Federal authorities have arrested and indicted a 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier on suspicion of being Kiberphant0m, a cybercriminal who has been selling and leaking sensitive customer call records stolen earlier this year from AT&T and Verizon. As first reported by KrebsOnSecurity last month, the accused is a communications specialist who was recently stationed in South Korea.One of several selfies on the Facebook page of Cameron Wagenius.Cameron John Wagenius, 20, was arrested near the Army base in Fort Hood, Texas on Dec. 20, after being indicted on two criminal counts of unlawful transfer of confidential phone records.The sparse, two-page indictment (PDF) doesnt reference specific victims or hacking activity, nor does it include any personal details about the accused. But a conversation with Wagenius mother Minnesota native Alicia Roen filled in the gaps.Roen said that prior to her sons arrest hed acknowledged being associated with Connor Riley Moucka, a.k.a. Judische, a prolific cybercriminal from Canada who was arrested in late October for stealing data from and extorting dozens of companies that stored data at the cloud service Snowflake.In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, Judische said he had no interest in selling the data hed stolen from Snowflake customers and telecom providers, and that he preferred to outsource that to others including Kiberphant0m. Meanwhile, Kiberphant0m claimed in posts on Telegram that he was responsible for hacking into at least 15 telecommunications firms, including AT&T and Verizon.On November 26, KrebsOnSecurity published a story that followed a trail of clues left behind by Kiberphantom indicating he was a U.S. Army soldier stationed in South Korea.An 18-year-old Cameron Wagenius, joining the U.S. Army.Ms. Roen said Cameron worked on radio signals and network communications at an Army base in South Korea for the past two years, returning to the United States periodically. She said Cameron was always good with computers, but that she had no idea he might have been involved in criminal hacking.I never was aware he was into hacking, Roen said. It was definitely a shock to me when we found this stuff out.Ms. Roen said Cameron joined the Army as soon as he was of age, following in his older brothers footsteps.He and his brother when they were like 6 and 7 years old would ask for MREs from other countries, she recalled, referring to military-issued meals ready to eat food rations. They both always wanted to be in the Army. Im not sure where things went wrong.Immediately after news broke of Mouckas arrest, Kiberphant0m posted on the hacker community BreachForumswhat they claimed were the AT&T call logs forPresident-electDonald J. Trumpand forVice President Kamala Harris.In the event you do not reach out to us @ATNT all presidential government call logs will be leaked, Kiberphant0m threatened, signing their post with multiple #FREEWAIFU tags. You dont think we dont have plans in the event of an arrest? Think again.Kiberphant0m posting what he claimed was a data schema stolen from the NSA via AT&T.On that same day, Kiberphant0m posted what they claimed was the data schema from the U.S. National Security Agency.On Nov. 5, Kiberphant0m offered call logs stolen from Verizons push-to-talk (PTT) customers mainly U.S. government agencies and emergency first responders. On Nov. 9, Kiberphant0m posted a sales thread on BreachForums offering a SIM-swapping service targeting Verizon PTT customers. In a SIM-swap, fraudsters use credentials that are phished or stolen from mobile phone company employees to divert a targets phone calls and text messages to a device they control.The profile photo on Wagenius Facebook page was deleted within hours of my Nov. 26 story identifying Kiberphant0m as a likely U.S. Army soldier. Still, many of his original profile photos remain, including several that show Wagenius in uniform while holding various Army-issued weapons.Several profile photos visible on the Facebook page of Cameron Wagenius.Novembers story on Kiberphant0m cited his own Telegram messages saying he maintained a large botnet that was used for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to knock website, users and networks offline. In 2023, Kiberphant0m sold remote access credentials for a major U.S. defense contractor.Allison Nixon is chief research officer at the New York-based cybersecurity firm Unit 221B who helped track down Kiberphant0ms real life identity. Nixon was among several security researchers who faced harassment and specific threats of violence from Judische and his associates.Anonymously extorting the President and VP as a member of the military is a bad idea, but its an even worse idea to harass people who specialize in de-anonymizing cybercriminals, Nixon told KrebsOnSecurity. She saidthe investigation into Kiberphant0m shows that law enforcement is getting better and faster at going after cybercriminals especially those who are actually living in the United States.Between when we, and an anonymous colleague, found his opsec mistake on November 10th to his last Telegram activity on December 6, law enforcement set the speed record for the fastest turnaround time for an American federal cyber case that I have witnessed in my career, she said.Nixon asked to share a message for all the other Kiberphant0ms out there who think they cant be found and arrested.I know that young people involved in cybercrime will read these articles, Nixon said. You need to stop doing stupid shit and get a lawyer. Law enforcement wants to put all of you in prison for a long time.The indictment against Wagenius was filed in Texas, but the case has been transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle.

By AJ Dellinger Published December 31, 2024 | Comments (60) | Ajit Pai testifies during an oversight hearing Jonathan Newton-Pool/Getty Images Ajit Pai, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during Donald Trumps first term, is splitting from his old boss and encouraging the Supreme Court to allow a ban on TikTok to move forward. According to Business Insider, Pai and former Department of Treasury official Thomas Feddo filed a brief last week encouraging the justices to uphold the law that would banish TikToks operation within US borders despite Trumps push to stop the ban. Pais primary argument is that there is existing legal precedent to support the legality of the law, passed by Congress last year that would require TikToks parent company ByteDance to sell the platform or cease operations in the US. That precedent: Pais own crackdown on Chinese companies.Back when Pai was head of the FCC, he designated two companies headquartered in China as national security threats. The agency banned cellular providers from using government subsidies to purchase telecom equipment from manufacturers Huawei and ZTE, on the grounds that those companies could be collaborating with the Chinese government to spy on Americansa concern that was at least in part backed up by findings from journalists and the intelligence community. Pai called the approach taken to restrict apps like TikTok in the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act extremely similar to his own efforts to tackle Chinese telecom equipment providers, noting Congress and the Executive Branch have routinely identified in legislation or regulation specific companies under Chinas control that pose particular national security risk.While Pai finds himself in conflict with 2024 Donald Trump, who has filed his own brief asking the court to delay the January 19 deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok, hes still very much in alignment with 2017-2021 Trump. It was Trump who first floated the ban and tried to carry it out all on his own via executive order in 2020, which was eventually blocked by a federal judge. Trump also backed rules that restricted the sale of equipment to companies like Huawei and ZTE in an attempt to cut off the Chinese firms access to American technology. But Trump had a change of heart on his TikTok attack earlier this year after meeting with Jeff Yass, a major investor in TikTok andyou wont believe this!a big-time Trump backer who poured in nearly $100 million to conservative causes this past election cycle. His support for the app was further cemented following his victory in the 2024 presidential election, which he attributed at least in part to his popularity on TikTok. This is also going to come as a big surprise but, TikTok started courting Trumps support and suddenly, in what is surely an unrelated coincidence, the app became way more friendly to Trump-related content. Wild how that kinda thing just happens.Anyway, there has been no indication that Pai will be returning to the Trump administration (he seems perfectly happy playing a role in a private equity firm that is busy buying out telecom companies), so its probably safe for him to take a stance against his former boss. If anything, Pais position is more principled than Trumps, so credit where its due.Daily NewsletterYou May Also Like By Matt Novak Published December 31, 2024 By AJ Dellinger Published December 27, 2024 By Lucas Ropek Published December 27, 2024 By AJ Dellinger Published December 26, 2024 By Matt Novak Published December 26, 2024 By Matt Novak Published December 23, 2024

What is it with you hero types? Always the same line1st PlacePublisher: Summitsphere / Developer: SummitsphereRelease Date: 13th Dec 2024 (USA) / 13th Dec 2024 (UK/EU)The second Wario-esque platformer to explode on our Switch's, Antonblast has been a long time coming. Chaotic and frenetic platforming is brought to life with bold and kinetic pixel art visuals, and we can't stop going back to take on more challenges.Antonblast caps of a fantastic year for indie titles in 2024, and is our eShop Selects winner of December 2024. We reviewed it and gave it an 8/10, and even better, there's now a performance patch! A genuine blast< Nintendo eShop Selects - November 2024eShop Selects Readers' Choice Vote (December 2024)As we mentioned above, this is the last time we'll be doing our Readers' Choice vote during eShop Selects. But you'll still have multiple chances to tell us about the games we missed in our aptly-titled series, Games We Missed.So, hit us what games have we missed in December 2024? You can let us know in the poll below and by dropping us a comment. Plus, tell us what game you liked best out of our own choices!What's the best Switch eShop game we missed in December 2024? (0 votes)No results yet, check back later...What was your favourite eShop game from our top December picks? (15 votes)Antonblast (Switch eShop)40%DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou (Switch eShop) 0%Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered (Switch eShop)20%Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind (Switch eShop)20%RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic (Switch eShop)20%Victory Heat Rally (Switch eShop) 0%How we decide our eShop Selects top three: As we reach the end of every month, the Nintendo Life staff vote on their favourite titles from a list of games selected by the editorial team. To qualify for this list, these games must have been released as a digital-only Nintendo Switch eShop title in that particular month, and must have been reviewed on Nintendo Life; we select the qualifying games based on their review scores.Staff are then asked to vote for three games that they think deserve to sit right at the very top of that list; first choice gets three points, second choice gets two points, and third choice gets one point. These votes are then tallied to create a top-three list, with the overall winner taking that month's top prize.Related GamesSee Also

In BriefPosted:12:04 PM PST December 31, 2024Image Credits:Silas Stein/picture alliance (opens in a new window) / Getty ImagesInvestigation exposes pedophilia in the child-influencer industryA New York Times investigation found that dozens of potential pedophiles have prolifically exploited the child influencer industry, portraying themselves as photographers or social media experts to get close to the children.One such man, Michael Allen Walker, reportedly promised mothers that their daughters would gain large Instagram followings under his guidance. He ran his business from a state prison, where he is serving a 20-year sentence for the sexual exploitation of children. Walker had also bragged on Telegram, where many of these men communicate, that he had seen sexual photos of child influencers, according to the report.According to the investigation, the men gain the trust of mothers by walking a fine line, proposing photos of their children that dont have explicit nudity. Other times, men reportedly offered money for used childrens clothes or for photos not on the childs account.Ryan Daniels, a spokesperson for Meta, told The New York Times that there are protections on teen accounts to limit interactions with strangers. For underage accounts run by a parent, the parent has control over the privacy settings, content, and how the account interacts with other accounts.Topics

There are some filmmakers known for their distinct visual language. Tim Burton is one of them, with his Gothic, macabre, and quirky sense of humor. Interestingly, when making the Beetlejuice sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, his mandate was to capture the spirit of the original by mimicking what was technically and creatively achievable back in 1988. Even with the push to get as much of the effects work done in-camera, Production VFX Supervisor Angus Bickerton had to resort to many digital solutions, including the 253 shots delivered by Framestore that feature Baby Beetlejuice, Beetlejuices dismembered ex-wife Delores, and a stop-motion animated Charles Deetz being bitten by a shark. A lot of the stuff that we did was seamless because we were not trying to show off the visual effects of the work, states Matthew Krentz, VFX Supervisor, Framestore. It was all about helping to sell the story. Our biggest helper on this was our client-side visual effects supervisor Angus Bickerton. Angus had actually worked with Tim on Batman [motion control cameraman] and Dark Shadows [Production VFX Supervisor] so he knew the direction that Tim wanted from the beginning. Everything we were doing in visual effects was made to look like it would have been done for real if we could have done it.Here's the final trailer:We looked at the original movie quite a few times for references and one of things we specifically studied was when Beetlejuice [Michael Keaton] is shrunken down in the model, remarks Krentz. When he is digging into the grave, there are all these layers of Styrofoam and different practical things that made it look like a model. We tried recreating that when breaking up of the set piece when it cracks open and reveals Beetlejuice for the first time. There were a couple of different elements that were part of the Beetlejuice reveal sequence. Krentz continues, We did this earthquake that travels along the ground of the model, it breaks apart, and thats when Beetlejuice comes into the attic for the first time. We had a full LiDAR scan of the practical model because we had to work with what they had shot. The model was built in two separate pieces that broke apart in the middle and separated out. The only thing that we did in the reveal was add some smoke and atmosphere. We had some uplighting to make it look more interesting. That portion of it was a lot more in-camera trickery versus the stuff we did when the camera is following along the middle of the model, which was completely digitized. An interesting challenge was distinguishing the differences between a real and miniature house. We had to make a miniature house look real and then dumb it down so you could see all of the subtleties that the modelmakers would have made. Digital doubles were created for when Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) and Rory (Justin Theroux) fall through a trapdoor, tumble through a black hole, and land in the model of Winter River. Some footage was shot of the actors standing and waving their arms around, states Krentz. We put them in, but it didnt feel like they were falling. We did digital versions of them but in a way that replicated their motions as closely as possible and tried to ground everything. We looked at references like Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland where Alice falls through the tunnel, but it felt too animated. While finding herself inside the shrink office of Beetlejuice, Lydia becomes pregnant and gives birth to Baby Beetlejuice. I read that section of the script probably 10 times and every time it had me in tears laughing, Krentz notes. It was shot exactly how I imagined they would. In terms of Baby Beetlejuice there two sequences. One is in the shrinks office and a post credit scene when Lydias daughter Astrid has a baby at the end and Baby Beetlejuice starts attacking all the doctors and nurses. Blood starts shooting everywhere and limbs are flying around. They did that as practical as possible. Because Baby Beetlejuice had so many puppeteers and took up so much space. we had to do some CG to go over those sections. Sometimes the legs and arms had to be digitally replaced. We did have a full CG model of Baby Beetlejuice that was animated and rigged but we didnt do any facial animation.Stop-motion animation was utilized to explain the death of Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones does not appear in the movie) who also appears as a live-action persona that has been disfigured by a shark attack. We had an actor in a full blue outfit from the waist up and he had this makeup done of a shark bite that went all around his chest, remarks Krentz. And for the bottom half, he had whatever Charlie Deetz was wearing. We had a scan of the actor and tracked into his chest our CG gory bloody looking cavity. We would paint out and replace his blue upper half, so you get a half empty version of the character walking around trying to figure out where he is. Charles Deetz was more involved than the Headless Horseman in Sleepy Hollow. What they had was almost a puppet version of Charles Deetz with the cavity there in the chest piece and would shoot reference for us whenever we needed to do that. The lighting was always crazy with blues and oranges. You knew exactly how it needed to look like. There was always something to ground us with that practical version of that puppet. The animation test was the hardest thing to do for the character. We had to go through multiple departments to get any sort of visual representation. The funny thing was he had an esophagus that stuck out a little bit and based off that animation, the idea is we were shooting up blood spurts into the air. When he was really trying to get his point across more blood would start shooting up in the air. At one point we went way too far and were told to dial it down! Dismembered body parts reassemble, with the help of a staplegun, to form Delores (Monica Bellucci), Beetlejuices ex-wife. All the limbs are in boxes, electricity shoots out of this cleaning machine [like Tesla coils], the boxes get reanimated, and the limbs start coming back together and bouncing around, basically rebuilding her body, explains Krentz. We did a lot of fully CG limbs. Monica Bellucci was in her outfit, and they had all these body doubles but of an arm. There would be this lady in a blue leotard and would have arm dressed up as if was belonging to Monica; she would do the animation of the hand moving around on the ground. We erased her body, put in a CG stump and it would look like an armless entity moving through. That was done with legs, a piece of her face and torso. You cant show a persona trying to animate a torso, so we did a CG version. To complete the reassembly, the limbs get stapled together. Krentz adds, There is a scene where Delores is half-assembled and grabs an arm; she shoves it into the stump of her shoulder. For us, it had to line up and we had to make sure that edges of the shoulder and arm stump line up together, though the skin on the skin didnt have to meld together. The idea is that the inners stick together and once she staples it, thats when the limbs come closer. When she was stapling herself, we would paint out some of the staples and then reveal the real ones. The creature work included snakes that bite Deila Deetz (Catherine OHara) and send her to the afterlife. According to Krentz, Snakes are incredibly hard to make realistic. They dont have a bone structure but there is a rigidity to them. Even when Deila is holding the snakes they dont go limp or loose because there is still a structure to them. You have to make sure that you abide to their muscles and the tension in them. We looked at real world references, like what do the snakes look like when you hold them and when they are in a tank and are slithering around. What do you do? The snakes were originally based on rainbow boas, which have an interesting sheen. You get a base color that is red and then on top of the skin it looks like a rainbow in the highlights, says Krentz. We went through these different variations and put forth what we thought what Tim Burton was looking for. In the end, he thought that the rainbow look was too fantastical and wanted it to be more grounded. So, the snakes became regular boas.A significant number of shots required the environment to be augmented to look like autumn. We had to do what was called the Fall filter, reveals Krentz. They shot in the summertime for some of the work, but the outdoor trees had to have oranges and reds. We did a good chunk of those shots. Trees can be replaced but it costs a lot more money. Originally, they were planning to do most of that work in the DI, but it didnt provide the minutia of the individual leaves. What we would do is track the camera in the environment, roto individual trees, within those individual trees we would have masks of leaves to change their individual colors and make it feel a lot more varied. It was a manual process. One artist did a good handful of those shots and if you opened up the scene he was working on, there were thousands of trees separated out into different groupings, layered separately, and different masks for leaves for each individual tree. I felt lucky to go onto set and see everything in motion, reflects Krentz. Just being there and experiencing that. The set designs were so cool. It was everything you expected it to be. The floors were wonky. Nothing was straight in terms of the lines of the environments. All the shelves were built weirdly. Crazy costumes and puppets. They did that from the starting point and all that makes our job easier because if thats what we get to work from then were just helping to finish things. In terms of worrying about making things look old or feel like they were done 30 years ago it was helped by the way the movie was shot and gave us such an advantage. Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer best known for composing in-depth filmmaker and movie profiles for VFX Voice, Animation Magazine, and British Cinematographer.

Breakdown & ShowreelsSecret Level: Warhammer 40,000 Opening Battle by Blur StudioBy Vincent Frei - 31/12/2024 Prime Video presents an exclusive clip from the 5th episode of Secret Level, Tim Millers animated anthology. This episode, brought to life by Blur Studio, explores the universe of Warhammer 40,000 through the eyes of Metaurus, a veteran Ultramarines Bladeguard Sergeant!WANT TO KNOW MORE?Blur Studio: Dedicated page about Secret Level on Blur Studio website. Vincent Frei The Art of VFX 2024

With just hours left in 2024, its a sure shot that this year on its way out will be the warmest on recorda sad fact that seemed inevitable even back in January, when AN covered the news that 2023 was reported as the warmest year on record. Sustainability topics are top of mind for many architects and designers, and likely will be for the coming decades. AN regularly reports on stories related to climate change;these include coverage of natural disasters, how to preserve buildings in the wake of storms, the use of innovative building materials, and reducing carbon emissions.As we look ahead to 2025, the unpredictability of storms and the uncertainty of politics make sustainable materials, buildings, and initiatives vitally important. In the meantime, here are a few of the pertinent stories on sustainability AN published in 2024.Through Material Innovation Center, students learn the skills required to successfully deconstruct a building in a way that preserves building materials for new use in future projects. (Courtesy Material Innovation Center/San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation)Three designer-led initiatives making the circular economy a realityTheres a lot of talk about the circular economy, especially in terms of construction. In our September issue, with a Focus section that highlighted sustainability, Jes Deaver introduced us to three designer-led initiatives making circular economies a reality.In Texas, the Material Innovation Center receives and redistributes donated building materials for affordable housing and community impact projects. It provides trades education and is setting up a community tool library. On the technology side of construction, the Circular Construction Lab (CCL) is a CAD extension that gives students and practicing architects a tool to measure circularity in early design phases. And Brooklyn-based firm Assemblage has adapted a circular systems approach to design and activism.Architects are designing a new type of science education facility to study our warming planetWith climate research comes a new building typology: the climate center. Diana Budds wrote about the education spaces that range in use from academic centers to nonprofit research institutions and public interpretive exhibition spacesall with the common mission: to help save the planet. Examples include Klimatorium, located in the coastal Danish city of Lemvig, designed by 3XN; the Jones Beach Energy and Nature Center on Long Island, New York, designed by nARCHITECTS; and the Resnick Sustainability Center on CalTechs Pasadena campus from CannonDesign.Its possible to construct sustainable multifamily housing with raw earth technology. (Courtesy Kaminsky Arkitektur)Raw earth is a sustainable material making its way into the U.S. marketNo discussion of sustainability would be complete without bringing up materials. Theres a lot of talk out there about alternatives to plastics and carbon-intensive materials like concrete. One material that is reemerging, if you will, is raw earth. Examples of it include adobe, rammed earth, compressed-earth blocks, and clay plaster. Michele Barbato, professor of structural engineering and structural mechanics at UC Davis, said before the material and method can truly proliferate: There has to be education, and right now, earthen construction is fundamentally not known. U.S. Department of Energy issued a national definition of a zero-emissions buildingWhat constitutes a net-zero building? This year the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a new national definition that outlines what qualifies as a net-zero structure. It is one thats highly energy efficient, does not emit greenhouse gases directly from energy use, and is powered solely by clean energy. Numerically speaking, it must obtain an ENERGY STAR score of 75 or higher and its greenhouse gas emissions must equal zero, some exceptions apply.The green roofs, Mayor Wu said, are meant to help provide shade, improve air quality, add new green space, and increase stormwater retention. (Courtesy City of Boston)Boston bus shelters got green roofsThe key to combating climate change is multipronged. While architects and buildings have a stake in it, so do our cities and the means we rely on to get around them. In Boston, a green initiative, also highlighted in our transportation roundup, between Social Impact Collective and the Mayors office trialled a program that put green roofs atop bus shelters. The vegetation-rich designs provide shade, improve air quality, add new green space, and increase stormwater retention.Women of Carbon documents the relationship between motherhood and climate changeA film screened during New York City climate week, Women of Carbon, profiled women scientists, architects, and engineers working in the carbon industry to advance a better future for the next generation. The initiatives documented in the film include manufacturing an electrical chemical system for making cement and an embodied carbon calculator.Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis reuses a two-story warehouse built in 1963. (Caylon Hackwith/Courtesy Midway Contemporary Art)b+ and Snow Kreilich Architects reuse building materials for a project in MinneapolisReusing a building is one way to reduce carbon emissions, and many architects have caught on to that. An example from 2024 that stood out was a hub designed for Midway Contemporary Arts operations inside an old warehouse building in Minneapolis. The project from b+ and Snow Kreilich Architects exemplifies intelligent ruinsthe idea of buildings can be built to anticipate future change, decay, and the flexibility for reuse. Spancrete panels were removed throughout the building to open up the space more, instead of disposing of them the architects opted to keep them for the second-phase library expansion, an act that conserves 40,000 pounds of embodied CO.

Plays about gentrification and Grenfell. Books about anarcho-syndicalism in the pre-war French construction sector. Exhibitions pertaining to the untold stories of architects who fought fascism, and the past, present, and future of Bahrain. These are just a few subjects AN covered this year in reviews. Here are the books, exhibitions, and productions AN reviewed in 2024.In Architecture from Below, Srgio Ferro addresses the relationship between architecture and capitalist developmentSrgio Ferro fled a dictatorship in Brazil decades ago and moved to France. Ever since, Ferro has lectured and written about workers movements, particularly in the French construction sector; and architectures pernicious relationship to capitalism more broadly.Architecture from Below: An Anthology (MACK Books) compiled these lectures and histories. It was edited by Silke Kapp and Mariana Moura, and translated by Ellen Heyward and Ana Naomi de Sousa. Doug Spencer reviewed the book for AN.What makes the Pearling Path most exciting is its use of existing city fabric and strategic piecemeal development. (Iwan Baan)Bahrains Pearling Path offers a two-decade retrospective on history, identity, and architectural narrativeAN contributor Ali Ismail Karimi took us to Bahrain this year to learn about Muharraq Pearling Path, a city-wide affair which attempted to tell the story of the Bahrain pearling trade through an architectural narrative.In his review, Karimi also ruminated on the recent projects in Bahrainnamely by Christian Kerez, Valerio Olgiati, Office KGDVS, Atelier Bow-Wow, FormaFantasma, Leopold Banchini, and Studio Anne Holtropand the Gulf more broadly. City Limits sees urban interstate development through the eyes of community organizersMegan Kimble, in her new book, City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of Americas Highways, offers a fiery critique of urban interstate developments. Anjulie Rao reviewed City Limits for ANwhile ruminating on her own experiences as a commuter in Chicago.City Limitsfocuses primarily on three Texas cities and their traffic freeways that undergird massive traffic flows: Houstons I-45, Austins I-35, andDallass I-345. What does the future hold for each of these infrastructures? Read Kimbles book to learn more.Much of the plot unfolds in a kitchen reminiscent of HGTV programming. (Joan Marcus)James Ijamess play, Good Bones, directed by Saheem Ali asks: What color is gentrification?At The Public Theater in New York, James Ijames staged a play inside a home renovation in an unnamed American city. The plays title is a likely riff on the HGTV series of the same name.Kevin Ritter reviewed Good Bones for AN. The plays central couple, homeowners Travis and Aisha, recently moved into the historically Black and systematically disinvested neighborhood where Aisha grew up, Ritter penned in his review. Travis is a restauranteur, selling historically Black cuisine at elevated prices.Gillian Slovos Grenfell was a chilling reminder for New Yorkers that it could happen here tooGood Bones was just one of two plays AN reviewed this year. The other was a theatrical production by Gillian Slovo on Londons Grenfell fire.SlovosGrenfell was an attempt at retelling the 2017 fires very complicated story with seemingly endless moving parts within a three-hour window of time (split by a 15 minute intermission) in all of its complexity and human emotion. Margarete Schtte-Lihotzky gets her first retrospective in the U.S.Ive done a lot more in my life than just this! Margarete Schtte-Lihotzky, then in her late 90s, told a reporter in 1997. TheAustrianarchitect had been asked about a project she was sick and tired of being asked about. If I had known that everyone was always talking about it, I would have never made this damn kitchen!Indeed, Margarete Schtte-Lihotzky was much more than the widely celebrated Frankfurt Kitchen she designed in 1927a project which catapulted her into the annals of modernism. She was also an antifascist resistance fighter that risked her life battling Nazis during World War II, an anti-Vietnam War activist, a militant feminist, and a bonafide communist that dedicated her life to the working class.At the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York this year, a new exhibition, Margarete Schtte-Lihotzky: Pioneering Architect. Visionary Activist, captured the full spectrum of the late architects contributions to design, and society at-large.Harvards The State of Housing Design underscores architectures limitsIts easy to feel defeated by the American housing systems dysfunction. ButThe State of Housing Design, abookthat the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard (JCHS) published in October last year, shows how new architecture is grappling with these realities. It features 113 projectsdiscussed across 25 essays and interstitialsthat speak to these themes.The State of Housing Design was reviewed for AN by Diana Budds.The show took place inside Banvard Gallery at Ohio State University. ( Knowlton School of Architecture)Samiha Meems Girlroom elevates the spatial politics of girlhoodArchitecture educator Hannah Dewhurst traversed the Knowlton School of Architecture this year to introduce readers to an exhibition by Samiha Meem, Howard E LeFevre 29 Emerging Practitioner Fellow at Ohio State University.Girlroom offered a physical set that references elements of the#girlhood movement, Dewhurst said. The work on display emerged from the algorithmic economy of recent years, and is part of a larger critical contemporary movement that includes artists like Molly Sodaintertwined withfeminine, spatial, computational, and queer theoretical investigations of the past century. In Dreams + Disillusions, CJ Lim and Luke Angers imagine other worlds through text and imageThrough a dozen case studies and more analytic chapters that romp through everything from the aftermath of Londons great fire to North Koreas Hermit Kingdom, British architects CJ Lim and Luke Angers presented a universe of brightly colored and gravity-defining architectures in their book, Dreams + Disillusions, which came out this year.Dreams + Disillusions was reviewed for AN by Aaron Betsky, professor of architecture at Kean University. Betskys own book, The Monster Leviathan, which also came out this year was reviewed for AN by Todd Gannon.Virginia Hanusiks Into the Quiet and into the Night diverts our attention to the everyday impacts of climate crisisWhen you hear the words climate crisis, what comes to mind? Surely, images of ominous thunder storms and tattered buildings are invoked, but what about the days, weeks, and months after tragedy strikes?In Virginia Hanusiks Into the Quiet and into the Night, the author captures the human toll global warming takes on people, and their daily lives. The photography book was reviewed by Alexander Luckmann.Theater of Hopes and Expectations models in the Center for Architecture galleries (Matthew Carasella)Constructing Hope: Ukraine foregrounds memory, communal organizing, and resiliencyAn expansive group show curated by Ashley Bigham, Betty Roytburd, and Sasha Topolnytska at Center for Architecture this year showcased how activists and designers in Ukraine have confronted Russias 2022 full scale invasion.Constructing Hope: Ukraine was reviewed for AN by Charlie Weak. The artists of the models are internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees who participated in workshops led by thePrykarpattian Theater, Weak wrote. These differ from the exactness of other exhibition pieces. Their roughness, shifting scales, and levels of resolution say something about the memories that these homes held: Why might more care be taken to recreate this specific, workaday window? These moments of special focus elicit questions at the heart of theConstructing Hope: Ukraineexhibition. What makes a house a home? Owen Hatherleys Walking the Streets/Walking the Projects learns from New York and Washington, D.C.InThe Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City, Matthew Beaumont recently revisited theflneurs place in the post-industrial metropolis; andThe Philosophy of Walking by Frdric Gros (translated by John Howe) did the same.With his latest book,Walking the Streets/Walking the Projects, architecture critic Owen Hatherley enters this echelon by asking what a new generation of American socialists might learn from strolling New York City and Washington, D.C.

It's a tiny PC with lots of power and tons of potential - and it's not a Raspberry Pi.

I reviewed a slew of handy gadgets this year, but these few became essential parts of my kit.