News from the web

Two different Apple Store technicians concluded that a Macworld reader’s iPad Pro issues were caused by bending but refused to repair it under warranty.   PC World

Enlarge / The Rocket Report is published weekly. (credit: Arianespace) Welcome to Edition 1.41 of the Rocket Report! This week we definitely have an international flavor, with news about spaceflight efforts from Brazil, Italy, Japan, the UAE, and the United States. There also is a fun story about hypersonic launch completing some initial tests with evidently promising returns. ...   Ars Technica

Whether you suffer from allergies or asthma or just want to optimize your indoor environment, these devices will give you insight into the air you're breathing.   PC World

Now that Google Stadia and Microsoft XCloud have been unveiled at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, it's safe to say cloud gaming has arrived, promising a future where content will be streamed to smartphones over high-speed Wi-Fi and 5G.But if these services are to flourish, something else must die: the data caps ISPs impose upon most consumer Internet service plans. ...   PC World

Good things come to those who wait, and in this case to those who waited a long time. Fifteen years after the release of one of the most beloved “cultî role-playing games ever made, it’s finally getting a sequel in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. ...   PC World

Enlarge / Vice President Mike Pence, center in Mission Control Houston, will oversee all space decisions made by the Trump administration. (credit: NASA) One of the panelists who will appear at a National Space Council meeting next Tuesday said to expect 'a few fireworks' during the discussion, which will focus on NASA's efforts to return humans to the Moon. ...   Ars Technica

Vacuuming is one of the most hated household chores. Here are your best choices for outsourcing it to some automated help.   PC World

Enlarge / Facebook Lite users made up the majority of Facebook accounts exposed internally by plaintext password logging, according to a Facebook spokesperson. Facebook has mined a lot of data about its users over the years—relationships, political leanings, and even phone call logs. ...   Ars Technica

Enlarge / A child with chicken pox. (credit: Getty Images | Dave Thompson) Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin made headlines Tuesday after revealing in a radio interview that he had purposefully exposed his nine unvaccinated children to chickenpox, drawing swift condemnation from health experts. ...   Ars Technica

We are terrible at passwords. We suck at creating them (the top two most popular remain “123456î and “passwordî), we share them way too freely, and we forget them all the time. Indeed, the very thing that can ensure our online security has become our biggest obstacle to it. This is what makes a good password manager essential.To read this article in full, please click here   PC World

We’ve known a Steam redesign is in the works for...well, a long time now. A very Valve amount of time, you might say. Some aspects of that redesign have already rolled out even, with new interface elements appearing in the Steam storefront a few weeks ago. ...   PC World

Enlarge / An X-ray showing an cardio defibrillator implanted in a patient. (credit: Sunzi99~commonswiki) The federal government on Thursday warned of a serious flaw in Medtronic cardio defibrillators that allows attackers to use radio communications to surreptitiously take full control of the lifesaving devices after they are implanted in a patient. ...   Ars Technica

You might’ve heard that Epic locked down another round of Epic Games Store exclusives this week—Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds, Remedy’s Control, Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain, et cetera. And along with those exclusives, of course, came more controversy. The “No Steam, No Buyî crowd was out in full force again, as they were with Metro Exodus and The Division 2. ...   PC World

Enlarge (credit: Marian Lockhart / Boeing) The crashed Lion Air 737 MAX and the Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX aircraft had more in common than aircraft design and the apparently malfunctioning flight system that led to their demises. ...   Ars Technica

The ROG Phone from Asus is another ‘gaming’ phone focusing on a high-refresh-rate screen, RGB lighting, and custom-cooled components. Asus has also given the ROG Phone a couple of hardware and software tricks that improve the gaming experience. ...   PC World

Enlarge (credit: TechBargains) Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is highlighted by a deal on the 256GB variant of Samsung's EVO Select microSD card. It's down to $40 on Amazon, which is a new low and about $10-15 off its usual price. ...   Ars Technica

Enlarge / Two indie devs explain how they used automation, a single Google Play account, and a single slot-machine template to create and distribute over 1,000 slot machine apps. ...   Ars Technica

Keanu Reeves gives us a Matrix callback in latest John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum trailer. Fresh on the heels of the announcement that Bill and Ted 3: Face the Music will start shooting this summer, we get a new trailer for another Keanu Reeves-starring vehicle: John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum. (Spoilers for first two films below. ...   Ars Technica

Enlarge / The level of detail in some of the fossils is astonishing. (credit: Dongjing Fu et. al.) The first signs of complex animal life begin in the Ediacaran Period, which started more than 600 million years ago. But it's difficult to understand how those organisms relate to the life we see around us today. ...   Ars Technica

(credit: Photograph by tva.com) According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the US nuclear fleet produced more electrical energy than ever before in 2018. Last year, it produced 807.1 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, barely beating its 2010 peak of 807TWh. But the US nuclear industry has been in a well-documented decline. ...   Ars Technica

Enlarge / A VT100 remote terminal, which is basically the same thing as Windows Remote Desktop. (credit: Wolfgang Stief) Initially announced last September, Microsoft's Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) service has now entered public preview. ...   Ars Technica

Enlarge / An operator puts an excavator to work with a game-style controller using Stanley's ROC remote operating system. (credit: Stanley Black & Decker) In a parking lot at an industrial and office park just outside Baltimore, I took a mid-sized excavator for a spin. ...   Ars Technica

Enlarge / Moai statues in a row, Ahu Tongariki, Easter Island, Chile. (credit: De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images) Chile's Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is famous for its giant monumental statues, called moai, built by early inhabitants some 800 years ago. ...   Ars Technica

Google's Phil Harrison (you may remember him from his days at Sony). SAN FRANCISCO—Google's Phil Harrison tells Ars that Stadia game streaming should provide a smooth, full-resolution experience on Internet connections above a threshold of 20 to 30mbps, a level that should allow for 'hundreds of millions of potential players in the markets that we're talking about. ...   Ars Technica

Facebook confirmed Thursday that hundreds of millions of user passwords were being stored in a “readable formatî within its servers, accessible to internal Facebook employees. Affected users will be notified, Facebook said, so they can change those passwords. ...   PC World

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg) T-Mobile today said it is starting 'an invitation-only pilot for in-home Internet service on LTE' and will connect up to 50,000 homes this year in rural and underserved parts of the country. It will cost $50 a month. ...   Ars Technica

Enlarge / The Starship test vehicle, currently under assembly in South Texas, may look similar to this illustration when finished. (credit: Elon Musk/Twitter) What a world we live in. As SpaceX gears up to begin preliminary testing of its Starship vehicle along the South Texas coast, nearby South Padre Island has set up a camera to broadcast the proceedings. ...   Ars Technica

Microsoft is bringing its Windows Defender anti-malware application to macOS—and more platforms in the future—as it expands the reach of its Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) platform. To reflect the new cross-platform nature, the suite is also being renamed to Microsoft Defender ATP, with the individual clients being labelled 'for Mac' or 'for Windows. ...   Ars Technica

It’s cheaper and easier than ever to add some smarts to your home, and today you can make two of your dumb devices smarter for the lowest price we’ve ever seen. B&H Photo Video is selling the TP-Link HS107 Wi-Fi dual-outlet smart plug for $25Remove non-product link with the on-page coupon today, down from a list price of $35. ...   PC World

To maximize profits, corporations hire skilled professionals — project managers — who know how to increase efficiency. Want to discover their secrets? Learn the tricks of their trade with the Comprehensive Six Sigma Certification Collection, price dropped to just $35.Project managers play a crucial role. ...   PC World

Klevgrand has announced the release of FreeAMP, a free, stripped-down version of Klevgrand's popular analog audio gear modeler REAMP*. Even if FreeAMP looks simple at the first... Read More   KVR Audio

UVI has released Key Suite Acoustic, a collection of acoustic pianos. Here's what they say: 'Delivering the dynamic, powerful and often charactered sounds of 20... Read More   KVR Audio

Splash Sound has released Old School Keys, a Kontakt Instrument featuring 5 keyboards - Classic Electric Piano, FM Electric Piano, Hammond Jazz Organ, Kawai Funk Organ and Acoustic Upright... Read More   KVR Audio

iPhone, iPad / Instruments / Others: Make music with your iPhone/iPod in a most natural way! Let your moving hand sing! With yossBeats you will experience the essence of music without having to learn melodies. You don't have to be a musician to enjoy your own improvisations. See what 'shaking'...   440Software

iPhone, iPad / Tools / Controllers: 03D Remote is an iOS App for remote control of the Yamaha 03D series of mixing consoles via WiFi. To use the App, you must have UMMU Server installed on the host computer (A free download from the StrongSoft website). Or you can use UMMU Box, a standalone...   440Software

iPhone, iPad / Instruments / Others: Make music with your iPhone/iPod in a most natural way! Let your moving hand sing! With yossGuitar you will experience the essence of music without having to learn melodies. You don't have to be a musician to enjoy your own guitar improvisations. See what...   440Software

iPhone, iPad / Tools / Controllers: Sonic Logic is a modular MIDI controller that allows you to edit and control MIDI setups from your iPad. Connect over WiFi, Bluetooth(*), USB (*), MIDI cable or use Virtual MIDI and Audiobus to control other iOS apps internally. Control DAWs like: Ableton...   440Software

iPhone, iPad / Portable Studio / Effects: Before you buy AudioStretch, consider first downloading AudioStretch Lite for FREE. Apart from some feature limitations, it's the same as the full (paid) version. The Lite version is a great way to see whether AudioStretch works well for you. As a...   440Software

iPhone, iPad / Education / Sheet Music & Tablatures: Listen to classical music with flowing scores with your iPhone or iPad. SyncScore provides a new way of enjoying classic compositions. You can listen to compositions while the score flows in a synchronized fashion. Carefully hand-picked classic...   440Software