Authorities in Canada have arrested an alleged member of the LockBit ransomware gang, according to the Department of Justice. Mikhail Vasiliev, a dual Russian-Canadian citizen, is awaiting extradition to the US, where he is charged with conspiracy to intentionally damage protected computers and to transmit ransom demands. Vasiliev faces a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to $250,000 if he is convicted.

According to the complaint, the LockBit ransomware first emerged around January 2020, and the FBI has been investigating those behind it since March of that year. The DOJ claims LockBit is "one of the most active and destructive ransomware variants in the world," having claimed at least 1,000 victims, including a Holiday Inn hotel in Turkey. The agency added that members of the LockBit gang have demanded at least $100 million in total ransom payments. The gang has claimed tens of millions of dollars from victims, according to the DOJ.

“This arrest is the result of over two-and-a-half years of investigation into the LockBit ransomware group, which has harmed victims in the United States and around the world,” deputy attorney general Lisa O. Monaco said in a statement. “Let this be yet another warning to ransomware actors: working with partners around the world, the Department of Justice will continue to disrupt cyber threats and hold perpetrators to account. With our partners, we will use every available tool to disrupt, deter and punish cyber criminals.”

Twitter isn’t the only notable tech company to bandy around the word “bankruptcy” this week. After a stunningly rapid collapse, crypto exchange FTX has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, while founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned as CEO.

The bankruptcy filing covers FTX Trading, FTX US, Alameda Research and around 130 other companies under the umbrella of the FTX Group, according to a press release. Some others, such as FTX Australia and FTX Express Pay, are not involved in the bankruptcy proceedings. Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy doesn't necessarily mean that a company is dead in the water — it allows a business to keep trading while it figures out a plan to pay back creditors. However, it's a tough position to come back from.

"The immediate relief of Chapter 11 is to provide the FTX Group the opportunity to assess its situation and develop a process to maximize recoveries for stakeholders," new CEO John J. Ray III (a former Enron chairman who came in to oversee that company's liquidation) said in a statement. "The FTX Group has valuable assets that can only be administered in an organized, joint process. I want to [assure] every employee, customer, creditor, contract party, stockholder, investor, governmental authority and other stakeholder that we are going to conduct this effort with diligence, thoroughness and transparency." Ray suggested that stakeholders should remain patient, noting that "events have been fast-moving and the new team is engaged only recently."

The company swiftly found itself in dire straits after the price of its native FTT token nosedived and many users withdrew their cryptocurrency. Following reports that FTX was facing a liquidity crisis, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of rival crypto giant Binance, said his company would sell off around $529 million worth of FTT. That all but wiped out the token's value.

Binance then agreed to bail out FTX by taking over the company. However, it backed out of the deal a day later, citing concerns that emerged while conducting due diligence. Bankman-Fried went on to apologize for the mess and said on Thursday he was doing everything he could to raise funds and do "right by users." He stepped down just a day later. 

"This doesn't necessarily have to mean the end for the companies or their ability to provide value and funds to their customers chiefly, and can be consistent with other routes," Bankman-Fried wrote on Twitter after the bankruptcy filing. "I'm going to work on giving clarity on where things are in terms of user recovery ASAP." Bankman-Fried added that he will soon publish a more complete, play-by-play account of what happened to FTX.

Meanwhile, reports have suggested that the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating FTX. It's not clear when the DOJ started looking into the company's dealings, but the SEC’s investigation has reportedly been ongoing for several months.

Netflix's The Witcher franchise is going through some major changes, with Henry Cavill, the star of the main show, set to depart. Before Cavill's swansong in season three, though, a miniseries set in the same universe will hit the streaming service, and Netflix has offered another look at it.

The latest teaser for The Witcher: Blood Origin opens with sword-elf Scian (Michelle Yeoh) carrying out a ritual before showing violence, devastation and magic in otherworldly, high-fantasy settings. The four-episode miniseries is set 1,200 years before the events of The Witcher. Scian and her cohorts will bring about the very first witcher — a monster hunter with magic powers.

The Witcher: Blood Origin will arrive on Netflix on December 25th. It could help you bide time until the arrival of season three of The Witcher, which is slated to premiere next summer.

GM has announced the first few vehicles that will gain access to Super Cruise's expanded road network. The company announced in August it would double the size of the hands-free advanced driver assistance system's (ADAS) network to over 400,000 miles (644,000 kilometres) of roads in the US and Canada. What a surprise: the first vehicles to gain access to this broader Super Cruise network are the newest, high-end SUVs.

GM says it will start delivering vehicles with expanded Super Cruise access in mid-November. The following SUVs will be able to use the larger hands-free driving network, as long as they were built on October 3rd or later:

• 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe – High Country and Premier trims

• 2023 Chevrolet Suburban – High Country and Premier trims

• 2023 Cadillac Escalade, Escalade ESV and Escalade-V

• 2023 GMC Yukon Denali Ultimate

In the coming months, existing Super Cruise vehicles that are built on GM's Vehicle Intelligence Platform will gain access to the expanded network following over-the-air updates. GM says that by the end of next year, Super Cruise will be available around the globe on 22 models.

As for Ultra Cruise, GM's next-gen ADAS that's currently in pre-production, that will be available on select premium models. GM anticipates that Ultra Cruise will work on 2 million miles of North American roads at the outset.

It's a day ending in the letter "y" which inevitably means there's more drama at Twitter. Chief information security officer Lea Kissner, chief privacy officer Damien Kieran and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have all quit, according to The Verge. The report suggests that the company's engineers will now be responsible for ensuring compliance with regulations. Twitter is currently subject to a Federal Trade Commission consent order, which includes certain privacy and security requirements.

"I've made the hard decision to leave Twitter," Kissner wrote in a tweet. "I've had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I'm so proud of the privacy, security and IT teams and the work we've done."

The departures will surely have a significant impact on Twitter's security and privacy teams. To that end, The Verge obtained a Slack message purportedly shared by a Twitter lawyer, which notes that engineers have been asked to "self-certify" that they're complying with FTC requirements and other laws. "This will put huge amount of personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers," the message reads. "I anticipate that all of you will [be] pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents." The lawyer, who urged workers to seek whistleblower protection if they felt the need to, warned that such changes are "extremely dangerous for our users." 

The FTC consent order is part of a settlement Twitter reached with the agency in May. One of the conditions requires the company to employ a "comprehensive privacy and information security program" to examine new products for privacy and security risks. The lawyer noted that if Twitter violates the consent order, it could be on the hook for "billions of dollars" in fines, which would be "extremely detrimental to Twitter’s longevity as a platform."

This week, the company revamped the Twitter Blue service and started allowing users to obtain a checkmark (previously used to denote that an account was verified) for $8 per month. That's already created a minefield of impersonation, spoof accounts and scams.

A Twitter employee suggested to The Verge that the rushed rollout of the paid checkmark scheme, as mandated by new owner Elon Musk, bypassed the typical privacy review process. “The people normally tasked with this stuff were given little notice, little time, and [it's] unreasonable to think [the privacy review] was comprehensive,” said the employee, who noted that none of the team's recommendations were put into effect before the new Twitter Blue went live. That team was only able to review possible risks the night before Twitter rolled out the retooled service.

“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees,” Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs, told The Washington Post. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”

Engadget has contacted Twitter for comment.

Sony has revealed another selection of games that will be available to PlayStation Plus subscribers on the Extra and Premium tiers. The headliner for many folks is one of the most beloved games of all time, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (a game from Microsoft-owned Bethesda Softworks, fact fans). The special edition of the classic 2011 RPG includes updated visuals and other features.

Subscribers will soon be able to play three of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy-branded games at no extra cost: Rainbow Six Siege (both the PS4 and PS5 versions), The Division 2 and Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Several Kingdom Hearts games are on the way as well. You'll get access to Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX (a remastered collection of four games), Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue,Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory and the most recent mainline entry in the series, Kingdom Hearts III.

On top of that, you'll be able to check out Oddworld: Soulstorm – Enhanced Edition (which features a new game mode) and space shooter Chorus. PS4 and PS5 versions of both games will be available. Also on the docket are classic indie walking sim What Remains of Edith Finch, puzzle title The Gardens Between, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain and Onee Chanbara Origin.

There are some worthy PS3 titles coming to the Premium lineup this month, in the form of five more Ratchet & Clank games. You'll get access to Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. 

These games will be available on November 15th. It's a pretty solid batch of additions to PS Plus Extra and Premium. Perhaps these titles will help Sony gain back some of the PS Plus subscribers Sony has lost in recent months.

If you've ever bought a game on Stadia, Google's soon-to-be-defunct cloud gaming service, it's worth keeping an eye on your bank balance and credit card statements. As of today, Google is starting to process refunds for Stadia purchases. The first wave of refunds will include those for purchases of games, add-on content and subscriptions made through the Stadia store. However, the company is not refunding Stadia Pro subscription fees. 

Google says it will process the refunds automatically. It expects to issue most of them (including those for hardware purchases) by the time it shuts down the Stadia servers on January 18th. "We ask for your patience as we work through each transaction and ask that you refrain from contacting Customer Support as they will not be able to expedite your refund during this time," the company wrote in an updated support article. 

If Google can't issue a refund automatically to your original form of payment, it will email you via the Google account through which you made your purchase(s). Folks who have deleted their Google account and no longer have access to the original form of payment may have to get in touch with Stadia's customer support team. 

If you've made 20 or fewer Stadia store transactions on your account, you'll get one email for each successful refund, which will likely prove a bit annoying. If you've bought 21 or more games or addons, you'll get one email summarizing all the successful refunds.

Elsewhere in the updated FAQ, Google notes that players will be able to transfer their save data from Stadia to other platforms in some cases, but it's up to developers and publishers to support that. Ubisoft, Bungie, I/O Interactive, CD Projekt Red, Rockstar Games and Bethesda are working on ways to help players move their game progress to other platforms. Cyberpunk 2077 players can already export their save data to the PC version and sync it to consoles. Meanwhile, Ubisoft has said it will offer players who bought its products on Stadia PC versions of those games on top of the refunds they'll get from Google (though you'll of course need a powerful enough rig to run them).

Elsewhere, there was a disappointing update for those hoping that Google will unlock the Bluetooth functions on the Stadia Controller so it can more easily be used on other platforms. For now, the company hasn't committed to doing so. It says you'll still be able to use the peripheral by connecting it to another device via USB-A or USB-C.

Don Lewis, a pioneer in the worlds of synthesizers and electronic music, died on Sunday at the age of 81. In the 1970s, Lewis created the Live Electronic Orchestra. The system enabled him to control multiple synthesizers and other instruments simultaneously using custom keyboards, around a decade before MIDI became a standard.

Lewis worked on some well-known mainstream synths as well. He collaborated with Roland founder Ikutarô Kakehashi on the company's drum machines. Among those was the TR-808, which is perhaps the most important drum machine of all time. Lewis also designed sounds for the Yamaha DX7, along with Hammond and ARP instruments, as Pitchfork notes.

As a performer, Lewis took to the stage at venerated venues such as the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall and the Apollo Theater. He collaborated with big-name artists including Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and the Beach Boys.

While Lewis may not have been a household name, his contributions to electronic music are critical and undeniable. For those keen to learn more about Lewis' life and career, you may be interested in checking out a documentary called Don Lewis and the Live Electric Orchestra. The film will air on PBS in February.

NASA has once again delayed the launch of Artemis 1 in the face of a potentially dangerous weather system. The agency had penciled in the launch for the early morning of November 14th, but it's now retargeting liftoff for November 16th. The current two-hour launch window opens at 1:04AM ET. There's a backup launch opportunity scheduled for November 19th.

The latest delay is due to the threat posed by Tropical Storm Nicole. The new launch window is dependent on conditions being safe enough for NASA employees to return to work, as well as inspections after the weather system has passed. The agency says that pushing back the launch date "will allow the workforce to tend to the needs of their families and homes, and provide sufficient logistical time to get back into launch status following the storm."

Teams are securing equipment, property and facilities at the space center, which is in HURCON (Hurricane Condition) III status. Some personnel in a “ride-out” team will remain in place to monitor conditions across the site, including the SLS and Orion.

The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft will stay on the launch pad this time. Before Hurricane Ian bore down on the Kennedy Space Center, NASA rolled back the rocket and spacecraft to the safety of the Vehicle Assembly Building. It rolled Artemis out to the launch pad again last week. The SLS can withstand winds of up to 85MPH (74.4 knots) and Nicole isn't expected to bring winds exceeding that speed. The rocket is also able to deal with heavy rain and NASA has secured the hatches to prevent water from getting inside.

Artemis 1 is a test mission that's scheduled to fly around the Moon. It's a precursor to humans returning to the lunar surface for the first time in over half a century. However, NASA's attempts to launch the SLS and Orion over the last few months have been beset by technical issues and inclement weather.

IBM's latest quantum computing processor marks a notable step forward for its ambitions in the field. At the IBM Quantum Summit 2022, the company announced Osprey, which has the largest qubit count of any of its processors at 433 quantum bits. That's more than triple the number of cubits that the Eagle chip, which IBM revealed last November, has. IBM said it built on top of the 127-cubit Eagle's architecture by keeping qubits on a single plane with the help of multi-level wiring.

"Unlike classical bits which have to be in a state of either one or zero, qubits can exist in a complex mix of both, tapping into the fundamental quantum nature of matter at subatomic levels," IBM said in a press release. "As a result, quantum computers offer the possibility of vastly increased computing power that can be used to tackle calculations of much greater complexity in fields such as artificial intelligence, and the design of new materials for drug discovery and energy research."

Connie Zhou/IBM

The company is scaling up its quantum computing efforts with the aim of building a system with 4000-plus qubits by 2025. It's currently on target with its roadmap. Next up is a 1,121-cubit chip called Condor that IBM hopes to debut next year.

IBM debuted an elegantly designed functional quantum computer at CES 2019. Last year, it offered a sneak preview of the design for the next-gen IBM Quantum System Two (the machine that will use its quantum processors). Now, the company has revealed more details. It designed the system to be flexible and modular with the ability to house multiple architectures and processors, and claims it will include Osprey starting next year. The company claimed the System Two design "allows for an exponential step up in quantum computing scale and enabling the vision of quantum-centric supercomputing."

Having immense computational power at one's fingertips doesn't mean much if you don't have the right software to get the most out of it. Early last year, IBM said that its Qiskit program execution environment was able to blend quantum and conventional computers to carry out complex computations in hours, when they previously would have taken months. The company said it will offer new features to mitigate and suppress errors, and provide "a fast, efficient and easy-to-use programming model for quantum computers." What's more, these features blend into IBM's goal of integrating quantum computers with classical computers, including supercomputers.