ArsTechnica
Measles outbreak hits 208 cases as federal response goes off the rails
The measles outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico has reached 208 cases.
Texas officials reported 198 confirmed cases across nine counties as of Friday, with 23 people requiring hospitalization since the outbreak exploded at the end of January. Most of the cases continue to be in children and teens, with 153 of the 198 cases being between the ages of 0 and 17. Eleven cases have no confirmed age listed. All but five cases are in people who are unvaccinated or have no vaccination record.
Texas officials have so far reported one death in the outbreak in an unvaccinated school-aged child with no underlying health conditions. Media reports have identified the child as being a 6-year-old.
Feds arrest man for sharing DVD rip of Spider-Man movie with millions online
A 37-year-old Tennessee man was arrested Thursday, accused of stealing Blu-rays and DVDs from a manufacturing and distribution company used by major movie studios and sharing them online before the movies' scheduled release dates.
According to a US Department of Justice press release, Steven Hale worked at the DVD company and allegedly stole "numerous 'pre-release' DVDs and Blu-rays" between February 2021 and March 2022. He then allegedly "ripped" the movies, "bypassing encryption that prevents unauthorized copying" and shared copies widely online. He also supposedly sold the actual stolen discs on e-commerce sites, the DOJ alleged.
Hale has been charged with "two counts of criminal copyright infringement and one count of interstate transportation of stolen goods," the DOJ said. He faces a maximum sentence of five years for the former, and 10 years for the latter.
Review: Mickey 17’s dark comedic antics make for wild cinematic ride
Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-Ho returns to the big screen this weekend with the sci-fi film Mickey 17. If you're expecting the subtly devastating social commentary of his 2019 drama/horror/thriller-hybrid Parasite, I suspect you'll be disappointed. Mickey 17 is a very different beast in both aesthetic and tone. When the first trailer dropped, I wrote that the film felt like a darkly comedic version of Duncan Jones' 2009 film Moon, with a dash of the surreal absurdity of Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985) thrown in for good measure. I stand by that assessment, and it proves to be a winning combination.
(Some spoilers below but no major reveals.)
The film is based on the 2022 novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton. Ashton's inspiration for the novel was the teletransportation paradox—a thought experiment pondering the philosophy of identity that challenges certain notions of the self and consciousness. It started as a short story about what Ashton called "a crappy immortality" and expanded from there into a full-length novel. (Ashton also penned a sequel, Antimatter Blues, which was published in 2023.)
Nearly 1 million Windows devices targeted in advanced “malvertising” spree
Nearly 1 million Windows devices were targeted in recent months by a sophisticated "malvertising" campaign that surreptitiously stole login credentials, cryptocurrency, and other sensitive information from infected machines, Microsoft said.
The campaign began in December, when the attackers, who remain unknown, seeded websites with links that downloaded ads from malicious servers. The links led targeted machines through several intermediary sites until finally arriving at repositories on Microsoft-owned GitHub, which hosted a raft of malicious files.
Chain of eventsThe malware was loaded in four stages, each of which acted as a building block for the next. Early stages collected device information, presumably to tailor configurations for the later ones. Later ones disabled malware detection apps and connected to command-and-control servers; affected devices remained infected even after being rebooted.
Music labels will regret coming for the Internet Archive, sound historian says
On Thursday, music labels sought to add nearly 500 more sound recordings to a lawsuit accusing the Internet Archive (IA) of mass copyright infringement through its Great 78 Project, which seeks to digitize all 3 million three-minute recordings published on 78 revolutions-per-minute (RPM) records from about 1898 to the 1950s.
If the labels' proposed second amended complaint is accepted by the court, damages sought in the case—which some already feared could financially ruin IA and shut it down for good—could increase to almost $700 million. (Initially, the labels sought about $400 million in damages.)
IA did not respond to Ars' request for comment, but the filing noted that IA has not consented to music labels' motion to amend their complaint.
“They curdle like milk”: WB DVDs from 2006–2008 are rotting away in their cases
Although digital media has surpassed physical media in popularity, there are still plenty of reasons for movie buffs and TV fans to hold onto, and even continue buying, DVDs. With physical media, owners are assured that they'll always be able to play their favorite titles, so long as they take care of their discs. While digital copies are sometimes abruptly ripped away from viewers, physical media owners don't have to worry about a corporation ruining their Friday night movie plans. At least, that's what we thought.
It turns out that if your DVD collection includes titles distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the home movie distribution arm of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), you may one day open up the box to find a case of DVD rot.
Recently, Chris Bumbray, editor-in-chief of movie news and reviews site JoBlo, detailed what would be a harrowing experience for any film collector. He said he recently tried to play his Passage to Marseille DVD, but “after about an hour, the disc simply stopped working.” He said “the same thing happened” with Across the Pacific. Bumbray bought a new DVD player but still wasn’t able to play his Desperate Journey disc. The latter case was especially alarming because, like a lot of classic films and shows, the title isn’t available as a digital copy.
Bad vibes? Google may have screwed up haptics in the new Pixel Drop update
Google released its scheduled March Pixel Drop earlier this week, adding AI scam detection, multi-camera streaming, and—possibly—buggy haptics. Pixel owners have been grumbling about the feel of vibrations, which have been described as "springy" and "hollow." Others say the haptics have gotten distractingly harsh in some places.
Android devices have long trailed Apple when it comes to haptic feedback—the latter's Taptic Engine generally puts other phones to shame with its power and precision. However, Google has made great progress with Pixel phones. It occasionally gloats about how much Pixel haptics have improved. It would seem that this attention to detail is not born out in the latest update, though.
Some of this confusion may be down to the addition of notification cooldown, a feature that was previously only in the Android 16 beta. This opt-out feature aims to reduce the annoyance of receiving multiple notifications in quick succession. The first ping you get in a two-minute period will be normal, but if you get another within a few seconds, it will have lower volume and vibration intensity. It tapers off until notifications don't make any additional fuss. You can still find all those notifications in their usual home in the drop-down shade.
AMD says top-tier Ryzen 9900X3D and 9950X3D CPUs arrive March 12 for $599 and $699
AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D is probably the best CPU you can buy if you're trying to put together a fast gaming PC, thanks to its eight Zen 5 CPU cores and extra helping of 3D V-Cache. You don't really need more CPU cores than this to play games, and most games benefit from the extra cache more than they do from a bit of extra clock speed.
AMD announced today that it's following up the 9800X3D with two higher-end X3D processors next week. The 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D are both launching on March 12 for $599 and $699, respectively, the same as the launch pricing for the last-generation 7900X3D and 7950X3D but a couple hundred dollars more expensive than the current street pricing for the Ryzen 9900X and 9950X.
AMD recommends the 9900X3D and 9950X3D to people whose gaming PCs also do other heavy-duty non-gaming work or for streamers whose gaming PCs are simultaneously running other apps. But they might also appeal to people who would normally just buy a 9800X3D because that processor has been difficult to find at its $479 MSRP since launching last fall. If a 9800X3D already costs nearly $600, why not spring for a faster chip if you can get one?
After less than a day, the Athena lander is dead on the Moon
Intuitive Machines announced on Friday morning that its Athena mission to the surface of the Moon, which landed on its side, has ended.
"With the direction of the Sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge," the company said in a statement. "The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission."
Athena, a commercially developed lander, touched down on the lunar surface on Thursday at 11:28 am local time in Houston (17:28 UTC). The probe landed within 250 meters of its targeted landing site in the Mons Mouton region of the Moon. This is the southernmost location that any probe has landed on the Moon, within a few degrees of the lunar south pole.
Trump says bitcoin reserve will change everything. Crypto fans aren’t so sure.
Ahead of the first-ever White House Crypto Summit Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve that a factsheet claimed delivers on his promise to make America the "crypto capital of the world."
Trump's order requires all federal agencies currently holding bitcoins seized as part of a criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceeding to transfer those bitcoins to the Treasury Department, which itself already has a store of bitcoins. Additionally, any other digital assets forfeited will be collected in a separate Digital Assets Stockpile.
But while Trump likely anticipates that bitcoin fans will be over the moon about this news—his announcement of the reserve and looser crypto regulations helped send bitcoin's price to its all-time high of $109,000 in January, Reuters noted—some cryptocurrency enthusiasts were clearly disappointed that Trump's order confirmed that the US currently has no plans to buy any more bitcoins at this time.
Maserati kills electric version of MC20 supercar for lack of demand
Electric motors are, in so many ways, much better than internal combustion engines. They don't waste most of the energy you put into them as heat and sound, they're easy to control, and they make huge amounts of torque almost instantly. Having recently driven BMW's 430i and i4 back to back over the course of two weeks, the electric version was easier in traffic and more responsive on a twisty road. Electric wins, then. Except at the very high end, it seems.
Because even though electric motors can pack a punch, people paying big money for super- and hypercars are increasingly disinterested in those cars being electrified. So much so that Maserati has canceled the all-electric version of the MC20.
The MC20 debuted in 2020. No longer associated with Ferrari after that brand was spun out and IPO'd, the MC20 could offer a full carbon-fiber monocoque and an engine with very clever F1-derived combustion technology, undercutting its now-independent Italian competitor to the tune of more than $100,000 in the process.
White House may seek to slash NASA’s science budget by 50 percent
Although the Trump administration will not publicly release its budget request for at least a few more weeks, senior agency officials are starting to be briefed on the president's priorities.
This includes NASA. As expected, the president's plan for the space agency includes some significant shakeups, including a desire to move elements of NASA headquarters to field centers around the country. However, in perhaps the most drastic change, the White House seeks to massively cut funding for science programs at the space agency.
Multiple people familiar with the White House proposal said cuts to NASA's "Science Mission Directorate" could be as high as 50 percent. These sources emphasized that no decisions are final, and there are some scenarios in which the cuts to NASA's science programs would be less. But the intent is to slash science.
Rocket Report: Starship fails for a second time; what’s to blame for Vulcan delays?
Welcome to Edition 7.34 of the Rocket Report! What a day in space Thursday was. During the morning hours we saw the triumphant second flight of the Ariane 6 rocket, a pivotal moment for European sovereignty in space. Then Intuitive Machines had a partially successful landing on the Moon. And finally, on Thursday evening, SpaceX's Starship failed during its second consecutive test flight.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and 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 sets date for next Alpha launch. Having completed a static-fire test, Firefly Aerospace has set a target date of March 15 for the launch of its "Message in a Booster" mission. The Alpha rocket will launch Lockheed Martin’s LM 400 spacecraft from Vandenberg Space Force Base, with the 52-minute launch window opening at 6:25 am PT (14:25 UTC). Lockheed is self-funding the demonstration mission of its new satellite bus, the LM 400, which it says can serve civil, military, and commercial customers.
iPhone 16e review: The most expensive cheap iPhone yet
For a long time, the cheapest iPhones were basically just iPhones that were older than the current flagship, but last week’s release of the $600 iPhone 16e marks a big change in how Apple is approaching its lineup.
Rather than a repackaging of an old iPhone, the 16e is the latest main iPhone—that is, the iPhone 16—with a bunch of stuff stripped away.
There are several potential advantages to this change. In theory, it allows Apple to support its lower-end offerings for longer with software updates, and it gives entry-level buyers access to more current technologies and features. It also simplifies the marketplace of accessories and the like.
Massive botnet that appeared overnight is delivering record-size DDoSes
A newly discovered network botnet comprising an estimated 30,000 webcams and video recorders—with the largest concentration in the US—has been delivering what is likely to be the biggest denial-of-service attack ever seen, a security researcher inside Nokia said.
The botnet, tracked under the name Eleven11bot, first came to light in late February when researchers inside Nokia’s Deepfield Emergency Response Team observed large numbers of geographically dispersed IP addresses delivering “hyper-volumetric attacks.” Eleven11bot has been delivering large-scale attacks ever since.
Volumetric DDoSes shut down services by consuming all available bandwidth either inside the targeted network or its connection to the Internet. This approach works differently than exhaustion DDoSes, which over-exert the computing resources of a server. Hypervolumetric attacks are volumetric DDoses that deliver staggering amounts of data, typically measured in the terabits per second.
Will the future of software development run on vibes?
For many people, coding is about telling a computer what to do and having the computer perform those precise actions repeatedly. With the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, it's now possible for someone to describe a program in English and have the AI model translate it into working code without ever understanding how the code works. Former OpenAI researcher Andrej Karpathy recently gave this practice a name—"vibe coding"—and it's gaining traction in tech circles.
The technique, enabled by large language models (LLMs) from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, has attracted attention for potentially lowering the barrier to entry for software creation. But questions remain about whether the approach can reliably produce code suitable for real-world applications, even as tools like Cursor Composer, GitHub Copilot, and Replit Agent make the process increasingly accessible to non-programmers.
Instead of being about control and precision, vibe coding is all about surrendering to the flow. On February 2, Karpathy introduced the term in a post on X, writing, "There's a new kind of coding I call 'vibe coding,' where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists." He described the process in deliberately casual terms: "I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works."
You knew it was coming: Google begins testing AI-only search results
Google has become so integral to online navigation that its name became a verb, meaning "to find things on the Internet." Soon, Google might just tell you what's on the Internet instead of showing you. The company has announced an expansion of its AI search features, powered by Gemini 2.0. Everyone will soon see more AI Overviews at the top of the results page, but Google is also testing a more substantial change in the form of AI Mode. This version of Google won't show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode.
This marks the debut of Gemini 2.0 in Google search. Google announced the first Gemini 2.0 models in December 2024, beginning with the streamlined Gemini 2.0 Flash. The heavier versions of Gemini 2.0 are still in testing, but Google says it has tuned AI Overviews with this model to offer help with harder questions in the areas of math, coding, and multimodal queries.
With this update, you will begin seeing AI Overviews on more results pages, and minors with Google accounts will see AI results for the first time. In fact, even logged out users will see AI Overviews soon. This is a big change, but it's only the start of Google's plans for AI search.
Yes, we are about to be treated to a second lunar landing in a week
The Apollo 17 mission landed on the Moon on December 11, in 1972. From that point on, literally for decades, NASA and the United States did not go back to the surface of our nearest planetary body.
It was not until February 22, 2024, that another American-built spacecraft made a soft landing on the Moon. This was the Nova-C Odysseus lander built by Intuitive Machines. It landed, toppled over, but still completed most of its scientific experiments.
This first successful landing on the Moon by the first privately built spacecraft ended a 51-year gap, or 18,700 days. It was a long freaking time.
Brother denies using firmware updates to brick printers with third-party ink
Brother laser printers are popular recommendations for people seeking a printer with none of the nonsense. By nonsense, we mean printers suddenly bricking features, like scanning or printing, if users install third-party cartridges. Some printer firms outright block third-party toner and ink, despite customer blowback and lawsuits. Brother’s laser printers have historically worked fine with non-Brother accessories. A YouTube video posted this week, though, as well as older social media posts, claim that Brother has gone to the dark side and degraded laser printer functionality with third-party cartridges. Brother tells Ars that this isn’t true.
On March 3, YouTuber Louis Rossman posted a video saying that “Brother turns heel & becomes anti-consumer printer company.” The video, spotted by Tom’s Hardware, has 163,000 views as of this writing and seems to be based on a Reddit post from 2022. In that post, Reddit user 20Factorial said that firmware update W1.56 caused the automatic color registration feature to stop working on his Brother MFC-3750 when using third-party cartridges.
“With the colors not able to be aligned, the printer is effectively non-functional,” 20Factorial said. The Redditor went on to say that when asked, a Brother customer service agent confirmed that “the printer is non-functional without genuine toner.”
AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT review: RDNA 4 fixes a lot of AMD’s problems
AMD is a company that knows a thing or two about capitalizing on a competitor's weaknesses. The company got through its early-2010s nadir partially because its Ryzen CPUs struck just as Intel's current manufacturing woes began to set in, first with somewhat-worse CPUs that were great value for the money and later with CPUs that were better than anything Intel could offer.
Nvidia's untrammeled dominance of the consumer graphics card market should also be an opportunity for AMD. Nvidia's GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards have given buyers very little to get excited about, with an unreachably expensive high-end 5090 refresh and modest-at-best gains from 5080 and 5070-series cards that are also pretty expensive by historical standards, when you can buy them at all. Tech YouTubers—both the people making the videos and the people leaving comments underneath them—have been almost uniformly unkind to the 50 series, hinting at consumer frustrations and pent-up demand for competitive products from other companies.
Enter AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards. These are aimed right at the middle of the current GPU market at the intersection of high sales volume and decent profit margins. They promise good 1440p and entry-level 4K gaming performance and improved power efficiency compared to previous-generation cards, with fixes for long-time shortcomings (ray-tracing performance, video encoding, and upscaling quality) that should, in theory, make them more tempting for people looking to ditch Nvidia.