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Ex-YouTube engineer reveals how video site worked to kill off Internet Explorer 6

(credit: Aurich Lawson)

The year is 2009. YouTube, four years old, has become the Web's leading video site. Though Internet Explorer 6 was far from current—it had been superseded by versions 7 and 8—it nonetheless made up some 18 percent of YouTube's traffic. These were, after all, the dark days of Windows XP; corporations had overwhelmingly stuck with Windows XP in spite of the release of Windows Vista, and Windows 7 was still some months from release. Many organizations still running XP appeared to be wishing for a kind of computational stasis: they wanted to be able to run Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 forever, unchanging, which would greatly simplify their maintenance and support costs.

But Internet Explorer 6 was nearly eight years old and seriously showing its age. On its release, the browser had a legitimate claim to be the best, fastest, most standards compliant, and most stable mainstream browser around. But those days were long gone. Compared to the alternatives—Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 8, and Google's Chrome—it was slow, unstable, and riddled with proprietary, non-standard behaviors. This was causing the team developing YouTube considerable pain, with weeks of extra work each development cycle to ensure that the site still worked correctly in the old browser.

Internet Explorer 6 showing the sneaky end-of-life banner.

According to former YouTube developer Chris Zacharias, this pain prompted the YouTube team to take renegade action to drive users away from Internet Explorer 6 and onto something newer and better. Though YouTube has been under Google's ownership for about three years, YouTube's engineers were suspicious and wary of being integrated into Google's corporate machine. They had their own special set of permissions named "OldTuber," and anyone with OldTuber permissions could freely modify the YouTube site without going through Google's usual change management process of code reviews, testing, adherence to coding standards, and so on. It was cowboy territory, where developers could do as they liked. Only the risk of breaking things—and hence losing OldTuber permissions, if not their job—kept them on the straight and narrow.

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Google unveils auto-delete for location, Web activity, and app usage data

Enlarge / Mountain View, Calif.—May 21, 2018: Exterior view of a Googleplex building, the corporate headquarters of Google and parent company Alphabet. (credit: Getty Images | zphotos)

Google will soon let users automatically delete location history and other private data in rolling intervals of either three months or 18 months.

"Choose a time limit for how long you want your activity data to be saved—3- or 18-months—and any data older than that will be automatically deleted from your account on an ongoing basis," Google announced yesterday. "These controls are coming first to Location History and Web & App Activity and will roll out in the coming weeks."

Google location history saves locations reported from mobile devices that are logged into your Google account, while saved Web and app activity includes "searches and other things you do on Google products and services, like Maps; your location, language, IP address, referrer, and whether you use a browser or an app; Ads you click, or things you buy on an advertiser’s site; [and] Information on your device like recent apps or contact names you searched for."

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Pitchford promises no “free-to-play junk” for Borderlands 3

Enlarge / Four new classes that you'll have to level up the old fashioned way... for the most part.

Yesterday's rollout of the first public gameplay footage for Borderlands 3 went about how you'd expect, with all the requisite guns, explosions, and colorful characters that have been standard for the series from the jump. But some confusingly worded comments about the game's post-launch monetization have required a bit of clarification from Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and others in the company.

During yesterday's streamed presentation, Pitchford announced that "we're gonna do some kickass campaign DLC, and I'm sure we're going to do all kinds of fun customizations like heads and skins. But we're not doing any of that free-to-play junk. There's not going to be any microtransactions, there's not going to be any of that nonsense."

That specific wording led Game Informer to tweet out an article clarifying that the cosmetic items Pitchford mentioned (i.e. "fun customizations like heads and skins") are indeed being sold via microtransactions (i.e. small payments). That means Pitchford's statement that "there's not going to be any microtransactions" isn't technically accurate.

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Spot the not-Fed: A day at AvengerCon, the Army’s answer to hacker conferences

Enlarge / Participants in AvengerCon III, held at the McGill Training Center at Fort Meade, Maryland, on November 27 take part in a lock pick village put on by TOOOL (The Open Organisation of Lockpickers). (credit: US Army)

FORT MEADE, Maryland—Late last year, I was invited to a relatively new hacker event in Maryland. Chris Eagle, a well-known researcher in the field of malware analysis and author of The IDA Pro Book, keynoted it. There were a number of really good talks at all levels of expertise, a couple of "Capture the Flag" (CTF) hacking challenges, and all the other typical hallmarks of a well-run hacker conference.

But this event, AvengerCon III, proved to be distinct in a number of ways from the BSides conferences and other events I've attended. The first difference was that keynote: Eagle, a senior lecturer at the Navy Postgraduate School, shared some news about an upcoming release of an open reverse engineering tool by referring to its "unclassified cover name." (The tool was Ghidra, a public reverse-engineering tool developed by the National Security Agency.) There were also a lot more people in camouflage than at most hacker events, and my CTF teammates were military intelligence agents. Perhaps the biggest giveaway that this wasn't any old hacker event? AvengerCon III was being held on Fort Meade and hosted by the US Army's 781st Military Intelligence Battalion (Cyber).

Part of the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade, the 781st was once known as the Army Network Warfare Battalion. It was the first Army unit formed to create a "cyberspace operations capability" within the Army—conducting offensive and defensive operations and intelligence collection in support of US forces around the world. So technically, AvengerCon is not a conference. It's a "training event," in Army parlance, intended to bring the hacker learning culture to the Army's cyber warriors.

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Spot the not-Fed: A day at AvengerCon, the Army’s answer to hacker conferences published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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With cash dwindling, Tesla seeks to raise $2 billion in debt and equity

Enlarge / Elon Musk. (credit: Chris Saucedo/Getty Images for SXSW)

For the last year, Elon Musk has insisted that Tesla can reach sustained profitability without raising additional cash from investors. But the company is now tacitly admitting that it was wrong, filing papers to raise another $2 billion by selling a mix of debt and equity.

Tesla is seeking to raise money just a few days after reporting an unexpectedly large loss in the first quarter of 2019. That release showed Tesla with dwindling cash in the bank—from $3.7 billion at the start of the year to $2.2 billion on March 31.

The lower cash balance primarily reflected one-time events—paying off a $920 million loan and having a bunch of cars in transit to customers at the end of the quarter. Still, having only $2.2 billion in the bank is a precarious situation for a company that has been known to lose more than $700 million in a single quarter.

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With cash dwindling, Tesla seeks to raise $2 billion in debt and equity published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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Dealmaster: Get Fitbit’s best smartwatch, the original Versa, for just $180

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster returns with another batch of deals and savings to share. Topping our list today is a deal on Fitbit's Versa smartwatch—now you can get Fitbit's best smartwatch for just $179.95, which is $20 off its original price of $200.

We're excited to see this deal on the original Versa because it makes it a better option when compared to Fitbit's Versa Lite. The company debuted the pared-down smartwatch earlier this year—at $159, the Versa Lite was designed to be a more affordable alternative to the $200 Versa. While it's a decent smartwatch for its price, it demands quite a few sacrifices. The Versa Lite doesn't have an altimeter, which tracks floors climbed, it doesn't have onboard storage for music, it cannot track swim laps, and it cannot show on-screen workouts from Fitbit Coach.

However, the original Versa has all of those features and does everything you'd expect a Fitbit smartwatch to do. It tracks all-day activity, workouts, and sleep, it has a built-in heart rate monitor and connected GPS capabilities, it can automatically track activities with Fitbit's SmartTrack technology, and it can run apps and show multiple watch faces using Fitbit OS. It also has a battery life of at least four days, so you can leave it on all day long and while you sleep for nearly one week before charging up again.

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Dragon was destroyed just before the firing of its SuperDraco thrusters

Enlarge / It is not clear when we will see crewed flights of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. (credit: SpaceX)

During a news conference Thursday in advance of a SpaceX supply mission to the International Space Station, the company's vice president of mission assurance, Hans Koenigsmann, provided some additional details about a failure with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft 12 days ago.

In the company's most expansive comments to date, Koenigsmann said the "anomaly" occurred during a series of tests with the spacecraft, approximately one-half second before the firing of the SuperDraco thrusters. At that point, he said, "There was an anomaly and the vehicle was destroyed."

During the activation phase, the SuperDraco thruster system is pressurized, and valves are opened and closed. Since the accident there has been speculation that there may have been some issue with the composite overwrap pressure vessels, or COPVs, which store rocket fuels at extremely high pressures. The COPVs on Crew Dragon are different from those on the Falcon 9, and they would not have been overly stressed at that moment, Koenigsmann said. "I'm fairly confident that the COPVs are going to be fine," he said.

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Dragon was destroyed just before the firing of its SuperDraco thrusters published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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Tinder Wants In on Your Music Festival Meet-Cute

The dating app has a new feature to help you find a mate in a sea of flower crowns. Tinder Wants In on Your Music Festival Meet-Cute published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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Tinder Wants In on Your Music Festival Meet-Cute

The dating app has a new feature to help you find a mate in a sea of flower crowns. Tinder Wants In on Your Music Festival Meet-Cute published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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LIGO may have spotted a black hole-neutron star merger

Enlarge / Our gravitational wave detectors really are a series of tubes. (credit: Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab)

On April 1, the teams behind the three gravitational wave detectors started them up for a new observational run, the first with all three operating in parallel for the full run. With the benefit of three detectors and some upgrades that were done during the downtime, we're seeing a flood of new data. In just one month, LIGO/VIRGO has seen five gravitational wave events. Three of those are from merging black holes, one was the second neutron star merger, and another may have been the first instance of a neutron star-black hole merger.

A new season

The two LIGO detectors have been a work in progress for years, starting with an early version that everyone acknowledged was unlikely to pick up gravitational waves. But each iteration has allowed scientists to understand the sources of error in their detectors, and they've been taken down for regular upgrades. The international collaboration also benefits from the fact that two additional detectors, Europe's VIRGO and Japan's KAGRA, have similar designs, and all the teams share what they're learning about the hardware.

VIRGO joined LIGO for roughly a month in 2017 before its second observational run came to a close. According to Caltech's Jess McIver, a LIGO team member, work in the intervening time went into "pushing down the quantum noise limits in the detectors." As a result of the lowered noise, McIver said that the detectors can pick up gravitational wave events farther out into space than was ever possible before. Having three detectors helps provide better spatial information as to where the event actually originated, necessary for doing follow-up observations with traditional observatories. And, as one of the events described today makes clear, three detectors let us continue to take data even if one detector is down temporarily.

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LIGO may have spotted a black hole-neutron star merger published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

The Twitter chief executive is tech’s foremost manfluencer, guiding his followers toward optimum cognitive performance. Or, at least, hunger. Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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How to Change the Color Theme of Microsoft Office

If you’re getting bored of the default theme in your Office desktop apps, you can change the color and background to give it a more personalized feel. It’s simple and only requires a few simple steps, so let’s get to it.

Changing the Office Color Theme via App Options

By default, Office uses what it calls the “Colorful” theme. This theme gives the title bar the color of its respective app. For example, Word’s is blue, Excel’s is green, PowerPoint’s is red, and so on. Additionally, it gives you a standard light gray background and ribbon, and a white content area.

You can change the theme from inside any Office application, and those changes are made throughout all of your Office apps.

First, open any Office application. We’ll be using Word in this example.

Click the “File” tab at the top-left of the ribbon.

A pane will appear on the left side with several different options. At the very bottom of the pane, select “Options.”

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The streaming service that wants to save the retro gaming biz from piracy

A mockup of the Antstream game selection screen.

For decades now, the only practical way for most people to access vast swaths of digital gaming history has been through illegal ROM downloads. Unlike music and movies—where thousands of catalog works are available through multiple different streaming and download services—the game industry restricts its commercial history to aging cartridges and arcade cabinets, extremely sporadic re-releases on modern hardware, and limited services like Nintendo Switch Online (which replaced Nintendo's more robust Virtual Console).

A newly announced service called AntStream just reached its £50,000 Kickstarter goal to help change that state of affairs. The planned service has spent years tracking down the licenses to over 2,000 classic titles from the arcade, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Commodore 64, and Sega Genesis. Subscribers to an all-you-can-play plan, starting at $50/year for early backers, will soon be able to play those emulated games via remote streaming on their PC, Mac, Xbox One, iOS, or Android device (Switch and PS4 versions are reportedly "on the roadmap")

"When you talk to the IP holders, they're not happy that all their games are being downloaded and shared illegally," AntStream CEO Steve Cottam told Ars in a recent interview. "I was quite frustrated by the fact that I could go online and pretty much get any movie, and I have Spotify for all my music, but for games it was just a really, really tough experience. [AntStream] is really about trying to put games on equal footing with movies and music in terms of accessibility."

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The streaming service that wants to save the retro gaming biz from piracy published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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Video: Slay the Spire is a friendly game of death, but it was hard to get it right

Video directed by Justin Wolfson, edited by John Cappello. Click here for transcript.

Normally, we devote our "War Stories" videos to established and classic games of old. So what is a 2019 video game doing here?

Anyone who asks this question about Slay the Spire, made by a three-person studio in Seattle, hasn't played this wonderful title. It's arguably the most addictive, accessible, and strategy-filled digital card game we've seen in years. So we wanted to talk to its dealers about the game's irresistible properties.

The result is the above interview, which is peppered with developer Mega Crit's insights (and at least one Easter egg). We're glad we sought out this younger team, because their answers revolved largely around the Steam Early Access system, which is still a pretty small drop in the bucket of game design history. Designers Anthony Giovannetti and Casey Yano sought a passionate community's help to solve the game's early design problems, and the community's use of Discord and Steam forums were critical not just for fixing Slay's early issues but also identifying them in the first place.

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Video: Slay the Spire is a friendly game of death, but it was hard to get it right published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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Tesla Seeks to Raise $2 Billion in Sale of Stock and Debt

The plan, disclosed in a regulatory filing, comes after the carmaker announced a surprisingly sharp quarterly loss. Tesla Seeks to Raise $2 Billion in Sale of Stock and Debt published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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Daily Deals: An Echo Dot for $30, an iPad for $187, a Logitech MX Anywhere 2S Mouse for $50, and More

Apple, Amazon, Logitech

Hump day got you down? Today’s a great day for deals on smarthome devices and computer accessories. These deals range from the $200 HP Chromebook to the $24 Google Home Mini. But as always, we have a few favorites.

Right now, you can grab an Echo Dot for just $30, or an Echo Dot + TP-Link smart plug bundle for $45. Of course, we’re also excited about the $187 2017 iPad (with coupon code MAYTECH20), and the $50 Logitech MX Anywhere 2S 3-device mouse.

Laptops and Desktops

Is your old laptop full of crumbs and dried soda? Maybe it’s time to upgrade.

MacBook Air 13″ 8GB RAM 128GB Storage Newest Model, $950 ($250 off) [Amazon]

MacBook Air 13″ 8GB RAM 256GB Storage Newest Model, $1,150 ($250 off) [Amazon]

HP Chromebook 14″ 4GB RAM 32GB Storage Refurbished, $200 ($80 off) [Woot]

Dell Inspiron Chromebook 4GB RAM 128GB Storage, $450 ($100 off) [eBay]

MSI 15.6″ P65 Creator Laptop, $1,200 ($400 off) [B&H]

Lenovo ThinkCentre M73 Desktop Refurbished, $130+ ($120 off) [Woot]

Dell Inspiron 27 Desktop 16GB RAM 1,256GB Storage, $1,399 ($200 off with coupon code DELL200) [Rakuten]

Keyboards, Routers, and Other Computer Accessories

Need to upgrade your desktop setup? We’ve got the deals for you.

Logitech MX Anywhere FLOW 2S Wireless Mouse, $50 ($30 off) [Amazon]

Razer Goliathus Chroma LED Gaming Mouse Mat, $15 ($25 off with coupon code RAZERMAT) [DailySteals]

NETGEAR Wi-Fi Range Extender, $25 ($22 off with coupon clip) [Amazon]

Phones, Tablets, and Mobile Accessories

Grab a new Apple Watch or upgrade your nasty old phone.

Samsung Galaxy S7 for T-Mobile Refurbished, $135 ($55 off) [Walmart]

Huawei Mate SE Unlocked, $190 ($60 off) [Amazon]

iPad 9.7″ 32GB Open Box 2017 Model, $187 ($70 off with coupon code MAYTECH20) [Blinq]

Apple Watch Series 3, $200 ($80 off) [Walmart]

Apple Watch Nike+ Series 4, $350 ($50 off) [Best Buy]

Smart Home Gadgets

Thinking about upgrading your smarthome? Check out these discounted bundles for the Google Home Mini and the Echo Dot.

Google Home Hub + Google Home Mini + TP-Link Smart Plug, $74 ($25 off with coupon code TINKMAY1) [Tink]

Google Home Mini, $24 ($26 off) [Massgenie]

Google Home Mini 3-Pack, $68 ($78 off) [Massgenie]

Echo Dot, $30 ($20 off) [Amazon]

Echo Input, $20 ($15 off) [Amazon]

Echo Dot + TP-Link Smart Plug, $45 ($32 off) [Amazon]

Echo Dot + 2 Sengled Smart Bulbs, $50 ($40 off) [Amazon]

Portal From Facebook Alexa-Enabled Smart Screen, $100 ($100 off) [Facebook]

Ring 5-Piece Home Alarm Security System, $165 ($35 off) [Woot]

Ring Floodlight Security Camera, $190 ($110 off) [Massgenie]

Philips Hue Smart Hub and Dimmer Switch, $55 ($15 off) [Massgenie]

Nest Thermostat 3rd Gen, $170 ($30 off) [Massgenie]

Video Games

Is your Live subscription about to expire? Now’s the time to grab a year of Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus at a discount.

Xbox Live Gold 12-Month Membership, $40 ($20 off) [Massgenie]

PlayStation Plus 12-Month Membership, $40 ($20 off) [Massgenie]

Infinifactory PC, $7 ($18 off) [Fanatical]

Everything Else

Grab a new Fujifilm camera or a handy label maker.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 2017 Mix LP, $14 ($7 off) [Amazon]

Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooker with Bluetooth, $75 ($15 off) [Massgenie]

Haier 70-Pint Energy Star Dehumidifier Refurbished, $140 ($25 off) [Groupon]

BeyerDynamic Amiron Home Audiophile Stereo Headphones, $600 ($100 off) [BuyDig]

Fujifilm Instax Mini 70 + Instax Film, $56 ($113 off) [Massgenie]

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, $41 ($59 off) [Amazon]

Brother P-Touch Label Maker, $10 ($15 off) [Amazon]

See anything you like? Be sure to grab it before it’s too late. Good deals tend to disappear in less than a day.

Daily Deals: An Echo Dot for $30, an iPad for $187, a Logitech MX Anywhere 2S Mouse for $50, and More published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

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The Best Board Games to Play with Kids (While Keeping Your Sanity)

HABA

Board games are a great way to entertain your kids, but you want to have some fun too, right? We’ve looked at the best tabletop games to play with your children that are still thrilling for you too.

After all, as anyone who’s played Chutes & Ladders for the 300th time can attest to, some board games can be pretty dull even if your children love them. All of the games listed here are a ton of fun whether you’re young or old. They also work brilliantly as an introduction to more grown-up tabletop gaming so you’re on the path to creating a board game addict in the future.

Here’s our pick of the best board games to play with kids, while maintaining your sanity.

Best For Cooperative Puzzle Solving: Whowasit? ($35)

Ravensburger

Cooperation is a valuable life skill and who doesn’t want to encourage their kids to cooperate with each other a little more? The game Whowasit? is a fun way to encourage such healthy habits while also reinforcing memory and tactical skills. Better yet, it’s interesting enough that you’ll enjoy playing along.

The game is set in a mystical castle. The king’s magical ring has been stolen and it’s down to your team of private eyes to figure out who did it. Players accomplish that by talking to the animals around the castle. Designed for kids aged 7 and up, it works well for between two and four players. There’s a lot of replay value too thanks to the electronic clue chest that guides the game along ensuring each playthrough is different. It also supports different difficulty levels so no one is left behind.

Buy on Amazon

Best Tile Based Game: My First Carcassonne ($35)

Z-Man Games

The popular tile-laying game Carcassonne is a worldwide hit thanks to the simple but elegant game design that’s easy to teach and enjoyable to play. This My First Carcassonne version is ideal for kids from age 4 and up to jump in on the tile-laying fun. Play sessions only take about 20 minutes with no setup to speak of so it’s perfect if your kids are a little impatient (as most are).

The idea is that the streets of Carcassonne are filled with kids trying to catch animals. Rather than needing to count points or deal with the complexities of the original Carcassone game (where you get points for capturing different parts of the tile-world you’re building), players simply place tiles to build the city with every time you close a street with one or more children of your color, you get the chance to place pawns on the board. Be the first to place all your pawns and you win. It’s simple enough that kids of all ages can understand, but also tactical enough that you’ll enjoy it too.

Buy on Amazon

Best For Tactile Gaming: Animal Upon Animal ($21)

HABA Games

Sometimes it’s good to get more hands-on with a board game, and Animal Upon Animal scratches that itch perfectly. It’s a stacking game for 2 to 4 players, ages 4 and up. Players have to compete to be the first to place all their wooden animals upon the animal pile before anyone else.

The gameplay is quite simple—roll the dice to see how many animals you can place or whether you can add to the alligator base to make the pyramid shape longer. Other variants include having the other players choose which of your animals you can stack. There’s even a solo variant if your child is dying to play but nobody can play at the moment. It’s a really tactile experience and kids are sure to enjoy playing with the animal pieces. It’ll even improve their dexterity skills as they work to be more careful with their placements.

Buy on Amazon

Best For Introducing A Classic: Catan Junior ($20)

Catan Studios

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