, where it’s been available for several years, is related to the Chinese government’s attempts to manage public perception about the COVID-19 outbreak or issues related to new video game licensing laws that went into effect after Plague Inc. was originally released.

Plague Inc. surged in popularity in China in late January as the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 grew. Something similar happened in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak. In response, Ndemic Creations released a statement on January 23 trying to discourage people from using the game as a source of information about the outbreak.

“We specifically designed the game to be realistic and informative, while not sensationalising serious real-world issues,” the company said. “However, please remember that Plague Inc. is a game, not a scientific model, and that the current coronavirus outbreak is a very real situation which is impacting a huge number of people. We would always recommend that players get their information directly from local and global health authorities.”

via Kotaku https://kotaku.com

February 27, 2020 at 11:44AM

Citroen Ami electric car is not even a car, but for $22 a month, who cares?

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/02/27/citroen-ami-electric-car/

Citroën expanded its lineup towards the bottom by introducing an electric, two-seater city car you don’t need a license to drive. Called Ami, it was developed with both private users and car-sharing programs in mind.

The newest addition to the Citroën range is about a foot shorter than a Smart ForTwo, shaped like a vacuum cleaner attachment, and named after a slightly more conventional-looking vintage model introduced in 1961. It looks like a car, and it’s ostensibly marketed as one, but the French government begs to differ; the Ami joins the Renault Twizy in the light quadricycle segment, meaning anyone can drive one without a license as long as they’re at least 14. The catch is that its top speed is limited to precisely 27.9 mph — on flat ground, of course.

Power comes from an eight-horsepower motor, which is enough to move a 1,070-pound vehicle. Citroën quoted up to 43 miles of driving range thanks to a 5.5-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery stuffed under the floor. Charging the tiny pack takes three hours when using a standard 220-volt outlet found in every European house, though it’s also compatible with public charging stations. Fourteen-inch wheels deliver “easy handling,” according to the firm.

Visually, the Ami takes the quirkiness Citroën is known for to new heights with a head-turning, opinion-splitting design loosely inspired by the Ami One concept unveiled in 2019. It offers space for two passengers in closed, heated cabin with a panoramic sunroof and windows that flip up manually like on the emblematic 2CV. The interior is more practical than its dimensions suggest because users have numerous storage bins at their disposal. The instrument cluster consists of a small, rectangular LCD screen. Want music? There’s a smartphone cradle for that, and a place to put a Bluetooth-enabled speaker. Want navigation? Again, use the cradle. Keeping the Ami as basic as possible allowed Citroën to make it cheap, though there’s no word yet on where it’s built.

Citroën envisions several use cases for the Ami. Motorists can lease one for €19.99 (about $22) per month after making a €2,644 (around $2,900) down payment. They can purchase their Ami (which, by the way, means “friend” in French) for €6,000, or approximately $6,600, or they’re able to reserve one for roughly 30 cents a minute via app-based car-sharing programs in select cities. It’s cheaper than many scooters no matter how you look at it.

Those who choose to buy or lease one will be able to order it online and get it delivered straight to their door, Amazon-style. Citroën will begin taking orders on March 30, and the first deliveries are scheduled for June.

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February 27, 2020 at 11:04AM

A Flaw in Billions of Wi-Fi Chips Let Attackers Decrypt Data

https://www.wired.com/story/a-flaw-in-billions-of-wi-fi-chips-let-attackers-decrypt-data

Billions of devices—many of them already patched—are affected by a Wi-Fi vulnerability that allows nearby attackers to decrypt sensitive data sent over the air, researchers said on Wednesday at the RSA security conference.

ARS TECHNICA

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED’s parent company, Condé Nast.

The vulnerability exists in Wi-Fi chips made by Cypress Semiconductor and Broadcom, the latter a chipmaker Cypress acquired in 2016. The affected devices include iPhones, iPads, Macs, Amazon Echos and Kindles, Android devices, and Wi-Fi routers from Asus and Huawei, as well as the Raspberry Pi 3. Eset, the security company that discovered the vulnerability, said the flaw primarily affects Cypress’ and Broadcom’s FullMAC WLAN chips, which are used in billions of devices. Eset has named the vulnerability Kr00k, and it is tracked as CVE-2019-15126.

Manufacturers have made patches available for most or all of the affected devices, but it’s not clear how many devices have installed the patches. Of greatest concern are vulnerable wireless routers, which often go unpatched indefinitely.

“This results in scenarios where client devices that are unaffected (either patched or using different Wi-Fi chips not vulnerable to Kr00k) can be connected to an access point (often times beyond an individual’s control) that is vulnerable,” Eset researchers wrote in a research paper published on Wednesday. “The attack surface is greatly increased, since an adversary can decrypt data that was transmitted by a vulnerable access point to a specific client (which may or may not be vulnerable itself).”

A Key Consisting of All Zeros

Kr00k exploits a weakness that occurs when wireless devices disassociate from a wireless access point. If either the end user device or the access point is vulnerable, it will put any unsent data frames into a transmit buffer and then send them over the air. Rather than encrypt this data with the session key negotiated earlier and used during the normal connection, vulnerable devices use a key consisting of all zeros, a move that makes decryption trivial.

Disassociation typically happens when a client device roams from one Wi-Fi access point to another, encounters signal interference, or has its Wi-Fi turned off. Hackers within range of a vulnerable client device or access point can easily trigger disassociations by sending what’s known as management frames, which aren’t encrypted and require no authentication. This lack of security allows an attacker to forge management frames that manually trigger a disassociation.

With the forced disassociation, vulnerable devices will typically transmit several kilobytes of data that’s encrypted with the all-zero session key. The hacker can then capture and decrypt the data. Eset researcher Robert Lipovsky told me hackers can trigger multiple disassociations to further the chances of obtaining useful data.

Eset researchers determined that a variety of devices are vulnerable, including the following:

  • Amazon Echo 2nd gen
  • Amazon Kindle 8th gen
  • Apple iPad mini 2
  • Apple iPhone 6, 6S, 8, XR
  • Apple MacBook Air Retina 13-inch 2018
  • Google Nexus 5
  • Google Nexus 6
  • Google Nexus 6S
  • Raspberry Pi 3
  • Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9505
  • Samsung Galaxy S8
  • Xiaomi Redmi 3S

The researchers also found that the following wireless routers are vulnerable:

  • Asus RT-N12
  • Huawei B612S-25d
  • Huawei EchoLife HG8245H
  • Huawei E5577Cs-321

An Apple spokesman said the vulnerabilities were patched last October with details for macOS here and for iOS and iPadOS here.

Manufacturers of other vulnerable devices that still receive patch support couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The researchers tested Wi-Fi chips from other manufacturers, including Mediatek, Ralink, Realtek, and Qualcomm, and found no evidence any of them were vulnerable. Since it was impossible for the researchers to test all devices, it’s possible that other devices using Cypress and Broadcom chips are also affected.

While the vulnerability is interesting and users should make sure their devices are patched quickly—if they aren’t already—there are a few things that minimize the real-world threat posed. For one thing, most sensitive communications in 2020 are already encrypted, usually with the transport layer security protocol or by other methods. A glaring exception to this is domain name lookups, which, unless a computer is using DNS over HTTPS or DNS over TLS, are sent entirely over plaintext. Hackers who viewed these requests would be able to learn what domain names users were accessing.

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February 27, 2020 at 09:08AM

Raspberry Pi 4 with 2GB of RAM is now $35

https://www.legitreviews.com/raspberry-pi-4-with-2gb-of-ram-is-now-35_217747

Raspberry Pi Foundation is currently celebrating its eighth anniversary, and it’s giving fans the gifts. The company has announced that the Raspberry Pi 4 with 2 GB of RAM is now available to purchase for $35. That makes the latest version the same price as the first version that launched about eight years ago.

The Pi 4 2GB device launched at $45, making a $10 discount on what’s already one of the cheapest developer boards out there. The company has come a long way in the last eight years and has sold over 30 million units with each successive version offering better performance.

The Pi 4 2GB is eight times the memory, ten times the I/O bandwidth, handles four times the number of pixels on the screen, and has dual-band wireless networking. The new $35 price isn’t a sale; it is the new permanent price for the device.

Oddly, the 1GB version sells for the same $35. The company notes that $35 in 2012 is equivalent to about $40 today, meaning that the current generation product is five dollars cheaper than the original. The 4GB version will remain at $55. With the 2GB and 1GB versions at the same price, the company expects the vast majority to choose the 2GB version.

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February 27, 2020 at 10:16AM