Save $150 on our favorite Ooni pizza oven, plus the rest of this week’s best tech deals

As we did last Friday and the Friday before that (and shall continue to do until the internet turns itself off), we have rounded up the best deals we spotted this week and put them in one convenient location. These are the tech gadgets we have used, reviewed and recommend that happen to be seeing worthwhile discounts at the moment. This week, a bunch of Apple gear went on sale, some of it new, some of it older, such as the 2024 MacBook Air with the M3 chip for $250 off and the 2021 9th generation iPad for $100 under MSRP. Two of our favorite outdoor pizza ovens, the Frya 12 and the Karu 16, are on sale at Ooni and there’s a special Engadget code that’ll get you a deal on Roombas at Wellbots. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/save-150-on-our-favorite-ooni-pizza-oven-plus-the-rest-of-this-weeks-best-tech-deals-172730247.html?src=rss 

The Borderlands movie is an astounding waste of potential

On paper, Eli Roth’s Borderlands adaptation sounds like a recipe for a solid sci-fi romp: Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett as the wise-cracking gunslinger Lilith; Jack Black, fresh off of voicing Bowser, as the quippy/annoying Claptrap; and freaking Jamie Lee Curtis back in the genre fray after Everything Everywhere, All At Once. And yet the film is a lifeless slog better suited to an episode of Mystery Science Theater, completely squandering the potential of those elements.

Like the original game, Borderlands is mostly set on the wild alien planet of Pandora — a name that clearly should have been changed since audiences now associate it mostly with the Avatar films. Roth’s adaptation makes significant changes to the game’s plot and characters: It begins with Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) being rescued from a space prison by the former soldier Roland (Kevin Hart [?!]). Inexplicably, they run into the former Psycho, Kriege (Florian Munteanu), and together they all escape to find a legendary vault on Pandora, which holds untold alien treasures.

Meanwhile, in a nondescript city on another planet, Lilith gets recruited by the head of the Atlas Corporation (a scenery-chewing Edgar Ramirez) to rescue Tina, who he claims is her daughter. Like a maze hastily created for a kids menu, you can easily predict the path the film will take. Lilith reluctantly heads back to Pandora, she teams up with the other characters, and plot points are checked off with the excitement of a DMV visit

There are obligatory action scenes, as you’d expect, but it all feels routine — CG explosions, half-hearted choreography and minimal stakes.

Blanchett is an actress who has proven herself to have an enormous amount of range. She can play an awesome/terrifying Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings, and a pompous conductor in Tár. But while there are some base pleasures in seeing her rolling around with futuristic guns, she just never feels comfortable in the skin of an action heroine. There’s none of the ferocity of Charlize Theron’s most physical roles, or even Angelina Jolie in a middling thriller like Salt (a movie that, I assure you, is far more fun than Borderlands). Blanchett just seems too cool for this shit.

Photo by Lionsgate

And unlike other films featuring a rag-tag group of heroes, like Guardians of the Galaxy or the excellent Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, there’s little time spent building up relationships in Borderlands. Roland seems noble, but we never really learn who he is and what’s driving him to save Tina. (I also question the wisdom of casting a comedian like Hart in a mostly straight role.) Krieg is a shell of a character who gets only a few lines of stunted dialog and no actual development. Jamie Lee Curtis’s role as the “xenoarcheologist” Tannis makes no sense at all.

What you have, ultimately, is a boring film filled with empty characters and actors who would be better off being in literally anything else. If Cate Blanchett sold out for a corny commercial campaign — if she reenacted Pacino’s Dunkaccino song for real —  it would still be less embarrassing than starring in this failure. In an era where many game adaptations have been surprisingly watchable, like the Sonic and Super Mario Bros. movies, and a masterpiece of a show like The Last of Us exists, Borderlands feels like a unforced error.

Photo by Lionsgate

Instead of being a big-budget film, it could have been better off as a streaming series like Fallout. Perhaps it didn’t need two Oscar winners and a well-known comedian like Kevin Hart. They probably should have stuck with the screenplay from the Chernobyl and Last of Us showrunnner Craig Mazin, instead of bringing in more writers. (One of the listed screenwriters is “Joe Crombie,” a pseudonym for someone who didn’t want their name attached to this film.)

As it is, though, Borderlands is pure wasted potential. Go replay the games — hell, go watch some of the Borderlands fan films — instead of sitting through this atrocity.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-borderlands-movie-is-an-astounding-waste-of-potential-160032875.html?src=rss 

Researchers discover potentially catastrophic exploit present in AMD chips for decades

Security researchers have found a vulnerability in AMD processors that has persisted for decades, according to reporting by Wired. This is a fascinating security flaw because it was found in the firmware of the actual chips and potentially allows malware to deeply infect a computer’s memory.

The flaw was discovered by researchers from the security firm IOActive, who are calling the AMD-based vulnerability a “Sinkclose” flaw. This potentially allows hackers to run their own code in the most privileged mode of an AMD processor, System Management Mode. This is typically a protected portion of the firmware. The researchers have also noted that the flaw dates back to at least 2006 and that it impacts nearly every AMD chip.

“Researchers warn that a bug in AMD’s chips would allow attackers to root into some of the most privileged portions of a computer…” New piece from @WIRED featuring research from IOActive Principal Security Consultants, Enrique Nissim & Krzysztof Okupski. https://t.co/UuvzC2qyGI

— IOActive, Inc (@IOActive) August 9, 2024

That’s the bad news. Now onto some better news. Despite being potentially catastrophic, this issue is unlikely to impact regular people. That’s because in order to make full use of the flaw, hackers would already need deep access to an AMD-based PC or server. That’s a lot of work for a random home PC, phew, but could spell trouble for corporations or other large entities.

This is particularly worrisome for governments and the like. In theory, malicious code could burrow itself so deep within the firmware that it would be almost impossible to find. As a matter of fact, the researchers say that the code would likely survive a complete reinstallation of the operating system. The best option for infected computers would be a one-way ticket to the trash heap.

“Imagine nation-state hackers or whoever wants to persist on your system. Even if you wipe your drive clean, it’s still going to be there,” says Krzysztof Okupski from IOActive. “It’s going to be nearly undetectable and nearly unpatchable.”

Once successfully implemented, hackers would have full access to both surveil activity and tamper with the infected machine. AMD has acknowledged the issue and says that it has “released mitigation options” for data center products and Ryzen PC products “with mitigations for AMD embedded products coming soon.” The company has also published a full list of impacted chips.

AMD has also emphasized just how difficult it would be to take advantage of this exploit. It compares using the Sinkclose flaw to accessing a bank’s safe-deposit boxes after already bypassing alarms, guards, vault doors and other security measures. IOActive, however, says that kernel exploits — the equivalent of plans to get to those metaphorical safe-deposit boxes — exist readily in the wild. “People have kernel exploits right now for all these systems,” the organization told Wired. “They exist and they’re available for attackers.”

IOActive has agreed to not publish any proof-of-concept code as AMD gets to work on patches. The researchers have warned that speed is of the essence, saying “if the foundation is broken, then the security for the whole system is broken.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/researchers-discover-potentially-catastrophic-exploit-present-in-amd-chips-for-decades-161541359.html?src=rss 

Nicolás Maduro bans X in Venezuela for 10 days amid Elon Musk dispute

Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro has blocked X in the country for 10 days after claiming that the platform’s owner Elon Musk had incited hatred and “violated” his own social network’s rules. “Shame on Dictator Maduro,” wrote Musk, who claimed that the incumbent president had committed “major election fraud.”

Maduro, who also argued that his rivals were using the platform to stoke political unrest, said he greenlit a proposal by the national telecoms authority to “remove the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, from circulation in Venezuela for 10 days.” That’s according to the Associated Press, which said its reporters in the country were unable to access X after the proclamation. X does not have a public relations department that can be reached for comment.

While Musk has arguably fanned the flames of the situation in Venezuela, Maduro could be using him as a scapegoat so he has a pretext to temporarily block X and attempt to quash discussion of election results. The president claimed victory in July’s presidential election, but the outcome has been disputed.

Independent exit polls and reviews of voting machine data indicated that Maduro’s opposition, Edmundo González, may have received twice as many votes as the incumbent. The Maduro-controlled national electoral council however claimed that Maduro had a 52 percent share of the vote with González taking 43 percent. The council has not yet produced voting tallies as is required by law.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/nicolas-maduro-bans-x-in-venezuela-for-10-days-amid-elon-musk-dispute-163049192.html?src=rss 

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