Category: Information Technology

NASA’s Mars rovers have accomplished a whole lot since the first one landed on the red planet in the late ’90s, but even the latest members of the fleet still have plenty of limitations. For one, they’re very slow; Perseverance, which NASA considers a “standout,” achieves a top speed of just under .1 mph on flat ground. On top of that, the rough terrain is hard on the rovers’ wheels, and steep slopes with hazards like rocks and sand pose a real challenge, sometimes requiring long detours to reach certain targets. But this week, NASA showed off its progress on a prototype that boasts more advanced capabilities: the Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme Sloped Terrain, or Ernest.

The space agency has been testing Ernest in the Colorado Desert, exploring new approaches that could be used for future missions on Mars and the moon. Ernest has four wheels, in contrast to the current Mars’ rovers’ six, and is four feet long, though a version that would be used for an actual mission would be double the size. And, it can individually lift its wheels to step on or over obstacles. In the recent tests in the desert, the prototype drove for a total of over 37 hours across seven days, covering roughly 16 miles, according to NASA. It hit a top speed of about .6 mph.

“You could do a science road trip across the Moon — or Mars — with this vehicle,” said James Keane, a JPL planetary scientist working on lunar missions. Going back to NASA’s Sojourner rover, the Mars rovers have relied on a passive suspension system, the rocker-bogie system, to keep the weight constant across their wheels. Now, though, engineers are trying out active suspension with Ernest to achieve greater mobility. “Two powered joints in front articulate a gimbal that allows the rover to drive using different gaits like squirming, wheel-walking, and obstacle-climbing,” NASA says.

It can switch between active and passive suspension depending on the task and energy needs, and thanks to its four steerable wheels, it can drive in any direction. There have already been multiple iterations of the Ernest prototype since the program began in 2022, and the team has tested nearly a dozen active suspension configurations. The latest version also has “enhanced independent decision-making capabilities.” The goal with Ernest is to develop the technology for rovers that can cover more ground than those that came before them, and faster, with less reliance on human controllers back on Earth.

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As much fun as it is going to a professional sporting event, nothing beats watching the big game in the comfort of your own home. If you’re watching who’s going to take it all on the basketball court, diamond, soccer pitch, or gridiron, you need to ensure your soundbar’s audio settings are ready before the first ball is in play.

Also: How I tweaked my Sonos speakers to upgrade their audio performance – easy and free

If you’re watching the game on an over-the-air cable or satellite broadcast, you may notice fuzzy or degraded audio quality. The good news is that your soundbar likely has some features that can help.

1. Use room calibration

Most soundbars have a room calibration feature that will use either built-in microphones or the microphones in your mobile device to measure your room’s acoustics. This feature will account for your room’s size, shape, and furniture to optimize the soundbar’s audio output.

This feature is easy to overlook, but tuning your soundbar to your room can make a tangible difference in your soundbar’s performance. Room calibration can level bass response, eliminating or significantly decreasing a muddy or overpowering bass response. 

Room correction can also improve your soundbar’s dialogue performance by leveraging your room’s characteristics to balance audio channels.

2. Reduce bass

Sporting events can be full of bass, either from backing musical strings or from roaring crowds in the stadium. If you’re having trouble hearing a commentator highlight a player’s stats when music plays in the background, you could reduce the bass to keep it from muddying dialogue.

Also: How to watch the FIFA World Cup 2026: I found 10 ways to stream (including free options)

If you’re hearing booming crowd noise instead of commentators, on-field action, and referees, your soundbar’s bass is likely too high. 

3. Turn on dialogue or speech enhancement

In your soundbar’s settings, there’s likely a dialogue or speech enhancement feature. Turning this feature on or adjusting its strength will enhance midrange frequencies and damped high and low-range frequencies.

Human voices primarily exist in the midrange; reducing the extremes while enhancing the midrange should make voices clearer. 

4. Try night sound

If your soundbar has a night sound or night listening mode, use it when you’re catching the tail end of a primetime game to hear it clearly without disturbing your housemates. This feature, along with dialogue enhancement, dampens the intensity of loud sounds while preserving dialogue volume.

Bonus: invest in rear speakers

If you already have a soundbar, there are several included features you can try to adjust its output to your liking. However, rear speakers take some of the audio output load off your soundbar, introducing ambient crowd noise and allowing it to focus on dialogue.

Also: Bose Lifestyle Ultra vs. Sonos Era 100: I compared both smart speakers, and this one wins

Some streaming services, like Peacock, allow users to stream sporting events in Dolby Atmos. If you’re preparing to watch an upcoming season in spatial audio, rear speakers will add a layer of immersion that your soundbar can’t deliver on its own. 

Microsoft says it has detected new self-propagating malware that spreads through USB drives in search of cryptocurrency credentials, which it then sends to attacker-controlled servers.

The company named the worm Crypto Clipper because it monitors the contents of device clipboards for patterns consistent with wallet addresses or seed phrases. When found, the malware also takes five screenshots over a 10-second period. Both the credentials and the screenshots are then sent to the attacker through Tor, a network protocol that provides anonymous routing by sending traffic through redundant nodes so logs can’t capture both the sending and receiving IP addresses. Crypto Clipper establishes the Tor connection by using a SOCKS5 proxy, a network protocol that sends traffic through a proxy server, which then forwards it to its final destination.

A lightweight backdoor

“The execution of this clipper is notable because it does not depend on a traditional installer or exposed IP-based C2 infrastructure,” Microsoft said Thursday. “Instead, it deploys a portable Tor client, routes traffic through a local SOCKS5 proxy, and blends data theft with remote code execution, turning a financially motivated stealer into a lightweight backdoor.”

Microsoft said it observed Crypto Clipper spreading through .lnk file on a USB drive. These files store executable code. When an infected USB drive is plugged into a device, the code checks whether it is already installed on the machine. If it isn’t, the malware downloads it through the Tor proxy. To better conceal evidence of the worm, the malware scans the infected USB drive and names the .lnk files with similar names.

Nintendo of North America says it’s aware of what’s been described as a small third-party data breach affecting some of its employees.

“Nintendo’s systems have not been compromised,” the company told Mashable in a statement, acknowledging that a third-party service was affected by an “issue.”

Earlier this week, a hacking group calling itself ShadowByte$ posted a threat on a “well-known cybercrime forum,” according to CyberNews. The group alleged it stole 859MB of internal corporate data from a third-party service called TinyPulse, which collects employee feedback for companies.

Mashable Light Speed

The stolen data reportedly includes the results of employee satisfaction surveys, private messages, and the names of Nintendo employees. According to a LinkedIn profile, TinyPulse is part of WebMD Health Services.

The hacking group reportedly issued a $2 million ransomware demand to prevent the release of the data. Per Kotaku, after failing to get results with Nintendo, the extortion group reportedly tried its luck with TinyPulse as well. However, Nintendo downplayed the sensitivity of the data, telling Mashable the alleged TinyPulse breach is “limited to internal survey content comprising a small subset of our employees.”

We are aware of an issue involving TinyPulse, a third-party service used for internal employee surveys at Nintendo of America. Nintendo’s systems have not been compromised, and no personal customer or financial data has been accessed. The data involved is limited to internal survey content comprising a small subset of our employees, and most of the information dates back several years.   

We appreciate our employees’ willingness to share their perspectives, take all feedback seriously, and take action when needed. We are working with the service provider to address the issue.

In recent years, ransomware-as-a-service tools have made it easier for bad actors — even those without sophisticated coding or hacking skills — to obtain sensitive data from companies and individuals.

Mashable reached out to WebMD Health Services about the alleged TinyPulse data breach, and we’ll update this story if we receive more information.

Topics
Cybersecurity
Nintendo