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TP-Link faces possible US ban as hijacked routers fuel Chinese attacks
Founded in China, TP-Link makes routers popular in US homes and businesses.
US government authorities are reportedly investigating whether to ban TP-Link wireless routers, which have been targeted in some high-profile attacks linked to the Chinese government. TP-Link, which was founded in China in 1996 and said it relocated its headquarters to the US in October this year, has racked up significant market share in US homes and businesses.
US authorities are investigating whether TP-Link “poses a national-security risk and are considering banning the devices,” The Wall Street Journal reported today. The WSJ notes that TP-Link is “the top choice on Amazon.com, and powers Internet communications for the Defense Department and other federal government agencies.”
The WSJ wrote:
Z-Wave Long Range and its mile-long capabilities will arrive next year
Few homes will need it, but the (literal) edge cases are quite intriguing.
Z-Wave can be a very robust automation network, free from the complications and fragility of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Just how robust, you ask? More than a mile long, under the right circumstances, as hardware soon to hit the market promises.
All claims of radio distances should be taken with amounts of salt unhealthy for consumption. What can be accomplished across an empty field is not the same as what can be done through buildings, interference, and scatter. But Z-Wave Long Range (or Z-Wave LR), operating “in long range mode at full power,” can hit 1.5 miles, according to the Z-Wave Alliance, presuming you’ve got the right star-shaped hub network.
By using a star network topology instead of a more traditional mesh, Z-Wave LR reduces the need for hubs and repeaters, relying instead on a central hub. It can be more reliable for larger commercial spaces, security setups, and bigger homes, and also more power efficient. Devices automatically adjust their signal strength while on Z-Wave networks, extending the battery life of a single coin cell up to 10 years—again, under best-case circumstances. If you’re really a glutton for punishment, you can fit up to 4,000 devices on a network running Z-Wave LR, because LR can co-exist on the same network as standard Z-Wave meshes.
The $700 price tag isn’t hurting PS5 Pro’s early sales
A sizable early adopter niche will still pay for the most powerful console possible.
When Sony revealed the PlayStation 5 Pro a few months ago, some wondered just how many people would be willing to spend $700 for a marginal upgrade to the already quite powerful graphical performance of the PS5. Now, initial sales reports suggest there’s still a substantial portion of the console market that’s willing to shell out serious money for top-of-the-line console graphics.
Circana analyst Matt Piscatella shared on Bluesky this morning that the PS5 Pro accounted for a full 19 percent of US PS5 sales in its launch month of November. That sales ratio puts initial upgrade interest in the PS5 Pro roughly in line with lifetime interest in the PS4 Pro, which recent reports suggest was responsible for about 20 percent of all PS4 sales following its launch in 2016.
That US sales ratio also lines up with international sales reports for the PS5 Pro launch. In the UK, GfK ChartTrack reports that the PS5 Pro was responsible for 26 percent of all console sales for November. And in Japan, Famitsu sales data suggests the PS5 Pro was responsible for a full 63 percent of the PS5’s November sales after selling an impressive 78,000 units in its launch week alone.
EPA lets California set its own stricter emissions standards until 2035
The regulations will phase out the sale of new internal combustion cars by 2035.
Today, the US Environmental Protection Agency granted a pair of waivers to California, allowing the Golden State to continue regulating vehicle-caused air pollution within its borders. The first is for the California Air Resources Board’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulations, which apply to light- and medium-duty vehicles like passenger cars, SUVs, and smaller trucks. The second waiver is for regulations that control the amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) that can be emitted by heavy-duty vehicles as well as off-road vehicles.
The Clean Air Act allows states to apply for a waiver from the EPA to set their own emissions standards in cases where the federal regulations are insufficient to prevent deleterious pollution. The state applied for the latest waivers late in 2023, and after a public comment period and then a review by the agency, the EPA decided to approve them.
“California has longstanding authority to request waivers from EPA to protect its residents from dangerous air pollution coming from mobile sources like cars and trucks,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “Today’s actions follow through on EPA’s commitment to partner with states to reduce emissions and act on the threat of climate change.”
GM and ChargePoint will deploy hundreds of “Omni Port” chargers in 2025
Capable of servicing both NACS and CCS1 EVs, some chargers will be rated at 500 kW.
General Motors might have scaled back its electric vehicle ambitions in favor of more hybrids, but it’s still accelerating its plans to build out EV charging infrastructure. Today, together with ChargePoint, GM revealed that it will deploy “hundreds” of new DC fast chargers under the GM Energy brand in 2025.
“The transition to electric mobility continues to be driven by leaders such as General Motors offering innovative EVs and committing to make chargers as ubiquitous as possible,” said Rick Wilmer, CEO of ChargePoint. “Our collaboration with GM represents a significant investment in the infrastructure to enable fast and easy charging for all. Together, ChargePoint and GM will deliver a seamless fast charging experience via reliable charging hardware managed by our industry-leading software platform.”
Many (but not all) of the new chargers will be capable of delivering up to 500 kW, a higher power level than any EV currently on the market is able to charge. Many of the chargers will also feature ChargePoint’s “Omni Port,” which has both CCS1 and NACS (J3400) plugs, allowing almost all EV drivers to make use of them. (Sorry, Nissan Leaf owners.)
Reminder: Donate to win swag in our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes
Help push our charity haul past $16,000 in just over a week.
If you’ve been too busy fixing your video drivers to take part in this year’s Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don’t worry. You still have time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $4,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win).
In the first week or so of the drive, nearly 180 readers have contributed almost $16,000 to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child’s Play as part of the charity drive (Child’s Play is barely hanging on to a small donation lead at the moment). That’s a long way off from 2020’s record haul of over $58,000, but there’s still plenty of time until the Charity Drive wraps up on Thursday, January 2, 2025.
That doesn’t mean you should put your donation off, though. Do yourself and the charities involved a favor and give now while you’re thinking about it.
Who needs the dark web? Drug sales flourish on social media
Drug sales on the dark web are trending downward in favor of Snapchat, Telegram, and others.
For every illegal drug, there is a combination of emojis that dealers and consumers use to evade detection on social media and messaging platforms. Snowflakes, snowfall, and snowmen symbolize cocaine. Love hearts, lightning bolts, and pill capsules mean MDMA, or molly. Brown hearts and dragons represent heroin. Grapes and baby bottles are the calling cards for codeine-containing cough syrup, or lean. The humble maple leaf, meanwhile, is the universal symbol for all drugs.
The proliferation of open drug dealing on Instagram, Snapchat, and X—as well as on encrypted messaging platforms Telegram and WhatsApp—has transformed the fabric of illegal substance procurement, gradually making it more convenient, and arguably safer, for consumers, who can receive packages in the mail without meeting people on street corners or going through the rigmarole of the dark web. There is no reliable way to gauge drug trafficking on social media, but the European Union Drugs Agency acknowledged in its latest report on the drivers of European drug sales that purchases brokered through such platforms “appear to be gaining in prominence.”
Initial studies into drug sales on social media began to be published in 2012. Over the next decade, piecemeal studies began to reveal a notable portion of drug sales were being mediated by social platforms. In 2021, it was estimated some 20 percent of drug purchases in Ireland were being arranged through social media. In the US in 2018 and Spain in 2019, a tenth of young people who used drugs appear to have connected with dealers through the internet, with the large majority doing so through social media, according to one small study.
Russian space chief says country will fly on space station until 2030
“Space is an area of activity where there is never a 100 percent guaranteed result.”
In a wide-ranging interview with a Russian television station, the chief executive of Russia’s main space corporation said the country is now planning to participate in the International Space Station project all the way to NASA’s desired goal of 2030.
“In coordination with our American colleagues, we plan to de-orbit the station sometime around the beginning of 2030,” the country’s chief space official, Yuri Borisov, said during the interview. “The final scenario will probably be specified after the transition to a new NASA administration.”
While the documents for such an extension have not been signed, these comments appear to represent a change in tone from Russia. When he first became head of Roscosmos in 2022, Borisov said Russia would leave the station partnership “after” 2024, which was interpreted as shortly thereafter. Later, Russia committed to working with NASA to keep the orbital outpost flying only through 2028. The US space agency has expressed a consistent desire to keep flying the station until 2030, after which point it hopes that private space station operators can provide one or more replacement facilities.
These squirrels are cold-blooded vole killers
Novel hunting behavior may have emerged alongside a marked increase in the local vole population this summer.
We think of squirrels as adorably harmless creatures, admiring their bushy tails and twitchy little noses and the way they cram their cheeks with nuts or seeds to bring back to their nests for later. But the rodents turn out to be a bit more bloodthirsty than we thought. According to a new paper published in the Journal of Ethology, California ground squirrels have been caught in the act—many times over—of chasing, killing, and eating voles.
Co-author Jennifer Smith, a biologist at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, described the behavior as “shocking,” given the sheer number of times they watched squirrels do this. “We had never seen this behavior before,” she said. “Squirrels are one of the most familiar animals to people. We see them right outside our windows; we interact with them regularly. Yet here’s this never-before-encountered-in-science behavior that sheds light on the fact that there’s so much more to learn about the natural history of the world around us.”
Squirrels mainly consume acorns, seeds, nuts, and fruits, but they have been known to supplement that diet with insects and, occasionally, stealing eggs or young hatchlings from nests. And back in 1993, biologist J.R Callahan caused a stir by reporting that as many as 30 species of squirrel could be preying on smaller creatures: namely, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and the occasional small mammal.
Report: Elon Musk failed to report movement required by security clearance
No federal agencies have accused Musk of disclosing classified information.
A new investigation from The New York Times suggests that SpaceX founder Elon Musk has not been reporting his travel activities and other information to the Department of Defense as required by his top-secret clearance.
According to the newspaper, concerns about Musk’s reporting practices have led to reviews by three different bodies within the military; the Air Force, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and the Defense Department Office of Inspector General.
However, none of the federal agencies cited in the Times article has accused Musk of disclosing classified material.