Totaling the hidden costs of owning a Nintendo Switch The Nintendo Switch is launching March 3 for $299.99, and Nintendo says it had to make some tough decisions in order to reach that price. Everything you need to get started is included in the box, such as a pair of Joy-Con controllers and a docking station. But get started is the operative phrase there. While you could get by with consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One without feeling like you needed to buy accessories at launch, the Switch is a bit different. Polygon

Who is Anna-Senpai, the Mirai Worm author? On September 22, 2016, this site was forced offline for nearly four days after it was hit with "Mirai," a malware strain that enslaves poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices like wireless routers and security cameras into a botnet for use in large cyberattacks. Roughly a week after that assault, the individual(s) who launched that attack -- using the name "Anna-Senpai" -- released the source code for Mirai, spawning dozens of copycat attack armies online. Krebs on Security

EFF's 100-day plan On Friday, President Elect Donald J. Trump will swear the oath of office, pledging to uphold the Constitution. But as EFF has learned in the course of defending our fundamental rights over four American presidencies, our civil liberties need an independent defense force. Free speech and the rights to privacy, transparency, and innovation won't survive on their own – we're here to ensure that government is held accountable and in check. Technological progress does not wait for politicians to catch up... EFF

Compute Module 3 out now! The Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched a new version of its Compute Module -- a Raspberry Pi in a more flexible form factor, intended to provide an easy and cost-effective route to producing customised products. While the original Module, launched in 2014, contained the guts of a first-generation Pi, the new Compute Module 3 (CM3) is based on the Pi 3, so offers a major boost in performance. RaspberryPi.org (also, Asus launches 'tinker board', its Raspberry Pi competitor with 4K support)

FTC announces crackdown on two massive illegal robocall operations The Federal Trade Commission today announced a crackdown on two massive robocall telemarketing operations, both of which have been blasting robocalls to consumers on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry since at least 2012. Many of the defendants in the two cases, FTC v. Justin Ramsey, et al. and FTC v. Aaron Michael Jones, et al., have agreed to court orders that permanently ban them from making robocalls... FTC

Apple sues Qualcomm for roughly $1 billion over royalties Apple is suing Qualcomm for roughly $1 billion, saying Qualcomm has been "charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with," an action the chip maker sharply dismissed as groundless. The suit follows the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against Qualcomm earlier this week over unfair patent licensing practices. The suit follows the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against Qualcomm earlier this week... CNBC

A history of the Amiga, part 10: The downfall of Commodore As the 1990s began, Commodore should have been flying high. The long-awaited new Amiga models with better graphics, the A1200 and A4000, were finally released in 1992. Sales responded by increasing 17 percent over the previous year. The Video Toaster had established a niche in desktop video editing that no other computer platform could match, and the new Toaster 4000 promised to be even better than before. Ars Technica

A trip down the LoL graphics pipeline Hi, I'm Tony Albrecht and I'm one of the engineers on the new Render Strike Team under the Sustainability Initiative in League of Legends. The team has been tasked with making improvements to the League rendering engine, and we're excited to get our hands dirty. In this article, I'll provide a run-down on how the engine currently works – hopefully this will be the foundation on top of which I can later discuss the changes we make. Riot

3-way low profile CPU cooling shoot-out: Reeven, Phanteks, & Noctua A good CPU cooler can usually be found at the top spots of an enthusiast's shopping list, as stock coolers rarely are sufficient for the wants and needs of advanced users, especially when overclocking is involved. Choosing the right aftermarket product can be a little complicated, mostly depending on what the product's focus is and the available budget. AnandTech

Encrypted email service once used by Edward Snowden relaunches In 2013, LADAR Levison, founder of the encrypted email service Lavabit, took the defiant step of shutting down the company's service rather than comply with a federal law enforcement request that could compromise its customers' communications. The FBI had sought access to the email account of one of Lavabit's most prominent users – Edward Snowden. The Intercept

Understanding the quartz crystal resonator Accurate timing is one of the most basic requirements for so much of the technology we take for granted, yet how many of us pause to consider the component that enables us to have it? The quartz crystal is our go-to standard when we need an affordable, known, and stable clock frequency for our microprocessors and other digital circuits. Perhaps it's time we took a closer look at it. Hackaday

Faster websites with fewer bugs Today, loading a web page on a big website usually involves a database query – to retrieve the latest contributions to a discussion you're participating in, a list of news stories related to the one you're reading, links targeted to your geographic location, or the like. But database queries are time consuming, so many websites store – or "cache" -- the results of common queries on web servers for faster delivery. MIT

Game design deep dive: Dynamic audio in destructible levels in Rainbow Six: Siege I'm Audio Director for Rainbow Six: Siege and have been working at Ubisoft for seven years. Prior to Siege I worked as an Audio Artist on titles like Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell. I have also worked as product manager for Ubisoft's internal audio engine solution. Before working in the game industry, I worked as a sound editor for several television series and films. Gamasutra

High priority free software projects In 2016, after receiving feedback from about 150 free software community members, the High Priority Projects committee recommended extensive updates to the FSF High Priority Projects list. The High Priority Projects initiative, first launched in 2005, draws attention to a relatively small number of projects of great strategic importance to the goal of freedom for all computer users. FSF

Shambling corpse of 3D TV finally falls down dead It's been a walking corpse for the last couple of years, and now 3D TV finally looks dead. LG and Sony, the last two major TV makers to support the 3D feature in their TVs, will stop doing so in 2017. None of their sets, not even high-end models such as their new OLED TVs, will be able to show 3D movies and TV shows. CNET

SHA-1 end times have arrived For the past couple of years, browser makers have raced to migrate from SHA-1 to SHA-2 as researchers have intensified warnings about collision attacks moving from theoretical to practical. In just weeks, a transition deadline set by Google, Mozilla and Microsoft for the deprecation of SHA-1 is up. ThreatPost

AI software learns to make AI software Progress in artificial intelligence causes some people to worry that software will take jobs such as driving trucks away from humans. Now leading researchers are finding that they can make software that can learn to do one of the trickiest parts of their own jobs – the task of designing machine-learning software. MIT

How many frames per second can the human eye really see? I spend far too many of my first tender minutes in a new game with a framerate counter running in the corner of my screen. I play, hyper-sensitive to the smallest hitches, dipping in and out of the graphics settings to optimise, and worry, and optimise and worry again. PC Gamer

Superfast camera sees shockwave from light A camera system that capture a snapshot of overlapping light waves in a tiny fraction of a second could lead to new methods for imaging, allowing scientists to watch the brain's neurons interacting or see neutrinos colliding with matter. IEEE Spectrum