Amazon is overhauling its entire Kindle e-reader lineup today . And nestled among the nice-but-straightforward updates to the base model Kindle, the mainstream Kindle Paperwhite, and the pen-centric Kindle Scribe is a first: the Kindle Colorsoft , Amazon's first-ever color e-reader.

The Colorsoft will launch on October 30th and starts at $279.99. That's quite a bit higher than the new Kindle Paperwhite, which starts at $159.99, but it's a little less than the $290 launch price of the now-discontinued Kindle Oasis . The Colorsoft also includes 32 GB of storage, wireless charging support, and sensors for automatically adjusting screen brightness and color temperature, all features that are only available in the $200 Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition.

Book covers and illustrations will be displayed in color on the Colorsoft's screen, and it will also support the same color-coded highlighting as the Kindle phone and tablet apps. Monochrome text and images are displayed at 300 PPI, the same as all other devices in the Kindle lineup, while color is displayed at 150 PPI.

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Human beings live every day with the understanding of our own mortality, but do animals have any concept of death? It's a question that has long intrigued scientists, fueled by reports of ants, for example, appearing to attend their own"funerals"; chimps gathering somberly around fallen comrades; or a mother whale who carried her dead baby with her for two weeks in an apparent show of grief.

Philosopher Susana Monsó is a leading expert on animal cognition, behavior and ethics at the National Distance Education University (UNED) in Madrid, Spain. She became interested in the topic of how animals experience death several years ago while applying for a grant and noted that there were a number of field reports on how different animal species reacted to death. It's an emerging research field called comparative thanatology, which focuses on how animals react to the dead or dying, the physiological mechanisms that underlie such reactions, and what we can learn from those behaviors about animal minds.

"I could see that there was a new discipline that was emerging that was very much in need of a philosophical approach to help it clarify its main concepts," she told Ars. "And personally, I was turning 30 at the time and became a little bit obsessed with death.  So I wanted to think a lot about death and maybe come to fear it less through philosophical reflection on it."

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Facing a lawsuit , the Food and Drug Administration has decided to reconsider its decision to take popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs off of the national shortage list, which will allow compounding pharmacies to continue selling cheaper copycat versions—at least for now.

A trade organization representing compounding pharmacies sued the agency last week over its October 2 announcement that there was no longer a shortage of tirzepatide drugs, branded as Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for weight loss. The products, members of the extremely popular and effective class of GLP-1 drugs, had been on the shortage list since December 2022.

Being on the list meant that compounding pharmacies were legally allowed to make " essentially copies " of the products; the only time these pharmacies—also called outsourcing facilities—can make imitation versions of approved drugs, such as tirzepatide, is when the products appear on the shortage list. So, with the FDA's announcement, compounders were immediately barred from making any more of the lucrative drugs and had 60 days to fulfill existing orders.

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The Federal Communications Commission is taking a closer look at how broadband data caps affect consumers, and is considering whether it has authority to regulate how Internet service providers impose such caps. Democrats are spearheading the effort over the opposition of the FCC's Republican minority.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel floated a plan to open a formal inquiry into data caps in June 2023, and the FCC is finally moving ahead. A Notice of Inquiry announced today "explores how broadband data caps impact competition and consumers," the FCC said.

"During the last year, nearly 3,000 people have gotten so aggravated by data caps on their Internet service that they have reached out the Federal Communications Commission to register their frustration," Rosenworcel said in a statement issued today. "We are listening. Today, we start an inquiry into the state of data caps. We want to shine a light on what they mean for Internet service for consumers across the country."

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In the beginning, North Korean hackers compromised the banking infrastructure running AIX, IBM’s proprietary version of Unix. Next, they hacked infrastructure running Windows. Now, the state-backed bank robbers have expanded their repertoire to include Linux.

The malware, tracked under the name FASTCash, is a remote access tool that gets installed on payment switches inside compromised networks that handle payment card transactions. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency first warned of FASTCash in 2018 in an advisory that said the malware was infecting AIX-powered switches inside retail payment networks. In 2020, the agency updated its guidance to report FASTCash was now infecting switches running Windows as well. Besides embracing Windows, FASTCash had also expanded its net to include not just switches for retail payments but those handled by regional interbank payment processors as well.

Tampering with transaction messages on the fly

Over the weekend, a researcher reported finding two samples of FASTCash for switches running on Linux. One sample is compiled for Ubuntu Linux 20.04 and was likely developed sometime after April 21, 2022. The other sample was likely not used. As of the time this post went live, only four anti-malware engines detected each sample . The number of detections as of Sunday was zero. The Linux version was uploaded to VirusTotal in June 2023.

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At the University of Toronto, just across the street from the football stadium, workers are putting up a 14-story building with space for classrooms and faculty offices. What’s unusual is how they’re building it — by bolting together giant beams, columns, and panels made of manufactured slabs of wood.

As each wood element is delivered by flatbed, a tall crane lifts it into place and holds it in position while workers attach it with metal connectors. In its half-finished state, the building resembles flat-pack furniture in the process of being assembled.

The tower uses a new technology called mass timber. In this kind of construction, massive, manufactured wood elements that can extend more than half the length of a football field replace steel beams and concrete. Though still relatively uncommon, it is growing in popularity and beginning to pop up in skylines around the world.

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SpaceX is seeking approval for changes to Starlink that the company says will enable gigabit-per-second broadband service. In an application submitted to the Federal Communications Commission on October 11, SpaceX claims the requested "modification and its companion amendment will enable the Gen2 system to deliver gigabit-speed, truly low-latency broadband and ubiquitous mobile connectivity to all Americans and the billions of people globally who still lack access to adequate broadband."

SpaceX said it is seeking "several small-but-meaningful updates to the orbital configuration and operational parameters for its Gen2 space station authorization to improve space sustainability, better respond to evolving demand, and more efficiently share spectrum with other spectrum users."

SpaceX wants to lower the altitudes of satellites "at 525 km, 530 km, and 535 km to 480 km, 485 km, and 475 km altitude, respectively." The reconfiguration will increase the "potential maximum number of orbital planes and satellites per plane" while keeping the planned total number of second-generation satellites at 29,988 or less. The FCC has so far approved 7,500 Gen2 satellites.

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After Elon Musk provided his "long-term" vision for autonomous, humanoid robots at last week's "We, Robot" event , we expressed some skepticism about the autonomy of the Optimus prototypes sent out for a post-event mingle with the assembled, partying humans. Now, there's been a raft of confirmation that human teleoperators were indeed puppeting the robot prototypes for much of the night.

Bloomberg cites unnamed "people familiar with the matter" in reporting that Tesla "used humans to remotely control some capabilities" of the prototype robots at the event. The report doesn't specify which demonstrated capabilities needed that human assistance, but it points out that the robots "were able to walk without external control using artificial intelligence" (the lack of a similar AI call-out for any other robot actions that night seems telling).

That lines up with reporting from tech blogger Robert Scoble, who posted on social media that he had "talked with an engineer" who confirmed that "when it walked, that is AI running Optimus." For other tasks—like pouring drinks from a tap, playing Rock Paper Scissors, or chatting with nearby attendees—Scoble noted that "a human is remote assisting."

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This fall, thousands of fake albums were added to Spotify, with some appearing on real artist pages, where they're positioned to lure unsuspecting listeners into streaming by posing as new releases from favorite bands.

An Ars reader flagged the issue after finding a fake album on the Spotify page of an Australian psych rock band called Gong. The Gong fan knew that the band had begun touring again after a surprise new release last year, but the "latest release" listed by Spotify wasn't that album. Instead, at the top of Gong's page was a fake self-titled album supposedly released in 2024.

The real fan detected the fake instantly, and not just because the generic electronic music sounded nothing like Gong's experimental sounds. The album's cover also gave the scheme away, using a generic font and neon stock image that invoked none of the trippy imagery that characterized Gong's typical album covers.

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