Technology News

Researchers have discovered malicious code circulating in the wild that hijacks the earliest stage boot process of Linux devices by exploiting a year-old firmware vulnerability when it remains unpatched on affected models.

The critical vulnerability is one of a constellation of exploitable flaws discovered last year and given the name LogoFAIL. These exploits are able to override an industry-standard defense known as Secure Boot and execute malicious firmware early in the boot process. Until now, there were no public indications that LogoFAIL exploits were circulating in the wild.

The discovery of code downloaded from an Internet-connected web server changes all that. While there are no indications the public exploit is actively being used, it is reliable and polished enough to be production-ready and could pose a threat in the real world in the coming weeks or months. Both the LogoFAIL vulnerabilities and the exploit found on-line were discovered by Binarly, a firm that helps customers identify and secure vulnerable firmware.

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Google’s device location service is catching up to Apple’s.

The leaves have turned, the turkey has been eaten, the parades are over, and the football has been watched—the only thing left to do is to try to hide from increasingly uncomfortable family conversations by going out and shopping for things! It's the holiday tradition that not only makes us feel good, but also (apocryphally) drags the balance sheets of businesses the world over into profitability—hence "Black Friday!"

Our partners in the e-commerce side of the business have spent days assembling massive lists for you all to peruse—lists of home deals and video game deals and all kinds of other things. Does that special someone in your life need, like, a security camera? Or a tablet? Or, uh—(checks list)—some board games? We've got all those things and more!

A couple of quick notes: First, we're going to be updating this list throughout the weekend as things change, so if you don't see anything that tickles your fancy right now, check back in a few hours! Additionally, although we're making every effort to keep our prices accurate, deals are constantly shifting around, and an item's actual price might have drifted from what we list. Caveat emptor and all that.

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Donald Trump’s most extreme supporters may slam big business, the elites, and corporate greed, but they’re not too shy to push their own Black Friday deals.

Hot Frosty, Carol, and The Best Man Holiday are just a few of the movies you need to stream this holiday season.

Today’s young adults grew up in a time when their childhoods were documented with smartphone cameras instead of dedicated digital or film cameras. It’s not surprising that, perhaps as a reaction to the ubiquity of the phone, some young creative photographers are leaving their handsets in their pockets in favor of compact point-and-shoot digital cameras—the very type that camera manufacturers are actively discontinuing.

Much of the buzz among this creative class has centered around premium, chic models like the Fujifilm X100 and Ricoh GR, or for the self-anointed “digicam girlies” on TikTok, zoom point-and-shoots like the Canon PowerShot G7 and Sony RX100 models, which can be great for selfies.

But other shutterbugs are reaching back into the past 20 years or more to add a vintage “Y2K aesthetic” to their work. The MySpace look is strong with a lot of photographers shooting with authentic early-2000s “digicams,” aiming their cameras—flashes a-blazing—at their friends and capturing washed-out, low-resolution, grainy photos that look a whole lot like 2003.

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"Am I the first person to discover this?" is a tricky question when it comes to classic Macs, some of the most pored-over devices on the planet. But there's a lot to suggest that user paul.gaastra, on the 68kMLA vintage Mac forum, has been right for more than a decade: One of the capacitors on the Apple mid-'90s Mac LC III was installed backward due to faulty silkscreen printing on the board.

It seems unlikely that Apple will issue a factory recall for the LC III—or the related LC III+, or Performa models 450, 460, 466, or 467 with the same board design. The "pizza box" models, sold from 1993–1996, came with a standard 90-day warranty, and most of them probably ran without issue. It's when people try to fix up these boards and replace the capacitors, in what is generally a good practice (re-capping), that they run into trouble.

The Macintosh LC III, forerunner to a bunch of computers with a single misaligned capacitor. Credit: Akbkuku / Wikimedia Commons

Doug Brown took part in the original 2013 forum discussion, and has seen it pop up elsewhere. Now, having "bought a Performa 450 complete with its original leaky capacitors," he can double-check Apple's board layout 30 years later and detail it all in a blog post (seen originally at the Adafruit blog). He confirms what a bunch of multimeter-wielding types long suspected: Apple put the plus where the minus should be.

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From Bop Spotter to his collection of long-lost and rarely-seen YouTube videos, Riley Walz makes the future of the internet look like its past.

Following decades of failed attempts and dashed dreams, the US Army is once again trying out powered exoskeletons to help soldiers haul munitions and equipment in the field.

Indigenous peoples forced from the Amazon rainforest are finally getting the legal power to return—and it’s not only about justice. Under their stewardship, the forests can thrive.

It's Thanksgiving night, which means the big holiday is just hours away, but some of the best Black Friday deals have dropped and are already rolling.