Hasta La Gadget!

Bugs are common in software. Sometimes they are relatively harmless, but sometimes they can be huge. A recent example would be Apple’s FaceTime bug where the caller can listen in on the person they’re calling while making a FaceTime call, and that person would not even need to pick up their device, scary isn’t it?

Apple has since been hit with a lawsuit over the bug, and now in a letter addressed to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook (via AppleInsider), House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) are now demanding some answers with regards to customer privacy, the origins of the bug, and if there might be more bugs that have yet to be publicly disclosed.

The letter reads (in part), “We are deeply troubled by the recent press reports about how long it took for Apple to address a significant privacy violation identified by Grant Thompson, a 14-year-old in its Group FaceTime feature. As such, we are writing to better understand when Apple first learned of this security flaw, the extent to which the flaw has compromised consumers’ privacy, and whether there are other undisclosed bugs that currently exist and have not been addressed.”

Apple has since apologized for the bug and stated that they are working on a fix that should arrive this week. They have also thanked Grant Thompson, the teen who first discovered the bug.

US Lawmakers Are Questioning Apple Over FaceTime Bug

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The MSNBC host fired back at the Georgia Republican’s condescension to the freshman lawmaker.

When not building robots that we kill us and take over the world, researchers at MIT are working on robots that will just demoralize us and make us feel like losers. For example, this specialized robot combines vision and touch to teach itself to play Jenga. In case you’ve been living under a rock all your life, Jenga is a game of stacked wooden blocks where you have to pull out blocks without making the tower collapse.

The robot has a soft-pronged gripper, a force-sensing wrist cuff, and an external camera that allows it to “see” and “feel” the tower and the individual blocks. It can push gently against a block as the visual and tactile feedback is assessed from the camera and cuff. These forces are compared to other measurements. It can learn in real-time if the block can be removed without making the tower collapse. There’s no way we can compete with that.

Researchers think this technology would be great for things like separating recyclable objects from a landfill, and assembling consumer products. Then they just laugh at how much this robot will kick your butt at Jenga. Really they are just using their big brains to mess with us and to point and laugh.

[via SlashGear]

Nostalgia for the NES is high following the success of Nintendo’s classic mini consoles and the launch of its Switch Online service, which just got a couple more great additions to its selection of 8-bit games: Kirby’s Adventure and the immortally weird Super Mario Bros 2.

Kirby had just made his debut on the Game Boy, but the NES follow-up really improved things. Better controls, better graphics, still hard as hell.

Super Mario Bros 2 is remembered as a curiosity, but it deserves more than that. Sure, it’s just an asset swap for Doki Doki Panic, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a fantastic game and you should take this opportunity to play it all the way through.

As long as you’re here, I feel I should also plug the games added a couple weeks back that probably didn’t get the love they deserved, then or 30 years ago.

Blaster Master is one of my favorite games of all time and massively underplayed. It’s an early “Metroidvania,” as we call such things these days, with amazing controls both in the side-scrolling and top-down portions, and a huge, crazy world to explore. This is an absolute classic and anyone who loves the NES should play it — or, if you find the original a bit clumsy, try the recent remake, which was both faithful and added some serious upgrades.

Zelda 2 also got added two weeks ago, and while it definitely has its problems, it’s actually a really compelling game and worthy of the name. But cast aside your associations and just play it as if it’s an old gem — use a walkthrough or VGmaps to help, though, because this game is a real bastard.

So far the selections for NSO have been quite good, and they play well. The service is still extremely barebones even for its paltry asking price, but at least you can’t complain (too much anyway) about the selection of free NES titles. With a few more trickling in every month, the library will soon be quite formidable and I might even start using it instead of my hacked SNES Classic. Especially with the rumor (and near certainty) that SNES games are soon to join their 8-bit cousins.

Nintendo is definitely going through some growing pains with its online service, but I feel that in a year it’ll be up to snuff. They tend to approach everything by first establishing essentials, and then adding bit by bit. No doubt we’ll hear more at GDC and E3 later this year.

We hoped this day would never come.

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