Iran faced its own spate of cyberattacks this weekend. Reuters and The Guardian report that Iran's railway train system and transportation websites suffered a "cyber-disruption" (according to state media) on the weekend. Portal sites went down, although it's not clear just how badly the train system were affected. Officials claimed that only the train displays were compromised with fake messages, but the Fars news agency claimed there was "unprecedented chaos" that included cancellations and delays.

The sites and train systems were back to normal as of Monday morning.

It's not certain who was behind the attack, although telecom minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi alerted people to the threat of ransomware if they didn't address security vulnerabilities. Iran has historically blamed some cyberattacks on the US and Israel, although ransomware is more often the work of criminal organizations.

The US and other countries have typically pinned cyberattacks on Iran, and both sides have engaged in relatively quiet digital warfare. However, it's not clear that's the cause here — this could just represent 'ordinary' hackers exploiting weak points in Iran's infrastructure, whether to make money or create havoc.

It could be a while before in-person TED talks resume in earnest, but you're about to get an alternative of sorts. The Vergenotes that TED has struck a deal to offer exclusive drop-in audio chats to Clubhouse. The first, the weekly series Thank Your Ass Off, debuts through the platform on July 12th at 11AM Eastern.

The arrangement lets TED sell ads and sponsorships for its conversations. Clubhouse won't take a share, either. It's not clear if the chats will be available as podcasts or other on-demand recordings, although it won't be surprising if there's a way to listen later.

TED already has a thriving podcast business, with over 1.65 million episode downloads per day.

This is a logical agreement for Clubhouse, where some of the more philosophical conversations have already been likened to TED talks. It's also a shrewd move to keep Clubhouse relevant in the face of stiffer competition. Clubhouse's NFL deal lost some of its thunder in light of the league's Twitter Spaces chats. The TED pact reclaims some of that ground, even if the audience doesn't entirely dovetail with that for American football.

Foxconn and TSMC are solving a political drama even as they serve their own tech manufacturing interests. The Wall Street Journalreports that the two companies have agreed to buy 10 million Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine doses on behalf of Taiwan's government. The two are purchasing the shots from Fosun Pharmaceutical after China allegedly "spiked" Taiwan's bid to directly buy the vaccine.

There was pressure to make a deal. Taiwan has largely kept COVID-19 levels low throughout the pandemic, but new cases started surging in late April and prompted rare restrictions on the island. While infections are dropping, Taiwan has only vaccinated about 14 percent of its population. It will need many more doses if it's going to lift restrictions while keeping cases low.

Tech companies like have offered to buy vaccines for employees and contractors before. Apple helped TSMC buy vaccines for its staff, for instance. A purchase this large for the general population breaks new ground, however — the companies are buying enough doses to inject over 40 percent of Taiwan's 24 million people.

Foxconn and TSMC have strong incentives to step in. Outbreaks could hurt their operations, even for those factories and other facilities beyond Taiwan. That could be particularly dangerous amid a global chip shortage and other manufacturing headaches — mass infections and shutdowns could cause further snarls. A vaccine purchase like this could save the companies money in the long run.

Now that Virgin Galactic has flown its founder to the edge of space, it's ready to give everyday people a chance at a similar trip. Virgin and Omaze have announced a sweepstakes that lets you win two seats aboard "one of the first" commercial spaceflights. While you can enter for free, donating to Space for Humanity (a charity making spaceflight more accessible) will give you more entries.

The sweepstakes ends September 1st, and the companies will reveal the winner on September 29th. Just be ready to take some time off from work if you do win. You'll have to go through the same training as any other Virgin Galactic passenger. You do get a tour of Spaceport America for your trouble, though.

Yes, this is a not-so-subtle way to capitalize on Virgin's spaceflight and drum up hype for the company's space tourism efforts. All the same, it's a significant moment for private spaceflight. The notion of winning tickets to space wasn't imaginable in the days when NASA and other government agencies were the only organizations traveling to space — now, it's entirely logical.

Disney+ has been shy about divulging sales for Premier Access movies like Mulan, but it's now eager to brag. As AV Clubreports, Disney has revealed that Marvel blockbuster Black Widow raked in more than $60 million in estimated revenue solely from customers paying $30 each for Premier Access. That's more than a quarter of the roughly $215 million Disney expected to make from all sources, including US and international box office sales.

The company also bragged that Black Widow was the largest US box office opening during the COVID-19 pandemic, just besting F9. That wasn't difficult, though, given that movie theaters have routinely struggled to attract viewers when they weren't dealing with widespread closures.

We wouldn't count on Disney providing Premier Access figures on a regular basis, especially as the pandemic continues to (hopefully) subside and more people are comfortable venturing to theaters. To some extent, the media giant needed the $60 million number to make Black Widow's debut sound more impressive. We'd add that it's difficult to compare this against data for rivals like Amazon and Netflix. They don't have equivalents to Premier Access, so they measure success for original movies largely in terms of viewership and new subscriptions.

Nonetheless, this represents an important milestone for Disney as it shifts toward streaming. It's now comfortable mentioning Premier Access numbers after months of staying quiet. Even if Premier Access fades into the background, it's now a significant part of Disney's movie release strategy.

EA isn't just giving Madden NFL players an upgrade if they play on next-gen consoles. The published has unveiledFIFA 22, and its centerpiece is a new "HyperMotion" system that reportedly provides more realistic animation and gameplay when you game on a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S or Google Stadia. The technology uses machine learning to produce animations in real time, leading to more "organic" movement. HyperMotion also let EA capture motion for pro soccer (aka football) players competing at full tilt, including superstars like Paris Saint-Germain's Kylian Mbappé.

The game is also coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC (via Origin and Steam). A FIFA 22 Legacy Edition is coming to the Nintendo Switch, although EA didn't outline differences.

Thankfully, there are other substantial changes regardless of what platform you use. EA has hinted at a "complete" revamp of the goalkeeper system, a new club creation experience in Career Mode, "reimagined" Volta Football and a FIFA Ultimate Team Heroes item set that represents the tales of legendary players.

FIFA 22 will be released on October 1st for all supported platforms.

As with Madden, it's apparent EA isn't completely ready to drop support for previous-gen consoles. That's not surprising given both the larger player base and shortages that limit the number of PS5 and Xbox Series owners. However, it is clear that the gaming giant wants to offer a strong incentive to play on newer machines. Don't be surprised if FIFA 23 cuts off PS4 and Xbox One players.

After tragedy, multiple delays and plenty of rivalry, Virgin Galactic has completed its first fully crewed spaceflight. The Unity 22 mission saw founder Richard Branson join Beth Moses, Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla aboard SpaceShipTwo as they tested the spacecraft and conducted experiments. Branson , as you might guess, was there both for the prestige and to gauge the "private astronaut experience."

The flight has included some share of controversy. Blue Origin, whose first crewed spaceflight is just days away, has trash-talked Virgin by arguing that SpaceShipTwo wouldn't really enter space — the craft reached an altitude of 'just' 53.4 miles during Unity 22 where the Kármán line (the formal demarcation for space) is 62 miles. If you're focused on technicalities, Jeff Bezos will be the first corporate magnate to cross that symbolic barrier.

Whether or not you agree, the flight is an important achievement for Virgin. It's the first full test of SpaceShipTwo, and paves the way for commercial spaceflights if and when they start in 2022. Branson's outfit has been generating money with test flights, but it won't fulfill its business ambitions until tourists can finally use their tickets and get a taste of space.

You might not have to wait much longer for an (arguably overdue) iPad mini redesign. As 9to5Maclearned, Bloomberg's historically accurate Mark Gurman claimed in his latest "Power On" newsletter that the revamped small tablet "should be a go" for a fall launch. While Gurman didn't share more details of the design, he previously claimed Apple would drop the home button and offer slimmed bezels — it could effectively be a shrunken iPad Air.

This will be the "biggest redesign" for the iPad mini since the first model arrived in 2012, Gurman added.

The reporter maintained that Apple is still developing a "larger, redesigned" replacement for the 27-inch iMac that would include a future generation of Apple Silicon, although there weren't more details.

The iPad mini has seen few outward changes since its launch. Even the base iPad has gone through more changes over the same period. In that light, Apple might not have much choice — this is as much about catching up with modern design as it is revitalizing sales.

It's easy to find large meteorites (or their craters) once they've reached Earth, but the smaller ones often go neglected — scientists recover fewer than 2 percent of them. Soon, however, it might just be a question of sending a robot to do the job. Universe Todayreports that researchers have developed a system that has autonomous drones use machine learning to find the smaller meteorites in impact sites that are either 'hidden' (even if observers traced the fall) or simply inaccessible.

The technology uses a mix of convolutional neural networks to recognize meteorites based on training images, both from online images as well as staged shots from the team's collection. This helps the AI distinguish between space rocks and ordinary stones, even with a variety of shapes and terrain conditions.

The results aren't flawless. While a test drone did correctly spot planted meteorites, there were also some false positives. It could be a while before robotic aircraft are trustworthy enough to provide accurate results all on their own.

The implications for space science are significant if the technology proves accurate, though. It would help scientists spot and potentially recover meteorites that are either too small to find or too remote. That, in turn, could help pinpoint meteorite sources and identify the rocks' compositions. Simply put, drones could fill gaps in humanity's understanding of the cosmic debris that lands at our doorstep.

The giant ransomware attack against Kaseya might have been entirely avoidable. Former staff talking to Bloomberg claim they warned executives of "critical" security flaws in Kaseya's products several times between 2017 and 2020, but that the company didn't truly address them. Multiple staff either quit or said they were fired over inaction.

Employees reportedly complained that Kaseya was using old code, implemented poor encryption and even failed to routinely patch software. The company's Virtual System Administrator (VSA), the remote maintenance tool that fell prey to ransomware, was supposedly rife with enough problems that workers wanted the software replaced.

One employee claimed he was fired two weeks after sending executives a 40-page briefing on security problems. Others simply left in frustration with a seeming focus on new features and releases instead of fixing basic issues. Kaseya also laid off some employees in 2018 in favor of outsourcing work to Belarus, which some staff considered a security risk given local leaders' partnerships with the Russian government.

Kaseya has declined to comment.

The company has showed signs of wanting to mend issues. It fixed some problems after Dutch researchers pointed out vulnerabilities. It didn't fix everything, however, and it didn't take long before analyst firms like Truesec found glaring flaws in Kaseya's platform. This wasn't the first time Kaseya faced security issues, either. The company's software was reportedly used to launch ransomware at least twice between 2018 and 2019, and it didn't significantly rethink its security strategy.

However accurate the reports may be, Kaseya's situation wouldn't be unique. Staff at SolarWinds, Twitter and others have described security lapses that weren't fixed in time. That just makes the situation worse, mind you. It suggests that key parts of American online infrastructure have been vulnerable due to neglect, and that these basic missteps are all too common.