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FAA says a buggy software update grounded flights
Ever got a bad smartphone update? Now imagine that your phone controls air traffic on the Eastern seaboard, and you have some idea what happened to flights on Saturday. The FAA said that a software update that was supposed to help controllers see frequently used info at a radar facility ended up bringing down the overall system. That caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights in Baltimore and Washington, DC, reducing capacity up to 28 percent. The agency said everything's fine now that it's disabled the new function, and it's working with Lockheed Martin to figure out why the bug wasn't caught in testing. Meanwhile, you can now factor software glitches, hacking and bad routers into your flight plans.
Apple will patch the DYLD bug in its next OS X release
Apple will patch the dangerous DYLD "privilege escalation" bug in its next OS release, Mac OS X 10.10.5, The Guardian reports. The DYLD bug allows a program to run with administrator access but without requiring an admin-level password. And unlike the Thunderstrike 2 worm, which has already been partially patched, the DYLD bug has been both spotted in the wild and remains unaddressed at this time. [Image Credit: the Associated Press]
Google's rewards program tackles Android security flaws
The folks in Mountain View have been paying security researchers who find flaws in Google's software for years. After announcing a program that specifically targeted Chrome, the company is looking to find vulnerabilities in its mobile OS. The Android Security Rewards program will pay researchers who "find, fix and prevent vulnerabilities" that exist inside the operating system. When it comes to issues affecting Nexus devices sold through Google Play, Google will pay per step that's needed to fix the problem -- including patches and testing. Just finding a critical bug will earn you $2,000, for example. The largest rewards are available to those who figure out how to go around Android's security features like ASLR, NX and sandboxing. In 2015, Google shelled out over $1.5 million to researchers who found bugs, with the largest individual reward totaling $150,000. If you're looking to join the hunt, you can browse all the detailed info right here.
iOS 8.4 is coming, will protect against the 'shutdown bug'
Apple began distributing fourth beta of iOS 8.4 to its developers on Wednesday that includes a permanent solution to the recently discovered "shutdown bug." This programming glitch causes an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to automatically reboot when a string of mixed alphanumeric and arabic characters are texted to the device. And since the issue revolves around how iOS' banner notifications handle unicode, the bug also affects third party messaging apps like Snapchat and Twitter. iOS 8.4 is expected to be out of beta and available to the general public by the end of the month, likely just before the release of Apple Music on June 30th. Until then, users can refer to this Apple Support document for a temporary workaround.
NASA tests airplane wings that shrug off insect guts
You may not think of insects as a problem for aircraft (Bambi Meets Godzilla comes to mind), but they really are -- the residue from those splattered bugs slows aircraft down and hikes fuel consumption. NASA may soon have a way to keep those critters from causing so much trouble, however. It recently conducted flight testing for a promised non-stick wing coating that stops ex-bugs from inducing drag. The layer, which combines a lotus leaf-inspired ("microscopically-rough") repellant surface with anti-sticking chemicals, was good enough to cut back on the nasty organic residue by as much as 40 percent.
Apple is fixing a bug that crashes your iPhone with a text message
Beware if you have any jokester friends with iOS devices -- they might just have a way to ruin your day if you have any iOS gadgets of your own. Apple has confirmed that it's fixing a recently discovered bug that crashes iPhones and other iOS 8 hardware the moment you get a carefully crafted set of Unicode characters in Messages and other communication apps with notification previews. It's not clear when that fix will be available, but the only existing safeguard is to turn off those previews. Otherwise, you may have to bend over backwards to make sure that those rogue messages don't cause further chaos. While this isn't the biggest iOS glitch we've seen lately, it's definitely the most annoying.
The Daily Grind: What long-running bugs are you dying to see fixed?
There are few things more aggravating than long-running bugs that impact you daily and have never been fixed by the team. That picture right up there? That's one of the very few screenshots that Star Wars: The Old Republic has allowed me to take due to an inconsistent glitch that goes practically back to the launch of the game. Since it's been around for so long, I have severe doubts that it will ever be addressed at this point. I'm sure that this is not the only long-running bug out there that annoys players, so let's give free rein to our petty gripes today! Which ones would you love to see fixed? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
H1Z1 suffers overnight downtime, whispers of server wipes [Updated]
It's not an easy time to be playing H1Z1 right now, especially since you sort of can't. The game's servers went down last night for a quick fix, according to Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley; they've been down since, with players getting increasingly vocal and anxious about what comes next. No further updates have come from the company after Smedley's assurance that there are issues to be fixed that cannot be solved simply by rolling back to the previous patch. Once players can get back in to the game, there may very well be a server wipe greeting them (a possibility suggested by the technical director), although perks like tickets, crates, and cosmetic recipes will not be lost in the event of a server wipe. SOE has promised to give plenty of notice before taking such drastic measures. Players are divided on whether this is a good thing or not, although widespread reports of item duping sit at the root of the issue. There's still no ETA on when the servers will be back online or what will be fixed when they come back up, but players could be looking at a very different environment. [Update: Servers appear to be up again now. SOE has said that the promised European servers are still incoming: "getting MORE servers, still calculating what we can fit."]
Elite: Dangerous rolls back decision on billionaire rollback
There was a bit of a to-do recently about money in Elite: Dangerous. A bug caused numerous players to receive a credit "refund" that wound up making them instant billionaires, which might have had some long-term ramifications for anyone who had hoped to actually play in the sandbox economy in the future. While the developers had initially opted against wide-scale rollbacks, asking instead for affected players to choose whether to be rolled back or not, that decision has been reversed. Unexpected billionaires will find all of their bug-gotten gains rolled back and removed, with the development team contacting those affected personally to make sure that nothing legitimate gets caught in the crossfire. Meanwhile, players who found a way to exploit the game explicitly will also see their gains removed. So those who were hoping for rollbacks in the wake of these issues will be happy; those happy with billions of credits for no real effort will be... less happy. [Thanks to Cotic for the tip!]
The Think Tank: On MMO rollbacks
Let's talk about rollbacks. ArcheAge, Elite: Dangerous, Neverwinter -- whenever an MMO pops up in the news with a bug, there's usually an accompanying cry for a rollback, and each of these games has seen such in the last few months. Rollbacks used to be quite common, but modern MMO companies almost never risk them. For today's Think Tank, I asked the Massively writers whether they'd ever suffered rollbacks, whether they'd lost anything, whether it was worth it, and just what they think of the whole issue.
Is Apple's quality slipping?
Over the weekend, amidst the noise of CES news seeping from Vegas, founding Tumblr CTO and Overcast developer Marco Arment voiced a concern I have been stressing over for some time. Titled "Apple has lost the functional high ground," it cuts straight to the heart of the matter: Apple's longtime brand promise of "it just works" applies to fewer and fewer products the company makes. Marco, being a developer, is largely remarking on software. Apple's hardware only seems to improve generation over generation (although I have spoken to a frighteningly large number of people who have had to battle Apple in order to get products fixed). Apple's software, on the other hand, appears to have slipped off the cracker. iOS 8 had more bugs than I've ever seen in an iOS release. Yosemite isn't just riddled with bugs; there are goof-ups that make the thing look more like Linux some days than a Mac. Oh, and remember when you could boot up your Mac and not wince as notification after notification filled your screen? Remember when that particular annoyance was the purview of Windows 98? OK, notifications are supposedly a "feature," but it's not always easy to remember that. What's really troubling is the low priority that bugs and other issues appear to have at Apple these days. Is it still "easier" to use a Mac than a Windows machine or a Linux box? Sure, for the vast majority of users a Mac is still a more pleasant experience. Same with iOS, I suppose, but I have also spoken to a considerable number of people who switched from iOS to Android because Android provides "more power and more flexibility," as one non-techie user put it to me. That's not good. (Nor is doing crap like telling Panic to remove sharing options and then asking them to put them back, or neutering all widgets with data entry capabilities, but that's another post for another day.) Over and over again I'm hearing people lament that Apple is pushing too far, too fast and not spending the time to clean up messes once made. As Marco says, "The problem seems to be quite simple: they're doing too much, with unrealistic deadlines." Apple, make 2015 the year of squishing the bugs. Yes, there's a Watch to be launched, and that's great. But do I trust Apple to "get it right" when lately there's been a lot of "oops!"? And let's face it, Apple has made a history of bungling time zones. My faith in Apple's Watch launch is at an all-time low, but that's largely because I look upon the glittering mass of issues the company has yet to address in a meaningful way and think, "So we're just going to add to this mess, are we?" Yes, Apple is still top dog. Yes, Apple still makes the best products. But an incremental death from a thousand cuts is still a death. I saw Apple head down this path in the 1990s -- putting quality at job 2 (or lower) in the overriding rush to push products to market -- and I worry that it is following that playbook again. Marco's thesis is that the issues are coming up in large part because Apple is marketing-driven, which it is -- and it has always been. The solution here isn't to fire anyone or sound the panic alarm, but take a good hard look at priorities. It would seem features and product announcements are more and more trumping bug fixes and that "polish" that Apple is renowned for. How about we don't need a new desktop OS every year? Market pressure is one thing Apple used to claim it didn't really worry about, but times have changed. Adding to a product matrix when the code for your core products is slipping isn't going to help, it's going to be the last grain of sand atop a pile that is destined to slide. Here's hoping Apple starts taking these issues more seriously in 2015.
The Repopulation looks back on December and Early Access
For the first time in testing, The Repopulation didn't quite keep pace with its normal biweekly update schedule for the test client. Why, you ask, were the developers being such lazy bums? Because of the holidays? Or was it because the game was busy launching on Steam as an early access title, thus requiring extra work by the team to make sure that previous backers and newcomers alike were having fun? Mostly the latter, as it happens; not so much with the lazy bums. Of course, a slight schedule slip doesn't change the fact that the team was hard at work on the game, with the biggest focus being bug fixes (as the new influx of players has resulted in many more bug reports). There are also improvements to the game's missions, with a focus on more challenging variations and the possibility of random fitting rewards from clearing them. Check out the full recap for a picture of everything that's been added or improved over the past month.
WoW Archivist: 3.0.8, the "disaster" patch
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Any game that survives for 10 years and counting will have its growing pains. There will be moments when the urge to deliver the best possible content gets the better of the developers, when they reach too far but only figure that out after it's too late. Wrath of the Lich King was so ambitious in scope, as originally conceived, that Blizzard simply couldn't deliver what they announced. Blizzard cut major features before the expansion even went into beta testing. Wrath's systems went live with patch 3.0.2 in October 2008, and the expansion hit live realms two months later. As with most expansions, there were early problems. In patch 3.0.8, Blizzard tried to fix those problems. Instead, they made them worse. Far worse. WoW Insider called the patch a "disaster." Read on to find out why! Wintercrash Rebalancing the popular Wintergrasp outdoor battle was one of the patch's biggest features. Blizzard buffed vehicles and turrets to make them less fragile. The keep walls also became sturdier, while the final door received a nerf. Other adjustments and fixes went into effect. So did a bug so catastrophic that players couldn't believe it ever found its way to a live realm.
Dark Age of Camelot takes aim at group finder and bug fixes
An end-of-the-year community Q&A at Dark Age of Camelot revealed that the team has a lot on the docket for Patch 1.117, including the long-awaited casual group finder and a heap of bug fixes. "We think that focusing our development resources on bug fixing for an entire patch cycle is something that hasn't been done in a long time and is something that will make everyone's gameplaying experience that much better!" Broadsword posted. Other topics discussed include freeing up space in quest logs, plans to update the patcher, and ideas to help out starter guilds. The Q&A even revealed that there will be "official Broadsword player reps" and "scheduled raids of all sorts" for trial accounts, although details on those will be coming later.
Ubisoft: Patch 4 will fix 'most' remaining Assassin's Creed: Unity bugs
Assassin's Creed: Unity has been criticized for technical issues since its November 11 launch, but publisher Ubisoft believes the majority of the game's issues are nearly behind it. In a recent entry posted to Unity's website, the Live Update team details an upcoming fourth patch for the game that it believes will fix "most of the remaining issues our players have been reporting." Full details on the update are unavailable, but the Live Update team claims it focuses on improving the game's framerate, reducing the frequency of crashes and enhancing the functionality of the Assassin's Creed: Unity companion app. Though confident that the worst is behind them, the Live Update team asks players to continue to send error reports, before thanking fans for their continued support. Lacking from this update is any word on when Assassin's Creed: Unity players can expect the game's fourth patch to arrive. [Image: Ubisoft]
ArcheAge servers are back up; Trion is sorting out in-game timers
If you're following the ongoing saga of ArcheAge problems, you probably know that the game had all of the servers shut down over a holiday weekend, which could theoretically solve the game's exploit issues in the same way that setting fire to your house solves any problems you have with your wallpaper. The server issues were stated to be a result of emergency maintenance, with community representatives denying that it was connected to servers overheating, DDoS attacks, or exploits. The good news is that out of the game's 21 servers, 16 were up and running last night, with the last five brought online early this morning. Players are promised compensation, which will be revealed later today. Unfortunately for players who had taxes due, the timers for all services continued to roll while the servers were down, so crops, housing plots, and the like were all still affected by time during the lengthy maintenance cycle. Trion says it is "definitely aware this is an issue for players with taxes due and is talking with XLGAMES about the best way to resolve it while the servers are offline." A server rollback is not in the cards. But at least the servers are back online. We'll have more updates on the compensation for players when it is announced.
Ubisoft apologizes for 'Assassin's Creed' bugs with free add-ons and games
Ubisoft may not have a way to turn back time and release Assassin's Creed Unity without a slew of glitches, but it's at least trying to make amends to jilted gamers. The studio has announced that it's giving every Unity owner a free copy of the upcoming Dead Kings add-on that they'd have previously had to buy. That's not a radical concept in itself (Driveclub's developer is doing the same), but Ubi is going one step further by giving Season Pass holders their choice of free game, such as Far Cry 4 or Watch Dogs. And for that matter, it's scrapping sales of the Season Pass altogether. Existing subscribers will still get extra content, but latecomers will have to buy extras one at a time. The company is clearly aware that it did something wrong -- let's just hope that it learns its lesson and takes its time polishing future games. [Image credit: King_Anesti, Steam Community]
Trion shuts down ArcheAge APEX purchases again
Good news, ArcheAge fans! APEX purchases have been disabled again following reports of another exploit! Wait, did we say good news? That's not good news. That's bad news. Familiar bad news, but bad news. Community manager Evan "Scapes" Berman addressed a thread calling attention to the exploit on Sunday, stating that the development team was looking into the issue to determine whether or not an exploit existed while disabling APEX purchases as a preventative measure. This is hardly the first time APEX purchases have been disabled due to exploit issues; the same problem was being dealt with last Wednesday, with various hotfixes rolled out to prevent the issue. No ETA has been provided for when APEX purchases will be reinstated, nor have any declarations of rollbacks for characters been made at this time. [Thanks to Siphaed for the tip!]
Riot will pay you cash to find League of Legends bugs
A discovered vulnerability in League of Legends led Riot Games to the conclusion that it not only needed to react to such issues when they arise, but to be more proactive in discovering these weak spots in the game. To wit, the studio has implemented a bug bounty program that will reward players who find vulnerabilities in LoL's code. The studio has been testing out the program with a smaller group and has given $100,000 in rewards so far: "Currently in closed beta, the Riot bug bounty program is only available to a few security professionals who we've already identified. These professionals have helped us squish more than 75 bugs, vulnerabilities, and exploits, including client crash exploits, vision related exploits, and vulnerabilities that could potentially lead to player impersonation on forums."
Hartsman addresses ArcheAge APEX exploit: 'There isn't a dupe bug'
ArcheAge has been having a bit of trouble with bugs and exploits since its launch, if you haven't noticed. Trion Worlds head Scott Hartsman has weighed in on the APEX bug that has been affecting the game; specifically, he's said that the bug is not a dupe bug. Players were rather upset as soon as this announcement was made, pointing out that the bug is a known issue that has been affecting the game and the playerbase since it was first discovered. Community manager Evan "Scapes" Berman clarified that the bug in question is not, strictly speaking, a dupe bug; rather than duplicating an item multiple times, the bug was allowing players to continue to reap the benefits of an item without consuming it as intended. APEX are still unavailable as more hotfixes are put into place to prevent further abuse of exploits, with action already being taken to both patch out the issue and remove funds accumulated by abuses of the exploit.
