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How the Internet of Things Got Hacked   There was once a time when people distinguished between cyberspace, the digital world of computers and hackers, and the flesh-and-blood reality known as meatspace. Anyone overwhelmed by the hackable perils of cyberspace could unplug and retreat to the reliable, analog world of physical objects. But today, cheap, radio-connected computers have invaded meatspace. They’re now embedded in everything from our toys to our cars to our bodies. And this year has made clearer than ever before that this Internet of Things introduces all the vulnerabilities of the digital world into our real world. Security researchers exposed holes in everything from Wi-Fi-enabled Barbie dolls to two-ton Jeep Cherokees . For now, those demonstrations have yet to manifest in real-world malicious hacks, says security entrepreneur Chris Rouland. But Rouland, who once ran the controversial government hacking contractor firm Endgame, has bet his next co...

How a Nation of Tech Copycats Transformed Into a Hub for Innovation   The young programmer had an idea, and everyone thought it was nuts. Just out of college, he’d gotten a job writing software for YY, a livestreaming company based in the mas­sive city of Guangzhou, in China’s Pearl River Delta. More than 100 million users every month stream them­selves, or tune in to broadcasts of others, singing, playing video­games, or hosting talk shows from their Beijing apartments. The audience chats back, prolifically, via voice or text. The programmer thought YY should try something new: use its proven streaming technology to run a dating service, which would operate kind of like a TV dating show. A host would set up an online lounge, then invite in some lonely singles and coax them to ask each other questions and maybe find a partner. Company executives were dubious. “The CEO almost killed it,” says Eric Ho, chief financial officer, sitting in YY’s head­quarters, a...

Internet Rejoices as Reviled Pharma Kingpin Martin Shkreli Is Arrested   The Twitter masses are rarely, if ever, in agreement. Which is what makes today so momentous, for today is the day that Martin Shkreli, who may be the most hated man of 2015, was arrested. For this one day, the people of the Internet put aside their differences and celebrated. Far be it for us to delight in another person’s misfortune, but when that person is Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical CEO who gained infamy for jacking up the price of a life-saving drug called Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per tablet, we’re allowed a righteous snicker or two. According to Bloomberg , Shkreli was arrested early this morning on suspicion of securities fraud, a charge that’s completely unrelated to the price-gouging scandal. The 32-year-old allegedly paid off debts from his time as a hedge fund manager with stock he obtained illegally from his company, Retrophin, which he founded prior to starting hi...

Bud Light, Prince of Beers, Gets a New Retro Can Design   Bud Light, our nation’s favorite beer, has a new, rather adult, look . The can is still blue, but the familiar, elliptical swoosh is gone, replaced by the same  Anheuser-Busch crest that decorates Budweiser cans. The typeface is different, too: Instead of the italicized “Bud Light,” the beer’s name appears in a bold type reminiscent of what you see on Absolut Vodka bottles. The work was done in-house, and it’s the first packaging overhaul to Bud Light in eight years. Expect to see it in stores and fraternity houses this spring. Technically, the new look is old. The combination of bold lettering and the crest harks back to the 1980s, when Bud Light cans bore a similar design, but with the red and white colors still seen on Bud Heavy cans. This return to vintage design has been happening across the industry: in recent years both Miller Lite and Coors Lite have dialed b...

The Little Icelandic Town That Survived an Epic Lava Flow   Everyone’s heard of Pompeii, the ancient city destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius. Far less famous, but no less amazing, is the tiny Icelandic town of Vestmannaeyjar, known as the “Pompeii of the North.” On January 23, 1973, a fissure ripped the island of Heimaey open, releasing a fountain of lava. Lava and ash and debris rained down on the town and surrounding countryside, destroying nearly 400 buildings and forcing everyone to flee for months. Peter Holliday first visited Vestmannaeyjar while touring Iceland in the summer of 2014. “I immediately became fascinated by the island’s stark landscape as the product of an ongoing geological violence that originates from deep within our planet,” he says. The remarkable story inspired him to return in January, 2015, to photograph the island and the people who live there. The gorgeous photos in  Where ...

Better Tech, Not More Food, Will Keep the World’s Poor Fed   Call up a mental image of the World Food Programme’s work, and you’ll most likely envision lines—endless lines of hungry people. Lines so long that field workers occasionally erect shelters to shield the waiting crowds from the scorching sun. Lines that, eventually, lead to towering piles of sacks stuffed with wheat and rice that must last those receiving them, and their families, for a month. Such lines always have been considered a necessary evil of delivering aid to those who need it most. But the World Food Programme is working on technology that could make those lines—and even the food stations they lead to—a thing of the past. The organization has spent two years developing a digital system that allows beneficiaries to receive regular cash transfers, either by SMS or on a chip card, so they can buy what they need themselves. The goal is to eventually create a world in which the ...

Elon Musk’s Billion-Dollar AI Plan Is About Far More Than Saving the World   Elon Musk and Sam Altman worry that artificial intelligence will take over the world. So, the two entrepreneurs are creating a billion-dollar not-for-profit company that will maximize the power of AI—and then share it with anyone who wants it. At least, this is the message that Musk, the founder of electric car company Tesla Motors, and Altman, the president of startup incubator Y Combinator, delivered in announcing their new endeavor, an unprecedented outfit called OpenAI . In an interview with Steven Levy of Backchannel , timed to the company’s launch, Altman said they expect this decades-long project to surpass human intelligence. But they believe that any risks will be mitigated because the technology will be “usable by everyone instead of usable by, say, just Google.” If OpenAI stays true to its mission, it will act as a check on powerful companies like Google and Facebook. Na...

You Can’t Ride a Hoverboard Without Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity People call them hoverboards, but they clearly don’t hover. If you haven’t seen one, it’s basically a Segway without the handle. So sure, riding one makes it look like you’re gliding over the surface, sort of like hovering. Riding a hoverboard requires some physics. In this case, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. We can use it to explain an accelerating hoverboard. Theory of General Relativity First, don’t confuse this with the theory of special relativity. Special relativity is all about one simple thing: No matter how fast different people are moving, they all see the speed of light as the same constant value (3 x 10 8 m/s). Why is it special? Well, before Einstein, everyone thought reference frames were relative. If you are moving toward me, that is the same as me moving toward you. Yes, there are tons of cool things that come from special relativity—but we are going to ...

Avegant’s Glyph Headset Is a Movie Theater for Your Face   When I put on the Glyph, the $699 headphones-meets-face-computer headset Avegant’s been working on, Ed Tang didn’t put on a game. Avegant’s founder and chief strategy officer didn’t drop me in some immersive other world, where I could look around and explore or interact with a robot. He put on The Avengers . The Glyph looks like a VR headset, but it’s not a VR headset. It also looks like an overgrown pair of Beats headphones, but it’s not an overgrown pair of Beats headphones. It’s something else. Avegant calls it “Mediawear,” which is terrible. It amounts to this: a pair of great-sounding headphones, with two eyepieces on the underside of the band. Flip it down over your eyes, and suddenly it’s like you’re sitting dead center in your own movie theater. It’s kinda like Oculus Rift meets Bose meets holding your phone inches from your face. After years of development, a $1.5 million Kickstarter campaign...

San Bernardino Suspect Posted an ISIS Pledge to Facebook After Shooting Began   Tashfeen Malik, a suspect in the San Bernardino massacre that killed 14 people and injured 21 others, posted a pledge of allegiance to ISIS on Facebook shortly after the rampage began. Police say Malik and her husband , Syed Farook, attacked the County of San Bernardino Department of Public Health on Wednesday. The FBI is now investigating the shooting as “an act of terrorism,” David Bowdich, the assistant FBI director in charge of the Los Angeles field office, said Friday . He said the FBI has uncovered evidence that has “led us to learn of extensive planning,” including explosives and multiple armaments. “We’ve also uncovered evidence that these subjects attempted to destroy their digital fingerprint,” Bowdich said, noting that two “crushed” cell phones were found in a nearby trash can. The shooting was first reported  shortly after 11 am  by ...

Hacker Lexicon: Malvertising, the Hack That Infects Computers Without a Click   Malvertising is when hackers buy ad space on a legitimate website, and, as the name suggests, upload malicious advertisements designed to hack site visitor’s computers. The news page looked perfectly innocent. Apart from the reams of celebrity gossip stories and throw-away magazine layout, nothing about the the website for UK news site The Daily Mail seemed particularly malicious. But, if you visited the site in October, you might have fallen victim to a sophisticated hacking campaign without even realizing it. TL;DR: Malvertising is when hackers buy ad space on a legitimate website, and, as the name suggests, upload malicious ads designed to hack site visitor's computers. In the background of The Daily Mail, third-party advertisements were surreptitiously and automatically redirecting readers to powerful exploit kits, designed to install malware on their computers. This is th...

Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius   Even as his face towered 10 feet above the crowd at the Bitcoin Investor’s Conference in Las Vegas, Craig Steven Wright was, to most of the audience of crypto and finance geeks, a nobody. The 44-year-old Australian, Skyping into the D Hotel ballroom’s screen, wore the bitcoin enthusiast’s equivalent of camouflage: a black blazer and a tieless, rumpled shirt, his brown hair neatly parted. His name hadn’t made the conference’s list of “featured speakers.” Even the panel’s moderator, a bitcoin blogger named Michele Seven, seemed concerned the audience wouldn’t know why he was there. Wright had hardly begun to introduce himself as a “former academic who does research that no one ever hears about,” when she interrupted him. “Hold on a second, who are you?” Seven cut in, laughing. “Are you a computer scientist?” “I’m a bit of everything,” Wright responded. “I have a master’s in law…a ma...