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Atlanta spends more than $2 million to recover from ransomware attack
Last month, Atlanta's city government was hit with a ransomware attack that caused courthouse documents and services like payment processing to become inaccessible. The ransom demand was approximately $51,000 but according to the city's Department of Procurement, Atlanta has spent much more than that on efforts to rectify the situation. It appears that firms Secureworks and Ernst & Young were paid $650,000 and $600,000, respectively, for emergency services while Edelman was paid $50,000 for crisis communication services. Overall, the funds seemingly applied to the ransomware attack response add up to approximately $2.7 million.
Atlanta government computers hit by ransomware
The last victim affected by ransomware is the city government of Atlanta, GA. The ninth-largest metro area in the US isn't able to do things like process payments or provide access to courthouse information because some systems are locked down. During a press conference, mayor Keisha Bottoms and newly-appointed COO Richard Cox said that they're working with the FBI, DHS, Microsoft and Cisco to find out what data has been potentially been compromised.The local NBC affiliate reports a ransom note included with the SamSam ransomware is demanding about $51,000 in bitcoin to restore the systems. If it is SamSam, it's part of a family of malware has been active against many government and healthcare systems since late 2015. In January, Talos noted that its makers had already netted over $325,000 in ransom sent to one bitcoin wallet. This particular attack isn't spreading on the level of 2017's NotPetya/WannaCry, but its apparent ability to target critical systems where the owners are likely to pay makes it even more troublesome, spreading first through vulnerable servers and then onto Windows desktops. The Atlanta government said it will be open for business in the morning, and that infrastructure like public safety, water and the airport are unaffected.
Amazon expands Whole Foods delivery to Atlanta and San Francisco
Last month, Amazon launched its Whole Foods delivery service, allowing Prime members in some Austin, Cincinnati, Dallas and Virginia Beach neighborhoods to order Whole Foods groceries through Prime Now and have them delivered within two hours. Today, Amazon announced that the service has expanded to select areas of Atlanta and San Francisco. Customers in those regions can order produce, bakery items, dairy, meat, seafood, flowers and everyday staples through Prime Now. San Francisco customers can also order alcohol through the service.
Recommended Reading: The dark past of Jessica Jones
The creator of 'Jessica Jones' serves up a dark mirror for our moment Joy Press, The New York Times Jessica Jones returns to Netflix in less than a week, and thanks to a couple of trailers, we know it's going to be dark and angry. The New York Times sat down with the creator of the show, Melissa Rosenberg, who has also penned the doom and gloom for Dexter and Twilight. Rosenberg opens up about how her own past helped her craft the show's protagonist.
AT&T will launch mobile 5G in Atlanta, Dallas and Waco
AT&T is finally willing to say exactly where you'll see mobile 5G in 2018. The carrier has confirmed that "parts" of Atlanta, Waco and its home turf of Dallas will adopt the standards-based service when it goes live before the end of the year. It'll name the remaining nine cities "in the coming months." There's no mention of the first devices (many of those will have to wait until 2019), but it's clear that this will be a cautious first step into the future rather than a full-on leap.
Waymo starts testing its autonomous cars in Atlanta
Waymo started offering free autonomous rides in Phoenix last April as a way to promote its self-driving cars. The Alphabet-owned company has been trying to ramp up its own ride-sharing service to compete with Uber and Lyft, offering a driverless taxi service Waymo hopes to use in covering a region larger than London. Now, Waymo is expanding beyond Arizona, launching a test program set to launch in Atlanta, Georgia.
Amazon picks 20 finalist cities for its next major HQ
After poring through 238 applications in the US, Canada and Mexico, Amazon has narrowed the list of cities for its next major headquarters to 20 candidates. Most of the centers picked by the Seattle-based company for its "HQ2," like Boston, New York City and Austin already have strong tech sectors. However, there were a few dark horse picks, including Columbus, OH, Raleigh, NC and Toronto, Canada.
RuPaul's biographical series will stream on Hulu
2017 has been very good to RuPaul. The ninth season of Drag Race notched eight Emmy nods, including for Reality Competition Host which he won last year. RuPaul's streak continued on Wednesday as Hulu announced that it has optioned Queen, a fictionalized half-hour dramedy chronicling his rise to fame, to be produced by JJ Abrams' Bad Robot.
Hulu orders more 'Handmaid's Tale,' nabs 'House of Cards' creator
Hulu's adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale is getting a second season, the streaming service announced this morning. That's not exactly surprising, given the rapturous critical praise for the series. At its Upfront event for advertisers, we also learned that Hulu has brought on Beau Willimon, the creator of Netflix's House of Cards, for The First, a new series about the first manned mission to Mars. We don't know much else about it yet, but it's slated to premiere next year. Together with its new Live TV service, Hulu is giving viewers a lot to get excited about over the next few years.
'Up Next' is an Apple Music series highlighting new artists
Apparently Apple's Clive Davis documentary isn't the only music-related news from the tech juggernaut today. Apple Music has a new monthly feature series called Up Next as well. As the name suggests, it focuses on up-and-coming artists. The first installment looks at Atlanta rapper 6LACK (pronounced "black") with a mini-documentary, a spotlight on his latest album, a live performance and an interview with Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe (above) in addition to a few playlists. Like 9to5Mac noticed, the performance being named "Up Next Sessions" suggests we might see more of the live videos.
Drones help expand the world's busiest airport
Drones and airports usually go together like oil and water, but you can't say that about Atlanta's air hub. The city has formed a partnership with 3DR, Autodesk and engineering firm Atkins that has drones mapping Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport as part of a planned expansion. The key to making it work was Site Scan, 3DR's autonomous data capturing tech. The drones could capture 2D mosaics and 3D point scans while staying well away from the airliners -- no mean feat when they're flying between runways at the busiest airport in the world (over 100 million passengers per year).
Recommended Reading: Snowden's escape from Hong Kong
How Snowden escaped Theresa Tedesco, National Post For two weeks in 2013, the most wanted man in the world hid from authorities. National Post has the story of how refugees helped hide Edward Snowden in the slums of Hong Kong before his eventual escape. This account of those events hasn't been told until now.
Adidas will bring its robot-staffed factory to Atlanta in 2017
Late last year, Adidas announced plans to bring shoe production back to Germany starting in 2016. With that in mind, the company created a new manufacturing facility staffed by robots, known as Speedfactory. Along with setting one up in its native country, Adidas also revealed there would be a separate Speedfactory in the US, slated to open in 2017. Today, the sportswear giant shared more details about this project, announcing that its Stateside production facility will call Atlanta home. The 74,000-square-foot space is set to be fully functional by the end of next year, and Adidas says it aims to make 50,000 pairs of running shoes there.
Comcast starts rolling out gigabit internet access in Atlanta
At last, Comcast's promised gigabit internet rollout is starting in earnest. The cable giant is beginning an "advanced consumer trial" of the extra-quick, DOCSIS 3.1-based broadband in multiple Atlanta neighborhoods, with additional cities coming this year. You'll have to make a big commitment if you want in, though. It costs $70 per month if you lock yourself into a 3-year contract, and it's an eye-watering $140 per month if you want the freedom to leave at any time. And it gets worse: if you don't commit to that contract, you'll have to accept a 300GB monthly data cap that's trivially low for the speed. Assuming you max out your connection, you could blow through your limit in 40 minutes.
Comcast's gigabit internet makes its way to Atlanta
The slow march toward blazing fast internet is upon us, and Comcast is bringing its DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit service to a few more cities. Soon the fine people of Atlanta and Nashville will be able to (likely) pay through the nose for the ultra-speedy connectivity, with it opening up to those in Chicago, Detroit and Miami in the back half of the year. It's worth noting that good number of those are cities where the company has bandwidth cap tests in place.
UberEats is coming to 10 more towns
Uber announced on Wednesday that it is expanding the number of cities served by its beta UberEats program. The service enables users to order food from local restaurants and have it delivered by Uber drivers -- essentially the same service as Eat24 or Seamless but with Uber's existing driver infrastructure.
Sprint's traveling installers come to Boston, Philly and Atlanta
One of the ways that Sprint is hoping to revive its fortunes is with Direct 2 You, a service where door-to-door salespeople set up your phone from inside your home. The offering has added a fair few locations since its launch in April, and now the company is rolling it out to Atlanta, Boston, Houston and Philadelphia. That increases the range of the program by nearly five million more customers, with several more locations coming by the end of this year. It can't come soon enough, since Sprint is currently reeling from losing its coveted third-place spot to upstart rival T-Mobile -- a fact that hasn't gone unremarked on by the CEOs of either company.
Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Nashville and North Carolina (update)
Rumors broke over the weekend that Google might bring its gigabit internet Fiber connection to Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, NC next, but it's not stopping there. The Tennesseean reports Nashville has an announcement planned, while the Wall Street Journal lists all of those metro area plus Atlanta, based on anonymous sources. Atlanta would represent the biggest metro area for Google Fiber yet, and the WSJ mentions that media in the area have been invited to a launch event tomorrow. All four cities were already on Google's "Future of Fiber" list so there's no shockers here, but still -- pretend like you're surprised (and not jealous) when the announcement is made, it's only polite. Update: Surprise! Google has confirmed that 18 cities in the previously mentioned metro areas are next up to get its Fiber service. The Google Fiber website is freshly updated (Thanks Daniel!) with more information, and nearby residents can input their address for a heads up when the new lines are coming their way. Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and San Jose are still on deck too, and should expect an update later this year.
IRL: The OnePlus One is everything my iPhone wasn't
After last month's iPhone event, I was disappointed -- I realized the iPhone 6 and its "Plus" sibling were still catching up to Android in a lot of ways. Regardless, the devoted iPhone fan in me still pre-ordered an iPhone 6 a few days later, in the wee hours of September 12th. The next morning, I awoke to the alarm on my iPhone 5s and went to silence it, only to discover a small spot of water damage had worsened overnight, rendering the phone unusable. With less than 24 hours before jetting off on a work trip, I had no choice but to force myself into using another phone sitting on my desk: the OnePlus One. Now, you might be thinking that this was unusually convenient. The truth is, I decided to get a second phone a couple of weeks earlier and wanted one of the unlocked Android variety. Might as well ensure it's a good phone too, so with an Engadget score of 90, the One made sense.
Layoffs at CCP's Atlanta office confirmed: World of Darkness development affected
Rumours began circulating just a few hours ago about layoffs at CCP Games' Atlanta office. It was reported that an unknown number of staff working on the World of Darkness MMO had been unexpectedly laid off right before the Christmas holidays. The originally unconfirmed tipoff came from several posts on Twitter, and GameBreaker later reported that an anonymous source named the layoffs as Level Designers and various other Producers and Designers on World of Darkness. Massively reached CCP Games for comment and received the official statement below confirming that the layoffs are real and that they are from the World of Darkness team: "CCP today made strategic adjustments to the staffing on the team working on the World of Darkness project in Atlanta that resulted in the elimination of approximately 15 positions at the company. The change was due to our evaluation of the game's design and ongoing development needs. While this was a difficult decision, CCP remains committed to the franchise and our promise to make a compelling, rich, and deep World of Darkness experience."
