Elvert Barnes

In a rare decision, the Florida Supreme Court ruled last Friday that law enforcement must get a warrant in order to track a suspect’s location via his or her mobile phone.

Many legal experts applauded the decision as a step in the right direction for privacy.

"[The] opinion is a resounding defense of our right to privacy in the digital age," Nate Freed Wessler, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. "Following people’s movements by secretly turning their cell phones into tracking devices can reveal extremely sensitive details of our lives, like where we go to the doctor or psychiatrist, where we spend the night, and who our friends are. Police are now on notice that they need to get a warrant from a judge before tracking cell phones, whether using information from the service provider or their own ‘stingray’ cell phone tracking equipment."

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Cliff

Newly released documents definitively show that local law enforcement in Washington, DC, possessed a cellular surveillance system—commonly known as a "stingray"—since 2003. However, these stingrays literally sat unused in a police vault for six years until officers were trained on the devices in early 2009.

"It's life imitating The Wire," Chris Soghoian, a staff technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Ars. "There's an episode in Season 3 where [Detective Jimmy] McNulty finds a [stingray] that has been sitting on the shelf for a while."

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request sent to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPDC), Ars received dozens of documents pertaining to the acquisition and training of stingrays and related upgrades. Vice News received the same documents, reporting on them last Friday.

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Prof Brian Cox muses on whether life here on Earth is unique within the Milky Way and what this might mean.

A recently discovered comet has flown past Mars, giving scientists a unique chance to study an object from the farthest reaches of the Solar System.

BBC Inside Out examines whether health fears over plastic food packaging are justified and asks if BPA should be banned in the UK.

A chip card and the inside of a card's chip. Explain That Stuff

On Friday, President Obama signed an executive order to speed the adoption of EMV-standard cards in the US. The transition to EMV—an acronym eponymous of Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, the companies that developed the standard—has been slow to gain traction in the US. The EMV standard will require credit card companies to stop relying on the magnetic stripe cards that are common today and move toward cards with embedded chips that will offer more secure credit card transactions.

Lawmakers and credit card companies confirmed earlier this year that the US would make the transition to EMV cards in October 2015. But over the past several months, retail stores like Target, Home Depot, Michaels, Neiman Marcus, and more have sustained major hacks that caused the retailers to lose credit card information and personal information of millions upon millions of customers, giving new urgency to the call for more secure credit cards.

Speaking at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday, President Obama said that the federal government would apply “chip-and-PIN technology to newly issued and existing government credit cards, as well as debit cards like Direct Express.” The White House also said that all payment terminals at federal agencies will soon be able to accept embedded chip cards.

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This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a list of the best technology to buy. Read the full article below at TheWirecutter.com.

The HooToo HT-UH010 seven-port hub ($40) is our favorite USB 3.0 hub because it’s compact, reliable, and has well-placed ports aplenty. But its main strength is its usability and design—we looked at many other hubs that were larger, had fewer ports, and weren’t as easy to use. We determined the HooToo is the best hub for most people after 100 hours of research, testing, and consulting with electrical engineers to learn about how power flows through USB hubs and where things commonly go wrong.

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Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock

Last November, my father took his own life. I'm frequently aware of the fact that the depression which helped drive him to that dark fate lives on in my genes. That's a doozy of a legacy to inherit, but it's one that has not been wholly negative for me.

Getting to the point where I could write this article involved a series of debates. I debated talking about my father’s suicide; I debated “outing” myself as a depression sufferer; I debated not talking about it and what that meant. I decided in the end that I would be the worst kind of hypocrite if I believed that dialog about depression was essential but was unwilling to start that dialog myself. I hope that my story can help others understand why the traits that cause depression have been both a plague and a gift to so many.

Nothing's easy when talking about depression. Navigating this sensitive topic is fraught with traps and taboos that can make Israel the good option at dinner discussion. But this dialog is important, and hopefully we can lift the grim veil that hangs over this subject before disaster strikes someone we know and love. Even as it goes underreported, suicide now kills more people than car accidents in the US.

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NASA

NEW YORK—What do you do after you’ve achieved the ultimate goal of your avocation—not once, but three times? That’s the question facing Chris Hadfield, who capped 25 years of NASA service by commanding both the International Space Station and an audience of millions on YouTube and Twitter. Hadfield gave a partial answer recently during a public talk at the American Museum of Natural History: get as many people as possible to understand the experience and try to use that to keep the public supporting a program of space exploration.

Hadfield may be an unassuming looking man—he’s got nothing like the imposing build of astronaut and former football player Leland Melvin—but you don’t get sent to space three times without having an imposing set of talents. He said that, in addition to the expected job skills, he spent time in a Texas emergency room, stitching up and intubating people as part of the preparations to handle anything that might come up while in space. And millions saw his musical and photographic skills on display since.

Now you can add “performer” to Hadfield’s long list of accomplishments. He wove together a series of anecdotes into a coherent, compelling show, gesturing animatedly and lying back on the floor to demonstrate the Soyuz launch posture. Parts of it might have been scripted or at least well practiced, but there were others that seemed spontaneous. While an orbital photo of San Francisco was on the screen, someone from the audience had to tell him that both the bridge and the large park were named Golden Gate. At that point, he called everything visible "Golden Gate" something or other, including New York’s Central Park when it appeared in the next picture. He was also just as easygoing and clear when handling questions from the audience.

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Even The Flash can't deliver gigabit speed data networks. JD Hancock

The Federal Communications Commission is starting to plan for cellular networks that can send users gigantic streams of data, but there are technical challenges to be solved and years of work ahead.

A Notice of Inquiry issued unanimously by the commission on Friday identifies frequencies of 24GHz and above as being able to provide gigabit or even 10Gbps speed. This would be a major change because today’s cellular networks use frequencies from 600MHz to 3GHz, with so-called “beachfront spectrum” under 1GHz being the most desirable because it can be used to deliver data over long distances. AT&T and Verizon Wireless control the most beachfront spectrum.

"It was long assumed that higher spectrum frequencies—like those above 24 GHz—could not support mobile services due to technological and practical limitations," the FCC said in a press release. "New technologies are challenging that assumption and promise to facilitate next generation mobile service—what some call '5G'—with the potential to dramatically increase wireless broadband speeds."

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Keith Alexander, the founder of IronNet Cybersecurity, served as the director of the NSA for nearly a decade. Department of Defense

The National Security Agency is now conducting an internal investigation of a top official’s part-time work for a private cybersecurity firm, according to Reuters.

That company, IronNet Cybersecurity, was founded by Keith Alexander. Alexander served as the head of the spy agency from August 2005 until March 2014. IronNet Cybersecurity currently offers protection services to banks for up to $1 million per month.

Last Friday, Reuters cited Alexander himself as well as other intelligence officials, reporting that current NSA CTO Patrick Dowd can work up to 20 hours per week for IronNet Cybersecurity.

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These are the items Attaché Arrivals sent me in the mail, in three separate packages. (The red sugar bowl normally lives on my dining table.) Cyrus Farivar

Every time I go to Europe, I make a mental list of things that I need to take with me: electrical adapters, a small stash of euros, and local SIM cards. In a tiny SD card case, I even keep a paper clip and SIMs from various countries (Germany, United Kingdom, Iceland) to ease travel.

But if I’m going to a country I haven’t been to before, I have to do my research. I ask friends and check PrepaidGSM.net to find out what provider offers the best mobile data service. Then, I have to figure out where and how to get a local SIM. In short, it’s a pain.

That's why I was thrilled to learn about Attaché Arrivals, a new San Francisco startup. As Ars reported in May 2014, Attaché Arrivals aims to make this entire process simpler by selling SIMs to customers before they leave home. Users would theoretically save money on exorbitant mobile roaming fees charged by their US providers by renting these foreign SIM cards through the company. The SIM comes with various other items (such as a plug adapter for European Union outlets) to help make the journey smoother.

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Zlatko Unger

It’s no secret that China holds a huge amount of leverage on the future of CO2 emissions. Its incredible economic growth over the last 20 years was accompanied by a boom in greenhouse emissions. Actions to reduce that boom (as well as other pollutants) are in progress, but they haven't had any appreciable effect as of yet.

At the Copenhagen talks, China pledged a lower-carbon economy—reducing the CO2 emitted per unit of GDP (also known as “carbon intensity”) by 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. And China’s current Five Year Plan (2010-2015) set a goal of reducing carbon intensity by 17 percent while still growing GDP eight percent per year.

But between 2002 and 2009, China’s carbon intensity increased by three percent. What drove that? A new study led by Dabo Guan digs below the national level to take a look at the trends behind carbon intensity. The study suggests that, while huge progress is being made, it's still being swamped by massive growth in capacity.

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Scientists think that a newly discovered species of dinosaur, whose remains were found after 20 years of excavation in Venezuela, maybe related to the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

MIT

Certain materials exhibit what are called piezoelectric characteristics, meaning they develop electric charges when stretched or compressed. In general, the piezoelectric materials we use are large crystals. But researchers have predicted that a substance that forms single-atom-thick molecules—MoS2—would be strongly piezoelectric. And now researchers have studied these effects experimentally, demonstrating that the number of layers and their orientation have a big impact on the substance’s piezoelectric characteristics.

To get enough material to work with, MoS2 layers were flaked off onto a flexible substrate and electrical contacts deposited at the MoS2 interface. The piezoelectric response of the material was studied by application of a strain, which causes a strain-induced polarization of charges at the sample edges. These drive the flow of electrons into an external circuit for measurement. Upon relaxation of the strain, the polarization of charges is diminished, causing the electrons to flow back to their original distribution.

Because of the way the flakes were created, each sample had a different number of layers. When a sample had odd numbers of MoS2 layers, stretching and releasing produced exactly the behavior we just described: oscillating piezoelectric voltage and current outputs were observed.

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Kuiper Belt Object 1110113Y, one of the objects found by Hubble that may be visited by New Horizons. Hubble

Any organization that pays to put something into space likes to get as much as it can out of its hardware. NASA is no different. So while New Horizons was built specifically to visit Pluto, there was always the hope that we’d spot something beyond the dwarf planet to send the hardware on to. But even as the rendezvous with Pluto kept getting closer and final trajectory corrections needed to be planned, ground-based searches were coming up blank. (They actually located some objects, but none that New Horizons could reach given its fuel supply.)

NASA then brought out one of the big guns:  the Hubble. After a preliminary test of its ability to spot small objects beyond Pluto, the New Horizons team was given time for a full survey. The results are in: we now have additional destinations.

The objects in question are part of a large collection called the Kuiper Belt. KBOs, as they’re called, probably range from comet-sized to several that are larger than Pluto. The three that Hubble spotted are in the area of 25-55 kilometers (15.5 to 34.1 miles) across. All three are roughly a billion miles beyond Pluto. That's a lot, but New Horizons has already travelled about three billion miles since leaving Earth. Initial observations suggest that one can definitely be reached given New Horizons’ trajectory, and the two others are possible, but we need a bit more time to determine their orbital profile.

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Flappy Android! You too will soon find this fully playable Easter egg in Lollipop. Android Central On Friday, following Google's earlier announcement that Android 5.0 would be called Lollipop, the company released a new developer build compatible with handsets like the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7. While it wasn't the first preview build for what was previously dubbed the "L release," it introduced more features that users can expect in the next Android's public launch, including an usual "about" menu Easter egg.

Unlike other Android Easter eggs, however, this one is possibly Google's biggest yet—a fully playable Flappy Bird clone. Like other hidden gems in past OSes, this can be toggled by finding the version number in the system options' "About" section and tapping it repeatedly until a lollipop image pops up.

Android Central confirmed on its test devices that doing this will unlock a Flappy Bird-styled game, and Ars was able to replicate the steps necessary to unlock the same game on our own Lollipop smartphone. In this Flappy Bird clone, tapping the screen made a small, spinning Android logo hop in the air as it tried to fly through lollipop-shaped obstacles. Unlike other clones, some of which were more advanced, the game was as simple—and difficult—as its obvious inspiration. The only major gameplay difference was that on occasion, the game would scroll in the opposite direction when players respawned.

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Try this one on for size: a compact 60% keyboard with mechanical switches, with a fully customizable layout. Officially launched this past Wednesday and available as a group buy for the next two weeks, that's exactly what you get with the Massdrop Infinity keyboard. There are only a couple potential drawbacks: there are no key labels by default, and this is truly a compact keyboard so there are only 63 keys in total, so you're basically going to have to set up some additional layers to access things like cursor keys, document navigation, etc. Oh, and if you’re not a touch typist, this this will probably drive you insane – though on the other hand, if you're trying to become a touch typist, this might be the keyboard to push you over the edge!

Massdrop shipped me a prototype for some initial impressions. At first blush, I wasn't sure what to think – no labels, no backlighting, and even the chassis is a bit barebones. Still, even without customizing the keyboard layout there's something sort of cool about having a blank slate to work with. The dimensions are basically what you get if you take the main portion of a standard keyboard…and then stop there and don't add anything extra. Function keys, 10-key, document navigation keys, and dedicated macro keys are nowhere to be found. Instead, what you get is a space saving keyboard that looks a little different from your usual input device.

Part of the cool factor of the Infinity is that it allows you to customize many options. It supports both Cherry MX switches as well as the new "better than Cherry MX" Matias switches with Alps stems. I can't say whether they're actually better or not, but Matias are available in "clicky" and "quiet" options (basically Blue or Brown equivalents), while Cherry MX options consist of Blue, Brown, Red, Black, or Clear. You can also choose from various keycaps that are compatible with Cherry MX or Matias switches, but these are an extra $35 (Cherry MX) or $45 (Matias) – note that the Matias switches are $10 less than the Cherry MX switches, so basically the price is the same if you include keycaps. The keycaps are blank PBT plastic with a DSA Profile from Signature Plastics, if you're curious. For some it might seem odd for a keyboard to not include keycaps by default, but if you're enough of a keyboard enthusiast to be considering the Infinity, there's a good chance you already have some keycaps available.

Before you commit to buy the Infinity, let's be clear: there's some assembly required. It would be cool if Massdrop offered a pre-assembled option (for people like me that just don't care to do the soldering on their end). Then again, if it tacked on $50 I'm not sure many would be interested. Anyway, the assembly instructions let you know what's required, and if you're handy with a soldering iron you should be fine. Once the keyboard is assembled, you need to load a keyboard layout into the microcontroller. As a preview sample, my unit came pre-programmed with a slightly modified QWERTY layout, but the online configurator allows you to do just about anything you might imagine (up until the point where you run out of memory on the keyboard). The final software that allows reprogramming isn't actually available yet, but it should be ready well before anyone who joins the drop actually receives their keyboard.

All of the customizability in the world won't do much good if the keyboard doesn't work well, and this is where things start to get highly subjective. I've used plenty of keyboards over the years; some have been good, others have been okay, and only a few have been truly terrible – and the bad ones were all laptop keyboards, if you're wondering. After my forays into ergonomic mechanical keyboards last year, one thing that I came to realize is that it's possible to adapt to a different keyboard layout over time, at least if you're willing to put in the effort. The default layout on the Infinity is basically standard QWERTY, so in that regard there's not a lot to learn for a touch typist.

The bigger issue I have is that I do use document navigation keys and the cursor keys all the time, so having them move from dedicated keys to combination keystrokes is not something I really want or need. I'd much rather have a slightly larger keyboard rather than deal with extra layers (key combinations) to access these keys. I also use function keys regularly, and Acer's S7 Ultrabook as an example didn't please me when it removed the row of function keys and turned them into Fn key combinations. Given these changes and my typical use patterns, I don't think the current design of the Infinity is something I would really enjoy using long-term, even if it is somewhat novel at first.

Outside of the missing keys, the typing experience on the Infinity is pretty much what you'd expect from any Cherry MX mechanical keyboard. The sample I received came with Cherry MX Clear (which on their own look pretty White, but there's a difference) switches, and as someone that has used MX Brown switches in the past I actually thought it was using Browns at first; the difference between the two options is very slight. Anyway, the action is smooth and precise, and I have no problem typing on it in general – this entire article in fact was written using the Infinity, and other than the first minute or so figuring out where a few keys are located I've had no real problems.

The keycaps are an interesting choice as well, as they're far more textured than most keycaps that I've used. They have a feeling of robustness and durability, and if that's what you like then they won't disappoint. The default keycaps are blank, however, so even as a touch typist I find that I occasionally have my fingers in the wrong spot and it takes a second to adjust – I would like to have a little bump on the F and J keys to help me out, but then that's always an option if you order your own keycaps.

The design of the keyboard chassis is also a bit unusual. The PCB with the soldering pins from the mechanical switches is fully exposed on the bottom, while the main frame consists of a sturdy piece of bent metal (some form of steel it appears). It's definitely unique, and it didn't get in the way of my typing, but it's not something everyone will immediately love. The metal frame also gives the Infinity a decent amount of heft, which I don’t mind but it might be a bit heavy if you're looking for a keyboard to carry around in a briefcase (and again the exposed PCB on the bottom could be a concern).

There's one final hurdle to overcome, and that's the price. Massdrop works on a group buy principle, so they require a certain number of people to join a "drop" – if the minimum isn't met, no one pays and the drop is canceled. In this case, the minimum number of people needed to have the Infinity ship has already been achieved (i.e. more than 25 people), and at present 74 people have committed to buy if 100+ people join the drop. At 100 or more committed buyers, the price will be $100; that's a steep price for a keyboard and as noted above it doesn’t even include everything you need; you also need the keycaps ($35-$45 extra) if you don't have some, and shipping in the continental US is another $11.39, so basically we're looking at $145 for this customizable 60% keyboard.

That might seem like far too high a price, but we're dealing with a relatively low volume part, and even looking around online it doesn't look like there are many options that are significantly less expensive. The Ducky Mini generally costs $130 or so, though it does include backlighting (with dual color blue/red LEDs) and it comes fully assembled – it also comes with either Cherry MX Blue or Red switches. The KBC Poker 2 Mini comes with Cherry MX Blue, Black, Red, or Brown switches, but it costs $180 to $200 (or more). Then there's the Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional, with electrostatic capacitive switches, which can cost $260 or more. In comparison to such options, other than the Ducky Mini the Massdrop Infinity looks rather affordable – and if you're interested in the Ducky Mini, I would be remiss in not pointing out the Massdrop where you can get the Ducky Mini for $110 (currently five days remain).

Ultimately, I guess it comes down to how much you want a mini (aka "60%") keyboard in the first place. I'd be much happier personally with something like the CODE Keyboard that adds dedicated function keys and document navigation keys for around the same price (there's another drop for that), but more importantly I don't have any particular need for a compact keyboard in the first place so there are numerous full size mechanical keyboards priced around $100 that suit me just fine. It's sort of interesting to me that input from hundreds of "keyboard enthusiasts" went into the design of the Infinity, and yet at the end of the day it can still be a very polarizing device. I'm sure there are people who love the end result, and I'm equally sure there are going to be others that shrug and wonder, "Why bother?" If you're in the market, though, the potential to pick up the Infinity and design your own layout is certainly worth considering.

Gallery: Massdrop Infinity: A Fully Customizable 60% Keyboard

Kickstarter

Kickstarter removed a fundraiser for a popular Tor-based router project on Friday afternoon.

The Anonabox, which was created by August Germar, of Chico, California, aimed to be an “open source embedded networking device designed specifically to run Tor.” Its fundraising goal was $7,500, and in five days, it raised $585,549 from nearly 9,000 backers—including three Ars editors.

Germar told Ars that he was not aware that it had been suspended until Ars forwarded him an e-mail from Kickstarter outlining the possible reasons why it could have been cancelled.

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Today, the White House announced a pause in a specific type of research on viruses. Rather than being a response to the recent Ebola infections, this dates back to events that began in 2011. Back then, researchers who were studying the bird flu put it through a series of lab procedures that ended with a flu virus that could readily infect mammals. Some members of the scientific community considered this work irresponsible, as the resulting virus could, again, potentially infect humans.

Similar research and a debate over its value and threat have continued. Now, however, the Obama administration decided to put it on hold. Prompted by several recent biosafety lapses (including the discovery of old smallpox samples at the National Institutes of Health), the government will temporarily stop funding for these projects. During the pause, the government will organize a "deliberative process" that will consider the value of the research and the appropriate safety precautions that will need to be followed if it's done. The review will be run by a combination of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the National Academies of Science.

The funding pause will apply to any projects that can allow viruses like the flu, MERS, and SARS to either add mammals to the list of species they can infect, or to increase their virulence following infection. The government also hopes that any lab pursuing this research using private funding will voluntarily join in the pause. Researchers who are simply studying naturally occurring viruses without modifying them will not be affected by this pause.

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