Nowhere to hide

Hardware governs our homes, cities, infrastructure, and military. What happens when it’s turned against us? by P.W. SINGER

In late summer of 2006, the Japanese division of McDonald’s decided to run a new promotion. When customers ordered a Coca-Cola soft drink, they would receive a cup with a code. If they entered that code on a designated website and were among 10,000 lucky winners, they would receive an MP3 player pre-loaded with 10 songs.

Cleverly constructed, the promotion seemed destined for success. Who doesn’t like a Coke and a free MP3 player? But there was one problem the marketers at McDonald’s could not anticipate: In addition to 10 free songs, the music players contained QQPass malware. The moment winners plugged their players into a computer, the Trojan horse slipped undetected into their system and began logging keystrokes, collecting passwords, and gathering personal data for later transmission.

Ultimate Playstation Trivia Book. Vol. 3

We’ve gathered together over one thousand of the juiciest facts, figures and shocks from the world of playstation to educate your brain and tickle your funny bone. Topic 201-300.

201. The characters in Tekken Tag Tournament have fully modelled teeth, something director Katsuhiro Harada later considered was, “a total waste of polygons.”

202. The total time logged in Mass Effect 3’s single player campaign adds up to 88.3 million years.

203. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II’s Battle for Endor DLC let you kill Han Solo, Chewbacca and Princess Leia.

Epson SureColor P600

Desktop inkjets that make photoquality pigment prints come along rarely. The 13-inch models now on the market have been around for a few years: Canon’s Pixma Pro-1 and Pro-10 printers came out in 2013, and Epson’s Stylus Photo R2000 is even older. That’s just one reason we were glad to see Epson replace its aging Stylus Pro R3000 with the new SureColor P600 ($800, street).

Not by accident did Epson take the SureColor brand name from its line of professional studio production printers and apply it to this model, aimed more at enthusiasts. Our extensive field testing revealed superb print quality for both color and black-and-white images.

Sony Alpha a7 II

Adding fiveaxis image stabilization to a full-frame ILC

When Sony launched its interchangeablelens compacts in 2010, the company changed its approach to image stabilization. Instead of the sensorbased system used in its Alpha-series DSLRs, it built optical stabilization into its ILC lenses. But Sony hardly abandoned sensor-based IS—in fact, it kept innovating, creating the first stabilization system for full-frame image sensors, which it debuted in the a99. Now, with the a7 II, Sony introduces a new full-frame sensorbased five-axis stabilization system that can operate on its own or work in conjunction with the optical stabilization in some lenses.

We were quite impressed with the results, as well as the other changes Sony made to this popular camera. Though it still bears a striking resemblance to the other Alpha-series ILCs, the a7 II ($1,698, street, body only) required an extensive redesign to add the floating sensor capabilities. Along with this came a more prominent grip with better ergonomics for the shutter release and front command wheel. Likewise, Sony beefed up the lens mount, replacing some of the plastic in the original a7's mount with metal. Plus, it enhanced the autofocus with better tracking capabilities and new algorithms for speedier focusing. Video capture also steps up to the XAVC S codec, allowing 1920xl080p60 capture at up to 50 Mbps. We were eager to run the new camera through the Popular Photography Test Lab and our usual rigorous field testing.

Ultimate Playstation Trivia Book. Vol. 2

We’ve gathered together over one thousand of the juiciest facts, figures and shocks from the world of playstation to educate your brain and tickle your funny bone. Topic 101-200.

101. Final Fantasy VII’s Spanish translation is so bad most of the female characters are repeatedly referred to as men.

102. An early concept for Kratos portrayed him as a slave. The Blades Of Chaos started life as chains that trailed behind him as he jumped.

103. Call Of Duty: World At War re-uses animations, models and dialogue from COD 1 and 2.