Enlarge / Jumbo-Visma team's Belgian rider Wout Van Aert cycles to the finish line during the first stage of the 109th edition of the Tour de France cycling race in Copenhagen, Denmark, on July 1, 2022. (credit: Thomas Samson/Getty )

Imagine you begin pedaling from the start of Stage 12 of this year’s Tour de France . Your very first task would be to bike approximately 20.6 miles (33.2 km) up to the peak of Col du Galibier in the French Alps while gaining around 4,281 feet (1,305 m) of elevation. But this is only the first of three big climbs in your day. Next you face the peak of Col de la Croix de Fer and then end the 102.6-mile (165.1-km) stage by taking on the famous Alpe d'Huez climb with its 21 serpentine turns.

On the fittest day of my life, I might not even be able to finish Stage 12—much less do it in anything remotely close to the five hours or so the winner will take to finish the ride. And Stage 12 is just one of 21 stages that must be completed in the 24 days of the tour.

I am a sports physicist , and I’ve modeled the Tour de France for nearly two decades using terrain data—like what I described for Stage 12 – and the laws of physics. But I still cannot fathom the physical capabilities needed to complete the world’s most famous bike race. Only an elite few humans are capable of completing a Tour de France stage in a time that’s measured in hours instead of days. The reason they’re able to do what the rest of us can only dream of is that these athletes can produce enormous amounts of power. Power is the rate at which cyclists burn energy and the energy they burn comes from the food they eat. And over the course of the Tour de France, the winning cyclist will burn the equivalent of roughly 210 Big Macs.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson )

Android malware developers are stepping up their billing fraud game with apps that disable Wi-Fi connections, surreptitiously subscribe users to pricey wireless services, and intercept text messages, all in a bid to collect hefty fees from unsuspecting users, Microsoft said on Friday.

This threat class has been a fact of life on the Android platform for years, as exemplified by a family of malware known as Joker , which has infected millions of phones since 2016. Despite awareness of the problem, little attention has been paid to the techniques that such "toll fraud" malware uses. Enter Microsoft, which has published a technical deep dive on the issue.

The billing mechanism abused in this type of fraud is WAP, short for wireless application protocol, which provides a means of accessing information over a mobile network. Mobile phone users can subscribe to such services by visiting a service provider's web page while their devices are connected to cellular service, then clicking a button. In some cases, the carrier will respond by texting a one-time password (OTP) to the phone and requiring the user to send it back in order to verify the subscription request. The process looks like this:

Enlarge / All four of the mascots seen in this SGDQ promo image appear in various speedruns hosted over the past week. (credit: Summer Games Done Quick)

The Games Done Quick series of charity events has long been a favorite among the gaming fans and critics at Ars Technica since it combines classic, beloved video games and carefully studied methods to break them apart in search of high-speed exploits.

This year's summertime installment is particularly special, as it's the first in 2.5 years to take place at a physical venue—albeit with some of the most stringent masking and distancing requirements we've seen in a livestreamed public show in 2022. (GDQ's organizers appear to read the news , which makes sense for a series that benefits the likes of Doctors Without Borders .) Even with precautions taken, its combination of players, commentators, and crowds in the same room has brought excitement back to its broadcasts, which is why we're pulling together some of the best runs from the past week, as archived at GDQ's official YouTube channel .

The event is still ongoing as of this article's publication, which means you can watch it right now via its Twitch channel . The event's final runs, dedicated to Elden Ring , will conclude in the late hours on Saturday, July 2.

Enlarge (credit: Sean Gallup | Getty Images )

Google had a pair of high-ranking executives leave this week. The first was Bill Ready, Google's "President of Commerce, Payments & Next Billion Users," who left to become CEO of Pinterest . The second big departure is Javier Soltero, who was vice president and GM of Google Workspace, Google's paid business app, and was the leader of Google Messaging. Both executives made big changes to Google in their nearly three-year stints at the company. Now that they are leaving, it's unclear what the future of their respective products holds.

Ready was only at Google for two-and-a-half years, where his highest-profile move was presiding over the disastrous rollout of a significant Google Pay revamp. The new Google Pay app was spearheaded by Ready's payments team, led by another recently ousted executive, Caesar Sengupta. The Google Pay revamp brought an app originally developed for India to the US, where the requirement for phone number-based identity came with a huge list of downgrades: The Google Pay website had to be stripped of payment functionality, the app no longer supported multiple accounts, and you couldn't be logged in to multiple devices.

The rollout of the new app was also clumsy. Slowly, over a month or two, users were kicked out of the old Google Pay and had to transition to a new app. The new identity system wasn't backward compatible with the old Google Pay, though, which meant users still on the old app couldn't send money to users on the new app.

Enlarge / A Starlink satellite dish. (credit: Starlink)

SpaceX has secured US approval to provide Starlink satellite Internet service on moving vehicles, ships, and airplanes. In an order released Thursday , the Federal Communications Commission granted SpaceX's application to operate consumer and enterprise Earth stations in motion (ESIM) throughout the US.

The FCC also approved a request from Kepler Communications to operate ESIMs on ships. Starlink and Kepler will be allowed to provide service on vessels in US territorial waters and international waters.

Starlink offers a service for RVs but says it isn't designed to be used while the vehicles are moving. A version for moving RVs will presumably be offered at some point now that SpaceX has received the FCC approval, which says "SpaceX is authorized to operate Earth Stations In Motion on vehicles throughout the United States." SpaceX is also planning to provide Starlink Internet on flights .

Enlarge / Smart contact lenses don't work quite this easily yet. (credit: Getty )

Since 2015, a California-based company called Mojo Vision has been developing smart contact lenses. Like smart glasses, the idea is to put helpful AR graphics in front of your eyes to help accomplish daily tasks. Now, a functioning prototype brings us closer to seeing a final product.

In a blog post this week, Drew Perkins, the CEO of Mojo Vision, said he was the first to have an "on-eye demonstration of a feature-complete augmented reality smart contact lens." In an interview with CNET , he said he's been wearing only one contact at a time for hour-long durations. Eventually, Mojo Vision would like users to be able to wear two Mojo Lens simultaneously and create 3D visual overlays, the publication said.

According to his blog, the CEO could see a compass through the contact and an on-screen teleprompter with a quote written on it. He also recalled viewing a green, monochromatic image of Albert Einstein to CNET.