The Department of Justice has unsealed charges against a Ukrainian national over a ransomware attack against IT company Kaseya in July. Authorities in Poland arrested Yaroslav Vasinskyi last month and proceedings are underway to extradite him to the US. 

He has been charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, several counts of damage to protected computers and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted on all charges, Vasinskyi faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison.

According to the indictment, Vasinskyi used a Kaseya product to distribute ransomware. As many as 1,500 businesses and organizations around the world were affected. REvil, the ransomware group Vasinskyi is linked to, originally demanded $70 million in exchange for unlocking victims' systems. Three weeks after the attack took place, Kaseya deployed a decryption key, which allowed its customers to regain access to their computers.

The DOJ also revealed it has seized $6.1 million in alleged ransom payments obtained by Russian national Yevgeniy Polyanin, another alleged member of REvil. Polyanin, who remains at large, has been accused of carrying out Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware attacks against several targets, including businesses and government departments in Texas, in August 2019. Polyanin faces similar charges to Vasinskyi. If convicted, Polyanin is looking at a maximum prison sentence of 145 years.

“Cybercrime is a serious threat to our country: to our personal safety, to the health of our economy, and to our national security,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Our message today is clear. The United States, together with our allies, will do everything in our power to identify the perpetrators of ransomware attacks, to bring them to justice, and to recover the funds they have stolen from their victims.”

Somehow, Peloton has not offered users a way to pause on-demand classes until this very moment in time. At long last, a pause button is rolling out on Bike and Bike+. So, if you need to take a break for any reason, you can come back and finish your workout later.

To pause a workout, tap the screen and hold the pause button for a moment. You'll still appear in the Here Now section and others can send you encouraging high fives while your workout is paused, but you will lose your spot on the leaderboard for that class. So, if you're a hyper-competitive Peloton user, perhaps the pause button isn't for you. That said, pausing a workout doesn't have any impact on other aspects of your Peloton progress, including programs, challenges, achievements, streaks, milestones and personal records.

For what it's worth, Peloton says it hopes that "this feature is everything you imagine." However, it won't work on live workouts — it's not like pausing live TV. The pause button will come to Tread devices in the future.

Niantic Labs is offering everyone the chance to get their hands on the tech behind Pokémon Go and Pikmin Bloom so they can build their own augmented reality and "real-world metaverse" apps. Developers can start using the Niantic Lightship platform today. The company also announced a $20 investment fund to back developers that "share our vision for the real-world metaverse and contribute to the global ecosystem we are building."

Developers can use Ninatic's toolkit to create real-time 3D mesh maps so apps can understand the surfaces and topography of the world surrounding a device. Other APIs will help apps know the difference between different aspects of an environment, such as the ground, sky, water and buildings. The toolkit also enables developers to make apps that allow up to five players to take part in the same AR multiplayer session, keeping all of their content and interactions in sync.

The tools are mostly free. The multiplayer APIs will be available at no cost for the first six months no matter how many users an app has. After that, Niantic will charge a fee if the APIs are used in an app with more than 50,000 monthly active users.

Several notable brands have taken part in a private beta of the development kit, including Universal Pictures, PGA of America and Warner Music Group. Coachella has created an AR experience that its festival attendees will be able to check out next year. They'll be able to see a large version of Coachella's butterfly landing on the seven-story Spectra rainbow walkway tower.

Meanwhile, Shueisha is working with developer T&S to bring characters from One Piece and other manga into the real world with AR. That app will be available in 2022.

Niantic's vision of the metaverse is very much different from the virtual reality-centered future Facebook's parent company Meta has in mind. In a blog post in August, CEO John Hanke suggested that the "real-world metaverse" is about connecting the physical and digital worlds, rather than existing purely as a virtual experience. With that in mind, his company has been working on AR glasses with Qualcomm over the last couple of years.

Paramount+ is bolstering its soccer bonafides with the addition of another notable league. CBS Sports will be the exclusive US rights holder for the Barclays FA Women’s Super League (WSL) in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, with 57 matches airing across Paramount+ and CBS Sports Network each season. Most matches will stream on Paramount+, but some will air exclusively on CBS Sports Network. 

The WSL, which currently airs on NBC platforms in the US, features 12 teams and it's the highest level of women's soccer in England. American soccer fans will surely recognize some players, including current USWNT member Tobin Heath, who plays for Arsenal. Recently retired USWNT legend Carli Lloyd spent some time on loan at Manchester City a few years back.

The WSL complements the existing plethora of soccer coverage on Paramount+, which includes the National Women's Soccer League, The Women's Cup and UEFA Women’s World Cup qualifiers. Paramount+ also streams games from the UEFA Champions League, CONCACAF national team competitions, Italy’s Serie A, Scotland's Premiership and much more.

Paramount+ now streams more than 2,000 live games a year. Meanwhile, T-Mobile subscribers can currently snag a year of access to the platform at no extra cost.

Wind and solar power could meet around 85 percent of US electricity needs, according to a paper published in Nature Communications. Batteries, capacity overbuilding and other storage options could increase that figure.

A blend of wind and solar power should be enough to meet most of the current energy needs in "advanced, industrialized nations," according to the study. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), China’s Tsinghua University, the Carnegie Institution for Science and Caltech looked at 39 years of hourly energy demand data from 42 countries to determine whether there's enough wind and solar resources to meet requirements.

They found that most reliable systems, in which wind power is most prevalent, can meet energy needs in the countries they studied between 72 and 91 percent of the time, and that's before any storage considerations. Add the capacity to store up to 12 hours' worth of energy, and these renewable energy sources can meet between 83 and 94 percent of hourly energy needs. However, the researchers noted even when wind and solar sources can power over 90 percent of a region's energy needs, there would still be hundreds of hours per year where demand isn't met.

“Wind and solar could meet more than 80 percent of demand in many places without crazy amounts of storage or excess generating capacity, which is the critical point,” co-author Steven Davis, professor of Earth system science at UCI, said. “But depending on the country, there may be many multi-day periods throughout the year when some demand will need to be met by energy storage and other non-fossil energy sources in a zero-carbon future.”

There are geophysical challenges at play. The paper suggests it would be easier for larger countries closer to the equator to fully switch to sustainable power sources, since they can more reliably bank on having solar energy all year long. Germany, for instance, might struggle to meet most of its needs through wind and solar, since it's a relatively smaller country at a higher latitude.

One solution would be for neighboring countries to pool their resources. "A lot of consistency and reliability could be provided by a system that includes solar resources from Spain, Italy and Greece with bountiful wind available in the Netherlands, Denmark and the Baltic region," Dan Tong, assistant professor of Earth system science at Tsinghua University and lead author on the paper, said.

Many countries are cutting back on their reliance on fossil fuels, which is key to mitigating carbon emissions and limiting the impact of climate change. Europe generated more electricity from renewable sources in 2020 than it did from fossil fuels, according to a report from two green energy-focused think tanks.

Konami is removing a couple of Metal Gear Solid titles from digital storefronts and platforms for the time being due to licensing issues. Unless you can find a physical copies of them, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater are no longer available to buy. The publisher said it's "working on renewing the licenses for select historical archive footage used in-game." Along with the individual games, Konami is pulling bundles that include either game.

The move affects titles on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Now, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, GOG and NVIDIA Shield (not exactly the most current of platforms in most cases). It's not clear when MGS2 and MGS3 will return to stores, or whether Konami will keep the footage in question.

It's hardly the first time licensing issues have affected games long after they were released. Alan Wake disappeared from storefronts for quite some time after Remedy's rights to certain songs on the soundtrack expired. Rockstar Games, meanwhile, has deleted songs from various Grand Theft Auto titles over the years for the same reason.

If you're looking for a holiday gift for that budding chef in your life (or if you want another useful tool in your own kitchen), it's worth taking a look at Anova's Sous Vide Precision Cooker Pro. The gadget, which aims to make sous vide cooking a breeze, is currently $200 on Amazon — $199 off the regular price. It's not quite the lowest price we've ever seen for the gizmo, which was $199, but it's not far off at all.

The sous vide cooking method requires putting food in a sealed bag and placing it in water. The Precision Cooker Pro, which attaches to your pot, maintains precise temperatures and keeps circulating the water to ensure your food cooks evenly. The idea is that you should have perfectly cooked food every time without having to keep a close eye on it.

You can adjust the settings using Anova's companion app or the on-device controls. The app has thousands of free recipe suggestions as well, so you'll always have something new to try.

The Precision Cooker Pro is Anova's most powerful sous vide device. It can heat up to 20 gallons of water using 1,200 watts of power. Anova says the device can run for up to 10,000 hours before shutting down. It's a fairly sturdy machine too. The Precision Cooker Pro is made with stainless steel and should withstand accidental drops. It's IPX-7 rated as well, so if you dunk it in water by mistake, it should still work.

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The global chip shortage has affected all manner of industries over the last several months. Automakers are among those who've felt the impact, with many slowing down production. One such company is BMW, which is taking other measures to cut down on silicon use and maintain current production levels amid the crisis. It confirmed to Autoblog that it's temporarily removing touchscreen functions from several models.

For now, BMW 3 Series, X5, X6, X7 and Z4 models will ship without touchscreen controls. BMW 4 Series Coupe, Convertible and Gran Coupe (but not the i4 EV) will also lose touchscreen features for the time being.

Owners of those affected models will need to use the center console's iDrive controller to navigate the infotainment system. If you receive a model without touch control when it should have had it, you'll receive a $500 credit due to "Deletion of Touchscreen."

Meanwhile, according to a post on the Bimmerfest forum, these models will not have the BMW Backup Assistant if owners opted for the Parking Assistant Package. That feature can automatically reverse the car along the path along which it drove into a spot. Engadget has contacted BMW for more details, including whether it will compensate drivers who would have been expecting to access that feature.

Google is gradually bringing more and more useful features to Stadia, many of which probably should have been available from the outset. It's still ridiculous how long it took to add a search function to the store, for one thing. Shortly after the arrival of free trials for some more titles, Google is rolling out an option to join a friend's game without an invite.

A support page spotted by 9to5Google notes that the option is available in select games, including Far Cry 6. You can switch it on by going to the privacy tab of the Stadia settings. In the Current Game section, there's an option called Join your current game, which you can enable to let others join a multiplayer game without an invitation. You can set this to friends, your friends and their friends, all players or no one.

This is a welcome update that brings Stadia a little more in line with other gaming platforms. It could encourage groups of friends to pick up the same games since it'll be a little easier for them to play together.

After working on prototypes for several years, Google reportedly plans to release a foldable Pixel in 2022. According to 9to5Google's deep dive into the current Google Camera APK, the phone is codenamed Pipit. While there aren't many concrete details about what the foldable looks like or how it functions, the APK offered some insights into the Pipit's camera setup.

Seemingly, the main camera will have the 12.2MP sensor Google used in its devices between the Pixel 3 and Pixel 5. The new Pixel 6 lineup, meanwhile, uses a 50MP GN1 camera.

The Pipit (or Pixel Fold, or whatever it will actually be called) is said to use the same 12MP IMX386 ultrawide sensor as the current Pixels, as well as two front-facing 8MP IMX355 sensors. There's likely to be one of those on each side of the body so folks can take selfies whether the device is folded or unfolded.

It makes sense that the main camera might not be as powerful as the one in the Pixel 6 lineup. Those phones have a protruding bar on the rear to give the camera sensors enough room. Size is a bigger concern on a foldable than a slab-style smartphone, given it's twice as thick when its closed. So, camera sensors with a slimmer profile might be preferable for Google in this case.

Samsung has also used lesser cameras in its foldables than in the flagship S Series devices. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, for instance, doesn't have as powerful cameras as the Galaxy S21 lineup.

Elsewhere, the APK includes the term “isPixel2022Foldable." That's a decent indication that Google plans to release a foldable device next year, given how Google has used similar terminology to refer to previous Pixel models.

For what it's worth, Google recently announced a version of Android designed for tablets and foldables. The company plans to release the first public version of Android 12L next year, "in time for the next wave of Android 12 tablets and foldables."