This, plus a camera and computer, is all you need to listen to remote sounds. Flickr user TheFoodJunk

Watch enough spy thrillers, and you'll undoubtedly see someone setting up a bit of equipment that points a laser at a distant window, letting the snoop listen to conversations on the other side of the glass. This isn't something Hollywood made up; high-tech snooping devices of this sort do exist, and they take advantage of the extremely high-precision measurements made possible with lasers in order to measure the subtle vibrations caused by sound waves.

A team of researchers has now shown, however, that you can skip the lasers. All you really need is a consumer-level digital camera and a conveniently located bag of Doritos. A glass of water or a plant would also do.

Good vibrations

Despite the differences in the technology involved, both approaches rely on the same principle: sound travels on waves of higher and lower pressure in the air. When these waves reach a flexible object, they set off small vibrations in the object. If you can detect these vibrations, it's possible to reconstruct the sound. Laser-based systems detect the vibrations by watching for changes in the reflections of the laser light, but researchers wondered whether you could simply observe the object directly, using the ambient light it reflects. (The team involved researchers at MIT, Adobe Research, and Microsoft Research.)

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Greetings, Arsians! Our partners at LogicBuy are back with a bevy of deals for this week. Today we've got a 32GB 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX for just $299 (that's $130 off the MSRP), though the sale is today only! If you're on the fence as to whether or not to buy one, maybe our review will help.

The Kindle Fire and tons more deals are below for your shopping pleasure.

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Stop using your damn phones so much. Esther Vargas

Verizon Wireless has told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler that its policy of throttling unlimited data users on congested cell sites is perfectly legal and necessary to give heavy data users an incentive to stop using their phones so much.

Wheeler had sent a letter to Verizon accusing the company of throttling unlimited data users in order to make more money, presumably by encouraging users to purchase new data plans. "'Reasonable network management' concerns the technical management of your network; it is not a loophole designed to enhance your revenue streams," Wheeler wrote. Wheeler didn’t argue that throttling itself is never reasonable, but he called it “disturbing” that “Verizon Wireless would base its 'network management' on distinctions among its customers' data plans, rather than on network architecture or technology."

"I know of no past Commission statement that would treat as 'reasonable network management' a decision to slow traffic to a user who has paid, after all, for 'unlimited' service," Wheeler added.

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A teenage whitehat hacker said he has found a simple way that attackers can bypass the two-factor authentication system PayPal uses to protect user accounts.

The circumvention requires little more than spoofing a browser cookie set when users link their eBay and PayPal accounts, according to Joshua Rogers, a 17-year-old living in Melbourne, Australia. Once the cookie—which is tied to a function PayPal identifies as "=_integrated-registration"—is active in a user's browsing session, the two-factor authentication is circumvented, Rogers reported. That means attackers who somehow acquire someone else's login credentials would be able to log in without having to enter the one-time passcode sent to the account holder's mobile phone.

Rogers said he reported the vulnerability privately to PayPal on June 5. He said he went public two months later after receiving no response. He went on to write:

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A scene from the 2002 GameCube version of Resident Evil.

Mark your calendars, nostalgia lovers—today is the day that the trend of remaking classic games for new consoles finally approaches self-parody. Capcom has announced that it will remake the 2002 GameCube remake of Resident Evil yet again, with HD versions coming to the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC in early 2015 [Update: The original version of this story left out the PC version. Ars regrets the error].

Capcom's press release is clear that this new game is not directly based on the original 1996 Resident Evil but is instead the "definitive re-visit of that iconic 2002 Resident Evil title." That 2002 remake, which premiered on the GameCube and eventually came to the Wii in 2009, added improved graphics and sound, tweaked puzzles, and a few minor control changes to the classic PlayStation title.

The revamped revamp announced today will feature high-definition graphics (in 1080p on the Xbox One and PS4), remastered 5.1 surround sound, and a widescreen 16:9 display mode for the first time. Players can also choose between the classic "tank" controls made famous in the original games or a more modern, Resident Evil 4-style control scheme that maps more directly to the control stick, a change that will probably drain away some of the tension born from struggling with the controls in the original.

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Aurich Lawson

During its teenage and young adult years—what is now referred to as its “classical” period—physics made a lot of mistakes.

In the old physics, mass and energy were separately conserved; particles’ positions and momenta could be arbitrarily specified; gravity acted instantaneously at a distance; the equality of gravitational and inertial mass was just a coincidence; and there was no speed limit. All these ideas and assumptions are now known to be in some way untenable. They're either inaccurate or theoretical dead-ends.

To put it plainly, classical physics is wrong. As such, there's really only one thing to do—physicists have since abandoned the old, mistaken ideas, right? It's reminiscent of how doctors discarded the system of humors, chemists chucked out phlogiston, and astronomers turned away from astrology and geocentrism.

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EFF

Patent litigation reform failed to pass Congress this year, but the issue of "patent trolls"—paper companies that do nothing but sue over patents—received unprecedented attention. Activist groups that have been long focused on the issue, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, don't want the public pressure to let up.

Hence, EFF's newest patent campaign: the group will be announcing a "Stupid Patent of the Month." For August, the group has nominated US Patent No. 8,762,173, titled “Method and Apparatus for Indirect Medical Consultation.” The patent issued in June, and it dates back to an original filing in 2007.

A blog post by EFF lawyer Vera Ranieri, supplies a legalese-free description of just what the now-monopolized method is:

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The Robert E. Coyle Federal Courthouse in Fresno is the site of a significant portion of the nation's laser strike cases. Cyrus Farivar

On Monday, a federal court in Central California sentenced a 26-year-old to one year and nine months in prison for firing two different laser pointers at a Kern County Sheriff’s Office helicopter over a six month period in 2013.

The man, Brett Lee Scott of Buttonwillow, took a plea deal with federal prosecutors according to a May 5, 2014 court filing. Scott explained his actions by saying that he was “bored.”

It may seem like a silly thing, but laser strikes against planes, helicopters, and other aerial vehicles have become an increasing epidemic nationwide. Since the FBI began keeping track in 2005, there have been more than 17,000 laser strikes—one-fifth (3,960) in 2013 alone. During the first three months of 2014, the FBI reported an average of 9.5 incidents daily.

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Cairo

Defendant John Skillern. Webster Police A 41-year-old Houston man was arrested on suspicion of child pornography charges in an investigation founded on a tip that Google sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"They got a tip, basically Gmail," detective David Nettles of the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force told a local news broadcast last week.

The defendant, John Skillern, was being held on $200,000 bond and is a registered sex offender connected to a 20-year-old sexual assault on a young boy.

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Microsoft is continuing to churn out regular updates to its developer tools with the release today of Visual Studio 2013 Update 3. As with previous updates, the release includes as mix of bug fixes and new capabilities.

New features include expanding the memory usage profiler to support both .NET applications using WPF and native code applications using Win32, CodeLens support for git repositories so work items and change history can be shown integrated in the text editor, and a better debugging experience for Windows Store apps on multimonitor systems.

Other parts of Microsoft's developer ecosystem were also updated today. The Windows Phone 8.1 Update preview is now available on all phones enrolled in the developer preview program, and the developer emulator images have been updated accordingly.

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Aereo

In an emergency motion (PDF) filed Friday, TV-over-Internet startup Aereo submitted its most detailed legal arguments yet as to why it should be allowed to be a cable company. It also asked, based on those arguments, to resume operations until a final decision was reached.

US District Judge Alison Nathan wasn't having it, though. She rejected (PDF) the emergency motion and ordered it stricken from the record the same day it was filed. "Defendant has jumped the gun in filing, without authorization, its motion," she wrote. Instead, she ordered both sides to file papers in support of their positions following the Supreme Court case over the next five weeks.

Aereo was shut down a few days after it lost its Supreme Court case on a 6-3 vote. The Supreme Court said Aereo's strategy of using tiny antennas to push over-the-air TV over the Internet looked too much like a cable company to avoid paying copyright royalties.

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A scene from Tropico 5, deemed inappropriate for sale in Thailand by the ruling junta.

Publisher Kalypso Media has confirmed that Thailand's Board of Film and Video Censors office has blocked the local release of Tropico 5, which features gameplay scenarios that may be too close to the real-world military coup that hit the country in May.

In its announcement, Kalypso notes that the Ministry of Culture declared merely that "some contents of the game are not appropriate for the current situation" in the country. However, a spokesperson for Thai distributor New Era told the AP that the government was worried that "some part of [the game's] content might affect peace and order in the country." Prior to the coup, both Tropico 3 and Tropico 4 were released in Thailand without incident.

Since it launched in 2001, the Tropico series has let players take the role of "El Presidente" and rule an island nation with an iron fist or a gentle, tourist-friendly hand. As Kalypso noted in a statement, the gameplay in the "Junta" expansion pack for previous release Tropico 4 largely mimics the militaristic takeover the country experienced earlier this year. "This [ban] does sound like it could have come from one of El Presidente’s own edicts from the game," Kalypso Media Group Global Managing Director Stefan Marcinek said in a statement.

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Professional-networking site LinkedIn is agreeing to pay nearly $3.35 million in unpaid overtime to 359 workers, in addition to $2.5 million in damages under a deal announced Monday with the US Department of Labor.

The accord covers current and former employees at LinkedIn offices in California, Illinois, Nebraska, and New York.

"This company has shown a great deal of integrity by fully cooperating with investigators and stepping up to the plate without hesitation to help make workers whole," David Weil, administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, said in a statement.

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New measurements of the star system HK Tauri provide insight into the complicated environments that can govern the formation of exoplanets. Before scientists had the ability to study exosolar systems in detail, it was expected that other systems would look a lot like ours. The planets of our Solar System orbit in a plane that roughly corresponds to the Sun’s equator, occupying nearly circular orbits.

However, when exoplanets began to be discovered, that expectation of familiarity was shattered. Exoplanetary systems occupy all kinds of orbits, with inclination varying wildly. There is currently no consensus about what causes these planetary orbits to get so out of whack.

Planets form out of a disk of gas and dust, part of the same material that formed the star. Since the whole system, including the star, was essentially one spinning disk at one point in its evolution, planets should orbit roughly along the same plane as their host star’s equator. After all, that is what we observe in our own Solar System. But in exosolar systems, that’s not always the case.

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A look at the freshly redesigned Apple TV UI, taken from the latest developer beta. 9to5Mac

Apple reportedly seeded another beta of iOS 8 to developers today, and it came with a little something special for Apple TV users. 9to5Mac reports that the latest beta brings a refreshed user interface to the Apple TV, replacing the old iOS 6-style UI with a flatter look, updated icons, and refreshed fonts that bring it in line with iOS 7 and the forthcoming OS X Yosemite. Previous betas, while still based on iOS 8, used a version of the current interface.

We won't know until the official release whether iOS 8 will change anything about the way the Apple TV works, but judging from the available screenshots, endless tapping and clicking of your remote will still be the primary method of navigation. Those hoping for some kind of Siri-powered voice control will have to keep waiting, either for new hardware with an embedded microphone or for an update to the Remote app for iOS devices (to name just two of the possible ways Apple could implement this feature).

The current-generation Apple TV boxes introduced back in March of 2012 will presumably get this update alongside iPhones and iPads when iOS 8 launches in the fall. As we've already reported, second-generation Apple TV boxes will not receive this update—Apple is dropping support for all devices that use its A4 chip, including that box and the iPhone 4. A new Apple TV box is still in a state of flux. The Information reports that we could see a new version of the $99 Apple TV at some point this year, but a more extensive revamp that includes live TV broadcasts and buy-in from cable companies is being held up by negotiations.

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The Xbox One definitely puts the "box" in Xbox—it has none of the contours or curves of the various 360 models. Kyle Orland

It's been only a couple of months since Microsoft finally lowered the price of a (Kinect-free) Xbox One to $399. Now, it seems Microsoft is prepared to add to the value of that console by offering one of two free games bundled with the hardware in the near future.

The first bundle, officially announced today "in limited supply only," will package an Xbox One console with a copy of Madden NFL 15 and will be available "at select US retailers such as Microsoft retail stores" starting August 26, when the game comes out. In addition to special packaging, bundle purchasers will also get a download code for three NFL Ultimate Team packs. The bundle follows the announcement of EA's Xbox One-exclusive subscription service, EA Access, which offers early access to demo versions of many upcoming games, including Madden NFL 15.

The second bundle is not officially confirmed yet, but a Microsoft spokesperson told Polygon that the company will be offering an Xbox One bundled with exclusive zombie action title Sunset Overdrive. That bundle will supposedly be the first time the general public has access to a white Xbox One, which was previously only available to Microsoft employees who worked on the system before launch.

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The Union Street Guest House's imagemap homepage. Union Street Guest House

Apparently recognizing that restaurants and hotels can live and die by their online ratings, the Union Street Guest House in Hudson, NY included a table-turning clause in their reservation policies: if you book an event at the hotel and a member of your party posts a negative review, the hotel will fine you $500.

As initially reported by Page Six News, the Events and Weddings page on the hotel’s website contained the following language:

If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH, there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH placed on any Internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event. If you stay here to attend a wedding anywhere in the area and leave us a negative review on any Internet site, you agree to a $500 fine for each negative review.

It’s unclear when the decidedly anti-customer clause was added to the website (which appears to be as creaky and ancient as the hotel itself apparently is), but the story blew up this morning when Page Six News published a report on the clause. The story was echoed by BGR and Yahoo News before finally landing on the front page of reddit.

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Kim Heung-kwang (second from left) is a former North Korean cyberwarfare professor and a judge at the HRF event. Justice Suh (third from right) was one of the winning team members. Cyrus Farivar

SAN FRANCISCO—A three-person Korean-American team—including two 17-year-old college students—won a weekend-long hackathon sponsored by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) designed to help people in North Korea.

The team's idea, which hasn’t moved beyond the concept phase, was deceptively simple: import a bunch of satellite receivers into North Korea so that people can simply receive TV stations from SkyLife, a major South Korean broadcaster.

At present, SkyLife’s satellite footprint easily extends into North Korea, and it includes many Korean-language stations including KBS and SBS, two of the largest. It also includes some English-language programming, including BBC, Eurosport, and Animal Planet, among others. The team realizes that getting a little more independent information into North Korea won't create an overnight revolution in the country. But under this plan, the team claims, North Koreans could start to learn more about how their South Korea cousins live via news, sports, entertainment, and more.

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Ross Ulbricht, as seen here in an undated photo, is the alleged mastermind of the Silk Road underground drug bazaar. FreeRoss.org

Alleged Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s defense attorney Joshua Dratel has asked the court to suppress nearly all of the evidence collected against his client. Should the motion be successful, it would likely put a substantial damper on the government’s efforts to prosecute Ulbricht.

Dratel previously asked the court to dismiss all four criminal counts against his client. However, in a scathing opinion and order issued last month, the judge dismissed all of Dratel’s arguments. If this new motion doesn’t stick—absent a plea deal—the case will go to trial scheduled for November in a New York federal courtroom.

The underground drug website Silk Road was shut down as part of a federal raid late last year. It was only accessible through the anonymizing tool Tor and required payment in Bitcoin. The government claims that Ross Ulbricht, as Dread Pirate Roberts, "reaped commissions worth tens of millions of dollars” through his role as the site’s leader.

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The Ebola virus consists of small but lethal filament of RNA containing only seven genes. CDC

CNN reported Monday that the two US citizens who were flown back to the states after contracting the Ebola virus were given an extremely experimental treatment, one that's still undergoing animal testing. While the treatment involves antibodies, it's not a vaccine, and it can work effectively even after an infection has started. The process that produced it is a testament to the impressive capabilities developed in the field of biotechnology.

The Ebola virus, known for its horrific symptoms and high fatality rate, currently has no established treatment. The health care workers who are fighting the disease—and are thus at high risk for becoming infected themselves—can do little more than put themselves in isolation and try to compensate for the damage the virus causes. That situation was apparently the case for two Americans who contracted the virus while working in Liberia.

In this case, however, both people were apparently given an experimental treatment developed in part by a company called Mapp Biopharmaceutical. Complicating matters, Mapp licenses its developments to a company called LeafBio for production and distribution. But LeafBio has also licensed an Ebola treatment from a second company, called Defyrus, and it plans on combining the two. It's unclear whether the Americans received the original or combined therapy. In either case, both therapies were based on the same developmental process outlined below.

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