Topps Blog

Wednesday, 23 November 2022

iCloud for Windows Users Report Receiving Random Strangers’ Family Photos

(Image: Windows) A few too many iCloud for Windows users are reporting an odd issue with their cloud-based photo storage: They’re receiving pictures of random strangers’ families. Over the last week, several users have posted to the MacRumors Forums complaining of eerie situations in which their photos have been swapped for someone else’s.

The debacle started Thursday, when a user posted to the iCloud forum that their videos had been corrupted and were displaying black screens with scan lines. On some occasions, videos reportedly swapped in stills from outside of the user’s own iCloud account. “I’ve been shown photos of other people’s families I’ve never seen in my life, soccer games, and other random photos,” the user wrote. “Obviously this is extremely concerning and does not exactly make me feel safe using iCloud.”

The user said they’d been able to replicate the issue on three total PCs, two of which ran Windows 11 Pro while the other used Windows 10 Pro. Within just a few days, other users commented on the post to report similar issues. Their original photos—the ones they intended to view on iCloud for Windows—had been taken with iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro models and were similarly missing. In their place were photos of other people’s children, as well as of other innocuous things.

iCloud for Windows isn’t just home to photos and videos, which only makes Apple’s alleged security breach even worse. (Image: Windows)

In a movie, this would be a big, masterful prank. But this is real life, and users are concerned for their security and their families’. An innocent family photo or a snapshot of last night’s dinner isn’t going to change your life by ending up on someone else’s screen, but the implications of iCloud for Windows allegedly redistributing users’ files are massive. It only takes one misplaced private photo to threaten someone’s personal or professional life; if this security blunder is in fact real, Apple might be facing a nasty lawsuit in the coming months.

That could especially be the case given Apple’s reported response to users’ concerns. A few people who shared their iCloud for Windows woes on MacRumors said they attempted to reach out to Apple but were quickly dismissed. For a company so insistent that its security is superior to competitors’, that doesn’t bode well.

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Mercedes to Charge $1,200 Per Year for EV ‘Acceleration Increase’

(Photo: Mercedes-Benz) Remember when luxury automakers—or, ahem, one in particular—began charging customers extra to enjoy features their vehicles already had? Well, Mercedes-Benz is joining the club. The company has begun offering an “acceleration increase” subscription to electric vehicle owners for the cool price of $1,200 per year.

The subscription package applies only to the Mercedes-EQ EQE and EQS all-electric models. The EQE, which will be available both as a sedan and an SUV come 2023, will receive a maximum motor output boost of 45 kW for a total of 260 kW. The EQE 350 sedan will go from zero to 60 in 5.1 seconds (up from 6.0) while the EQE 350 SUV will take about 5.2 seconds (up from 6.2). The EQS, which will also come as a sedan and an SUV next year, will get an output increase of 65 kW for a total of 330 kW. The EQS 450 and EQS 450 SUV will reach 60 miles per hour in 4.5 and 4.9 seconds respectively (up from 5.3 and 5.8).

The Acceleration Increase package represents Mercedes’ step into a controversial practice: charging customers on a subscription basis for features their cars already possess. BMW kicked off the trend earlier this year when it added heated steering wheels, high beam assistant, and other features to its South Korea, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, and UK subscription sales pages. Tesla announced shortly after that it would begin requiring customers to pay for navigation following the first eight years of ownership.

(Image: Mercedes-Benz)

Outside of automakers’ corporate offices, few people appear to actually like this model. Following Tesla’s announcement, two New Jersey legislators introduced a bill that would make it illegal for manufacturers to offer subscriptions on pre-installed hardware. We’re also not the only news outlet that immediately scorned BMW for charging drivers $18 per month to use their own heated seats. People, it seems, would like to have free access to the technology they’ve already spent thousands of dollars on.

In Mercedes’ case (and likely in others we’ve mentioned) it doesn’t appear as though dealers or mechanics have to actually get their hands on a car to provide a subscription-based add-on. Instead, extra torque is unlocked via over-the-air updates, which magically make it possible for someone’s $70,000-plus vehicle to accelerate as fast as it technically already could.

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RTX 4080 May Be a Sales Flop as Cards Gather Dust on Store Shelves

What a difference a year can make. It wasn’t long ago that you would have been lucky to spot a high-end GPU in stock someplace, and it would have most likely been priced well above MSRP. Now, the latest Nvidia RTX 4080 is reportedly piling up at the same retailers that ran through RTX 4090 stock the instant it was released. The RTX 4080 is cheaper but probably a much worse value in the enthusiast GPU market.

The RTX 4090 was the first of the new RTX 40-series to launch, and it saw robust sales even at the obscene $1,600 asking price. People lined up to get the new GPUs, and units have been hard to come by ever since. Perhaps Nvidia expected a similar showing for the $1,200 RTX 4080, but it’s not getting it.

If you want a 4080, you won’t have to spend a long time looking. In the US, retailers like Microcenter have stacks of the cards on shelves, and buyers have even had plenty of opportunities to buy the GPUs online. Newegg, for example, had units available for days before they sold out. It’s not much different in other markets. According to Hardware Canucks, the RTX 4080 is the first Nvidia release in more than two years that hasn’t sold out immediately at Canadian retailers. It’s the same story in the UK and Germany, too.

There are a few factors at play here, most notably Nvidia’s pricing for the RTX 40-series. Before release, Nvidia warned of higher GPU prices. The RTX 4090 certainly is expensive, with some variants creeping up to $2,000. However, this is the top-of-the-line card, and some enthusiasts will always look for the most powerful GPU when upgrading — that’s what Nvidia’s XX90 cards are all about. Nvidia has reportedly shipped 130,000 RTX 4090s and only 30,000 4080s.

NVIDIA 4080 shipment units:

🟢30,000

NVIDIA 4090 shipment units:

🟢130,000

Total RTX 40 shipment units:

🟢160,000

NVIDIA's 4090 was pretty much sold out at launch.

Retailers still have 4080 in stock. 😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️

— Hassan Mujtaba (@hms1193) November 19, 2022

Spending more than $1,000 on the second banana doesn’t attract the same level of interest, though. The RTX 4080 represents a significant price increase over the RTX 3080, which launched at $700, making the 4080 almost twice as expensive. That would have been considered a steal for most of the past several years, but crypto miners are no longer siphoning up every high-end GPU that rolls off the assembly line.

There’s also the issue of the remaining RTX 30-series cards. Many PC gamers held off on the 30-series because it was impossible to find them for a reasonable price. Now, they too are sitting on store shelves, and at much lower prices than the new 40-series. For those who don’t need the best of the best, the 4080 doesn’t offer enough of an improvement over last-gen cards to justify its price tag. Some gamers are probably also waiting to see what AMD can offer with the upcoming Radeon RX 7900.

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Amazon Alexa Deemed ‘Colossal Failure’ Following $10 Billion Loss

Eight years into Alexa’s existence, Amazon has decided the smart assistant hasn’t been worth all the hype. The retail giant’s most recognizable product has generated a multi-billion dollar loss during its tenure while failing to accomplish what it was made to do: sell more stuff.

Amazon’s “Worldwide Digital” unit, which manages Alexa’s AI and various hardware, lost over $3 billion in the first quarter of 2022 alone, reports Business Insider. According to the internal data Insider obtained, this loss was “by far” the largest of all Amazon’s divisions—and most of it was associated with Alexa specifically.

Alexa (and the hardware it operates through, like Echo, Fire TV, and Kindle) are products in and of themselves, but they’re not exactly major money-makers on their own. Instead, they serve as loss leaders, or unprofitable products that exist to get a customer’s foot in the door. Amazon isn’t shy about wanting you to use Alexa to place more Amazon orders; in fact, many of the company’s TV and web ads depict this exact capability. But no one’s doing that.

(Photo: Amazon)

Since the beginning, Alexa has been more a novelty than an integral part of Amazon customers’ everyday lives. Back when Alexa launched in 2014, it was cool to be able to ask your Bluetooth speaker to talk about the weather or crack a joke. Now that technology isn’t nearly as impressive, and while Worldwide Digital has given Alexa more capabilities over time, many of them are things customers find largely impractical or creepy. Add that to Alexa’s constant controversy, and you have a product many people hardly want to have in their homes in the first place, let alone use. It’s no longer out of the question to find an iteration of the Echo (perhaps the most recognizable Alexa-powered device) at your local Goodwill.

“Alexa is a colossal failure of imagination,” a former Amazon employee told Insider.

It’s only fair that those who have kept their Alexa devices aren’t keen on submitting Amazon orders through them. Shopping on Amazon’s web and mobile pages can already be overwhelming enough with all of the site’s options; who wants to endure that process without actually looking at product listings? It’s risky to purchase an item sight-unseen, and though Amazon reviews are of dubious reliability, they’re still helpful to customers who are torn between a few similar products.

Now Alexa and its associated devices are likely to hit $10 billion in total losses by the end of 2022. This isn’t great news for Amazon employees, approximately 10,000 of whom are expected to lose their jobs in the coming months. Worldwide Digital is on particularly thin ice following reports that Alexa-focused employees will mainly be affected.

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Perseverance Rover Finds Sandstone Bedrock That Could Contain Evidence of Life

The Perseverance rover has experienced more than 600 Martian days since its landing in February 2021. During its 8-mile (13-kilometer) drive, the robot has collected more than a dozen samples that are destined for Earth in the next few years. NASA now reports that Perseverance has spotted an alluring bit of bedrock to add to its collection. The rock outcrop, in an era called Yori Pass, could contain clues in NASA’s search for organics and biosignatures.

Perseverance landed in grand fashion on the floor of Jezero Crater using the same rocket sled mechanism as Curiosity ten years earlier. From there, it rolled toward the ancient river delta that fed the lake that once filled Jezero. Along the way, Perseverance has supported NASA’s wildly successful Ingenuity helicopter, which is still operational despite NASA’s near-certainty the aircraft’s off-the-shelf hardware would fail during the first Martian winter. Yori Pass is part of the delta, where scientists believe there could be evidence of ancient life from the red planet’s wetter days.

According to NASA, the team has been anxious to explore this area for months. Shortly after entering Yori Pass, Perseverance found a rock that bears a striking resemblance to one of the rover samples in July 2022. It’s sandstone, which means it was assembled from fine grains that were carried in water from other areas before settling and eventually forming bedrock — it’s the perfect place to go looking for evidence of ancient life. “We often prioritize study of fine-grained sedimentary rocks like this one in our search for organics and potential biosignatures,” says deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan.

Perseverance is now preparing to collect a sample from Yori Pass, which will be stored with more than a dozen others in the robot’s belly until the sample return mission gets underway in the late 2020s. After picking up the sample, Perseverance is scheduled to drive 745 feet (227 meters) southeast to a large sand dune dubbed “Observation Mountain” by the science team. There, Perseverance will collect the first samples of regolith, which is a mixture of crushed rock and dust.

NASA is working closely with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the sample return mission. As you can see in the animation above, the mission will rely on Perseverance to deliver the samples to the lander. Although, the mission will also bring two Ingenuity-like helicopters along to help out. The samples will be loaded into the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and blasted into orbit. There, an ESA spacecraft will rendezvous with the payload and ferry it back to Earth. NASA believes the samples could be on Earth as soon as 2033.

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Volcanic Eruptions May Have Caused the ‘Heat Death’ of Venus

For the first time in human history, we have rudimentary planetary defense technology that could someday prevent a major asteroid impact. However, a new study from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies calls attention to a more likely and harder-to-solve apocalypse: volcanoes. The study points to Venus as an example, suggesting that a period of volcanic activity lasting millions of years may have turned it from a watery world into the inhospitable hellscape we see today.

Venus is considered Earth’s sister world — the planets have similar sizes and densities, but the conditions on the surface could not be more different. The Venusian atmosphere is over 90 times denser than Earth’s and composed mostly of carbon dioxide. The planet suffers from a runaway greenhouse effect with an average surface temperature of 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius).

The study focuses on the effects of “large igneous provinces,” or LIPs, which are periods of widespread volcanic activity. On Earth, these conditions can last for thousands of years and have been responsible for more mass extinctions than asteroid impacts. LIPs can leave over 100,000 cubic miles of volcanic rock on the surface, but that’s nothing compared with Venus, the surface of which is more than 80 percent solidified volcanic rock.

Maat Mons is displayed in this computer-generated, three-dimensional perspective of the surface of Venus. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

“By understanding the record of large igneous provinces on Earth and Venus, we can determine if these events may have caused Venus’ present condition,” says lead author Dr. Michael Way. The study evaluated the likely effects of LIPs if they occurred in clusters, with each event separated by 100,000 to 1 million years. The team also evaluated the cumulative effects of LIPs happening randomly throughout Venus’ history. In both cases, the study concludes that the environmental impact of LIPs could have caused the heat death of Venus. Earth, meanwhile, may have narrowly escaped complete ruin.

Venus is a notoriously difficult planet to study. The only probes ever to reach the surface were destroyed by the crushing pressure and acidic clouds within minutes. NASA’s upcoming missions may shed some light on the planet’s history. DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) will be able to map out the history of water on Venus, as well as how its climate changed over time. DAVINCI is currently scheduled to reach Venus toward the end of the decade. Next up will be the Venus Emissivity, Radio science, InSAR, Topography, And Spectroscopy (VERITAS) mission, an orbiter that will analyze the planet’s surface.

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Tuesday, 22 November 2022

TSA Discovers Knife Cleverly Hidden in the Guts of a Gaming Laptop

(Photo: TSA) Just because something is impressive doesn’t mean it’s right. Case in point (pun intended): this knife (above) that was “artfully” hidden inside of a gaming laptop, when the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) intercepted it last week.

The discovery occurred at a security checkpoint at Richmond International Airport in Virginia. As a male traveler from Williamsburg went through the checkpoint, he submitted a carry-on bag to be inspected via an X-ray machine. The X-ray revealed the outline of a knife. TSA officers conducted a manual search of the man’s bag, found nothing, and re-ran the bag through the X-ray machine. The second scan appeared to show the knife inside a laptop, resulting in a second manual search. This time, the officers pried the laptop open to expose its insides.

The laptop’s inner workings indeed contained a double-edged knife. Based on photos shared by the TSA, the weapon appears to have been adhered to the inside of the laptop’s bottom casing. When closed, the knife would have hugged the machine’s G-Style battery. It’s unknown whether the laptop was operable with the knife present.

According to the TSA, the laptop’s owner initially said he wasn’t aware a knife was present; after the machine was pried open, the owner admitted the knife was actually his. Information isn’t currently public about what motivated the owner to hide the knife in his laptop, and it might never be—based on the TSA’s Twitter page, travelers regularly hide weapons in their luggage (and in other strange belongings), but the context surrounding each attempted sneak is rarely given.

Regardless of the laptop owner’s intent, he’ll almost definitely face hefty fees for his foiled smuggling. Under the TSA’s “ordinary artful concealment” policy, sharp objects result in a fine of $530 to $2,250. “Extraordinary artful concealment” (like in the case of a carefully hollowed-out book) results in a $5,320 to $10,700 fine. Though it’s unlikely that the TSA will consider the laptop owner’s early lie to be false information, that could technically rack up another $1,490 to $4,480 in fines, too.

As for now, it appears the laptop owner won’t be facing jail time. He might, however, never speed through a busy security checkpoint again: Travelers caught traveling with weapons lose their ability to participate in the TSA PreCheck program for good.

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