Bits: daily tech news bulletin

Percy makes oxygen on Mars while Signal hacks the hackers


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Russia has confirmed it plans to leave the International Space Station after 20 years of co-operation in space. The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, confirmed the Russian space agency intends to exit the ISS in 2025 and is working on developing its own orbital station with a target launch of 2030. Russia also recently signed an agreement with China to develop a separate station to orbit the moon.



In better news from space, the NASA Perseverance rover has successfully converted CO2 to oxygen in an experiment on Mars yesterday. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment, known as MOXIE, pulled carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and converted it into enough oxygen to keep an astronaut alive for 10 minutes. An exciting proof of concept for potential human missions in the future.



From one Moxie to another, with the CEO of secure messaging app Signal, Moxie Marlinspike, revealing that one of the key tools used by law enforcement to hack smartphones is itself incredibly insecure. Signal's CEO got access to a Cellebrite device and not only found it featured a number of poor programming errors that made it prone to attack, he showed how easy it was for him to set a phone so that if it was scanned by a Cellebrite unit it would force code to execute and potentially alter the unit, or reports generated by the unit – creating a big question over the integrity and validity of Cellebrite as reliable legal evidence. Hacking the hackers is always entertaining to watch.



A product testing outlet in the US has shown how a motivated driver can easily fool a Tesla into driving with no one in the driver seat. Consumer Reports took a Model Y to a test track and got it driving in Autopilot mode by buckling the seat belt under the driver when they first got into the vehicle and adding a weight to the steering wheel to simulate the weight of a driver's hands. They could then slide into the passenger seat and speed up in the already engaged Autopilot mode. Other manufacturers have been adding features that monitor the driver's attention while they use assisted driving modes.



Australia's own Rode microphones has launched a new software package to turn its NT-USB mini microphones into a powerful podcasting studio wherever you need one. The new RodeConnect software is free for Mac and PC and allows four NT USB-mini microphones to connect via USB and record through a virtual interface a lot like the hardware Rodecaster Pro I'm recording this bulletin through right now. It even makes it easy to add remote callers into recordings or to include music or effects too. And that price again – free.



Sony has confirmed a new Video Pass for PlayStation Plus subscribers is being trialled in some parts of the world. Right now, that place is specifically Poland. 20 movies and TV shows from Sony's own studios are being made available there. PlayStation is removing purchase and rental of a large library of video content from the platform later this year, so an integrated free offer from Sony's own back catalogue would make a lot of sense.



In other video games news, this weekend you can dive into the new MLB The Show 21 baseball game and Nier Replicant which have both launched this week, while Blizzard has kicked off a further round of the Diablo Immortal alpha for lucky testers in Australia. I'm one of those lucky people.



And if you're still shopping around for games to play, Steam has just launched deeper Categories to its digital games store. Top level categories like action, RPG and strategy now have seven sub-genres to help you find exactly what is a fit for your specific tastes. There are also theme categories to help you find horror, sci-fi, mystery or other games, and special sections for finding games to match the multiplayer, co-op, party game or single player support you're looking for.



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Bits: daily tech news bulletinBy Byteside