In this week's crucial news round-up, our Agents detail a critical Android security bug, investigate a meal-replacement drink that adds a vital missing ingredient – caffeine – and jet off to the stars with No Man's Sky.
Plus, we take a look at the life-saving actions of a certain electric car, a meal-replacement drink with a certain something extra and lament the long, drawn-out death of The Simpons. That's right – it could only be the Week in Geek!
Top Trending Tech News
Widespread Android vulnerability affects 900 million devices
This week, research company Check Point revealed they had discovered critical security vulnerabilities in Android smartphones relating to a software bug – and are urging owners to be vigilant.
The BBC reports that bugs have been discovered within the software used in Qualcomm processors – which can be found in about 900 million Android phones. At this moment, it's still unclear precisely which devices are affected as manufacturers rush to patch their products.
Thankfully, though, there's no evidence that the vulnerabilities are currently being exploited by hackers – and a free app called QuadRooter Scanner has been made available on the Play Store by Check Point to check whether your device is affected by the vulnerability.
Tesla car drives itself to hospital after driver suffers pulmonary embolism
For a while now, Tesla’s electric vehicles have featured an experimental ‘Autopilot’ feature – allowing the cars to drive themselves under certain circumstances. Back in June, the feature hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons as it was implicated in a fatal crash in Florida.
This week, however, it was able to restore its reputation slightly, as details emerged of a driver who was able to navigate to hospital after suffering a pulmonary embolism at the wheel with the help of his Tesla motor.
As the BBC reports, 37-year-old Joshua Neally was driving his Tesla Model X home from his office in Springfield, Missouri, when he suffered piercing pains in the chest and stomach. Rather than call an ambulance, Neally tapped the location of the nearest hospital into the car’s on-board computer – and 20 miles later, he was checking himself into the emergency room.
It’s a fascinating story that really emphasises the potential benefits of this technology. We’ve heard a lot about self-driving cars in recent years – but self-driving ambulances might be an even more welcome development.
Metroid 2 remake hits PC and is immediately shut down by Nintendo
In a move which is set to upset Metroid fans worldwide, Nintendo this week unleashed their full armada of lawyers and legal advisors to take down a free, fan-made remake of the 1991 classic Metroid II: Return of Samus– just 48 hours after it was released.
The previously console-only title was briefly released on PC for a short time, with only a few lucky players managing to download it. The developers were immediately keen to take the heat away from Nintendo after the takedown – after all, the Japanese giant are only doing what any intellectual property owner has to do to protect their copyright.
In fact, our sources tell us that it's not too hard to find the remake online, despite Nintendo's actions – and that the big N might even have waited until after the game's release to make their move to tacitly ensure people get to play it. With no plans to release any Nintendo games on PC, it's not exactly hurting their sales, and also keeps them in the public eye.
As for the remake's developers, they insist they’re satisfied with the learning they took from creating the game, which was first started way back in 2008 – and hope to continue working on the project behind the scenes. Check it out in the video above from IGN.
New on the High Street
Xbox One S hits the streets
As our own Agent Strevens recently explored, Microsoft had long planned a mid-cycle upgrade to their popular Xbox One console – and this week, the Xbox One S hit the streets.
With a design that’s 40% smaller, the new version is noticeably slimmer than its predecessor – and also features support for ‘HDR’ graphics and an integrated 4K Blu-ray player.
While precise sales figures haven’t been released, it’s known that the initial two-terabyte run sold out almost immediately. This’ll be welcome news for Sony, whose PlayStation 4 console is receiving its ‘Neo’ update before the end of the year.
No Man’s Sky blasts off on PS4 and PC
This week also saw the launch of one of the most eagerly anticipated (and, depending on your point of view, most overhyped) games in recent years: No Man’s Sky.
The striking sci-fi explore-em-up sees players jetting off into a procedurally generated universe of – wait for it – 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 different planets, each one different from the next. Among other things, players will find frozen worlds, toxic poison planets and, most excitingly, habitable worlds featuring uniquely generated plants, animals and other lifeforms.
Impressively, the vast game has been created by a team of just 15 people at developer Hello Games. Most high-profile ‘AAA’ titles have a team of more than ten times that – but while the approach might be indie, the game’s scale (and ability to capture the gaming public’s imagination) is as big as it gets.
The game launched for PS4 on Tuesday and will land for PC players this evening. It’s already caught the imagination of millions around the world, and we can’t wait to take flight ourselves.
‘Food replacement’ Soylent launches coffee-enhanced version
While some might argue (persuasively) that food replacement drink Soylent – much-beloved by the Silicon Valley set – is little more than a rebranded Slim Fast shake without the irrelevant frippery of trying to taste nice, it’s certainly drawn a lot of attention since its crowdfunding success a few years back.
If there’s one thing techbros love, other than the sense of superiority that comes from doing away with things like solid food, it’s coffee – and the product’s latest iteration looks set to scratch that itch.
Each bottle of Coffiest contains 400 calories – or 20% of an adult man’s recommended daily intake – as well as a strong cup of coffee’s worth of caffeine. Initial reports suggest that it tastes “surprisingly almost good” – which, if nothing else, puts it ahead of regular Soylent.
Check out the advert above – and if you’re really on board with the idea of becoming a “breakfast pioneer”, you can find out more over on Soylent’s own blog.
Movie and TV News
More details emerge on Star Trek: Discovery
This week saw details emerge of the forthcoming Star Trek series, Discovery, as producer Bryan Fuller took to the stage at the Television Critics Association press tour.
The new series will be set a decade or so before the original 1960s series, but after 2001’s Enterprise, which explored the very earliest days of interstellar travel in the Star Trek universe. The new series will feature a more diverse cast than ever, with a woman in the lead role and more aliens among the cast than ever before. Interestingly, the series won’t focus on the captain of the USS Discovery, but a Lt. Commander – the rank filled by series favourite Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Enterprise was the last small-screen outing for the Star Trek universe, and it was widely considered one of the weaker offerings – here’s hoping Discovery can restore a little prestige to the brand. Filming starts in October, and the series is expected to debut next January. Check out a classic scene from the original series in the clip above.
The Simpsons to broadcast first, worst hour-long episode
Among long-term fans of The Simpsons, it’s widely recognised that the show’s quality fell off a cliff at some point more than a decade ago. While series’ tone changed a lot throughout its first ten seasons, they’re widely considered to be some of the funniest television of all time. The later episodes, well – ‘not so much’ is putting it mildly.
But as long as there are a few drops left in the exhausted cash cow, the Fox network will keep on milking it – and so we come to its first ever hour-long episode, due to be broadcast in the US in January and also guaranteed to be the worst hour-long episode they’ve ever done.
The episode will see Bart and Homer teaming up with Mr Burns to get revenge on a music producer, or something, and there’s also a parody of The Great Gatsby in there somewhere. The episode will be called ‘The Great Phatsby’. Yeah.
Odds are, we won't even bother to tune in. You can have a lot more fun searching for hilarious quotes from the golden age and making GIFs to share with your pals with the awesome Frinkiac search engine.
And finally...
Teletext back from the dead – with a little help from Raspberry Pi
Fans of obsolete broadcasting technologies – and if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re one of us – were delighted this week to witness the return of good old-fashioned teletext, coming straight to your outdated analogue telly with a little help from the Raspberry Pi.
For those too young to remember, teletext was a bit like a laughably low-res, marginally interactive world wide web, delivered to your TV alongside the analogue video and audio signals. It’s hard to imagine these days, but at one time the service was home to a thriving selection of articles, services and even some primitive games. This all came to an end on October 24 2012, when analogue TV transmitters were turned off for good in the UK.
The ‘new’ teletext works by downloading pages from a central server to a Raspberry Pi, which then outputs them as an old-fashioned composite video signal directly into your TV. This means it’s not an emulation – it really is proper teletext, and it responds to your TV remote in exactly the same way as the old service did.
The new service is known as Teefax, and features such modern content as a live Twitter stream, a ukelele-tuning guide and, yes, a modern version of the much-loved Bamboozle quiz.
You can find more details in this superb article over at TechRadar– and if you’ve got a Pi and a suitably primitive TV, you can find out how to set it up yourself with this handy Google Doc from the developers. And if that sounds a little bamboozling, you can enjoy three stonking hours of 2011-vintage Ceefax from the BBC in the video above – easy listening music and all.
That's it for another Week in Geek – but be sure to check back next Friday to stay up-to-date with the most interesting stories from the worlds of tech, science and geeky entertainment. And for more great articles from our Agents straight to your inbox each month, get your name down below for the Geek Squad newsletter!