Rocket Report: Billionaire backs Scottish spaceport, Relativity bags a bundle

Enlarge / Rocket Lab's Catch of the Day recovery vessel nears the Electron rocket's first stage. (credit: Rocket Lab) Welcome to Edition 3.24 of the Rocket Report! It's December, and we could see a number of big smallsat launches this month, including from Virgin Orbit and Astra. But in the immediate future, our eyes are on South Texas, where a...

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Win laptops, smartwatches, and more in the 2020 Ars Technica Charity Drive

Enlarge It's once again that special time of year when we give you a chance to do well by doing good. That's right—it's time for the 2020 edition of our annual Charity Drive. Every year since 2007, we've been actively encouraging readers to give to Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity, which provides toys and games to kids being treated in hospitals...

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Android apps with millions of downloads are vulnerable to serious attacks

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson) Android apps with hundreds of millions of downloads are vulnerable to attacks that allow malicious apps to steal contacts, login credentials, private messages, and other sensitive information. Security firm Check Point said that the Edge Browser, the XRecorder video and screen recorder, and the PowerDirector video...

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New RISC-V CPU claims recordbreaking performance per watt

Micro Magic's new CPU prototype is seen here running on an Odroid board. (credit: Micro Magic) Micro Magic Inc.—a small electronic design firm in Sunnyvale, California—has produced a prototype CPU that is several times more efficient than world-leading competitors, while retaining reasonable raw performance. We first noticed Micro Magic's claims...

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Eldritch terrors come forth in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina S4 trailer

Kiernan Shipka's Sabrina Spellman faces the Eldritch Terrors in the final installment of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Sabrina Spellman and the good people of Greendale face their most terrifying adversary yet as otherworldly beings seek to bring about the end of all things in the official trailer for the fourth and final season of The Chilling...

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Feds say Facebook broke US law, offering permanent jobs to H-1B workers

Enlarge / Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (credit: Johannes Simon/Getty Images) The United States Department of Justice sued Facebook on Thursday arguing that the social media giant discriminated against US workers by giving preference to Facebook workers on H-1B visas who wanted to transition to permanent jobs at the company. The H-1B visa program...

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BioWare studio GM and Dragon Age lead are both leaving company

Enlarge (credit: BioWare) Casey Hudson, BioWare's general manager, and Mark Darrah, the executive producer of the Dragon Age franchise, are both leaving the company before the end of the year, BioWare announced today. EA executive Laura Miele announced the departures in a corporate blog post. "I want to personally thank Casey and Mark for everything...

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Google Maps’ new “Community Feed” is like a social network for food

Open Google Maps and you'll soon see this card, which you can swipe up for the feed. (Also, Google, a Pixel 1 skin from 2016? Really?) [credit: Google ] Google Maps is getting a bunch of new features this week, so it's time for a roundup!...

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Warner Bros. will release entire 2021 film slate in theaters and on HBO Max

Enlarge / WarnerMedia dealt another blow to struggling movie theater owners by announcing it will release its entire 2021 slate of films simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. (credit: AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images via Getty Images) Just a few weeks ago, we learned that Wonder Woman 1984—whose release has been delayed multiple times in the face...

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CBP’s warrantless use of cell phone location data is under investigation

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | skaman306) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general is investigating the government's use of cell phone location data obtained without search warrants. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of DHS, "has paid a government contractor named Venntel nearly half a million dollars for access...

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