As humans, we all have basic needs, including food, water, shelter, and a USB-C iPhone. Okay, that last one isn’t strictly a need, but a lot of people want a USB-C iPhone so much they’re willing to embark on an expensive and complex mod project. Recently, engineering student Ken Pillonel showed off his amazing USB-C mod for the iPhone X. Now, he’s decided to open up the mod to all interested parties. There’s a with technical details, plus a video explainer. If you were hoping it was as simple as drilling a hole and soldering a few wires, you’re in for disappointment.
(Photo: Alex Haney/Unsplash)Facebook’s user base has been , with nearly half of its current users expected to drop off over the next two years. The company’s solution? Targeting six year olds. Based on a new released by whistleblower Frances Haugen, Facebook (now known as Meta following a fresh ) appears to have been planning to recruit six year olds to various apps within its portfolio. The first page within the document is a photograph of a job ad for various child research roles under a “youth initiative” umbrella. Though the ad says the initiative “prioritizes the best interest” of children and “recognizes the responsibilities it brings,” the document quickly jumps to photos of an internal memo detailing Facebook’s plan to create features and settings that are tailored to children as young as six.
A few years ago, a group called Team Xecuter began releasing mod kits for the Nintendo Switch. That’s nothing new — cracking game consoles to run homebrew software has been common for ages. However, most people modding their consoles do so to play pirated ROMs, and Team Xecuter made the mistake of leaning into the piracy angle in private while publicly promoting homebrew development. With the feds in possession of some damning emails, one member of Team Xecuter has pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement and will pay Nintendo $4.5 million in damages, according to documents . Team Xecuter started its project with a USB dongle that could load the custom SX OS on the device, but that only worked on early units with a flawed Tegra chip.
Fortnite is the most popular game in the world, but Epic has decided to give up on a huge potential market. After experimenting with a Chinese beta of Fortnite called “Fortress Night,” the company has . New account registration ended on November 1st. Epic has not provided a reason for the shutdown, but we can safely assume it has something to do with the Chinese government’s tightening restrictions on video games. For the uninitiated, is a battle royale game that drops players into an area that shrinks over time. The group of players are slowly whittled down until someone becomes the last one standing.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS) is a ten-thousand-mile-wide tempest that has been roiling in the planet’s atmosphere for centuries, but new data from a pair of studies unveiled at a NASA press conference has shown that the GRS and its feeder currents extend deeper into the gas giant than we previously knew. At the , two teams of astronomers — Scott Bolton and colleagues as well as Marzia Parisi and colleagues, reported that they used microwave radiometry and gravity measurements, respectively, to characterize Jupiter’s atmospheric vortices, including the GRS. Both teams relied on the space probe Juno — Bolton’s group used Juno’s onboard microwave radiometer to characterize the vertical structure of the GRS (as well as two other storms) and found that they extend well below the planet’s cloud layer.
Amazon has been conducting ground-based testing for its upcoming satellite internet constellation, known as Project Kuiper. While the retail giant doesn’t expect to have a fully deployed network until the latter half of the decade, it thanks to a launch contract with a little-known entity called ABL Space Systems. The firm will launch two Kuiper satellites aboard its RS1 rocket. Amazon isn’t alone in its quest to bring internet access into the space age. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been deploying satellites as part of its Starlink platform for more than a year. It even launched a beta program earlier this year, and it was so successful that the beta label is now gone.
(Photo: Apple)Apple has long been accused of overcharging for its products. Here to test that theory is the new Apple Polishing Cloth, a $19 cloth that has somehow become the brand’s most backordered product. The 6.3-by-6.3-inch cloth became available in October, when Apple typically announces its new products. But unlike Apple’s other recent , like the M1 MacBook Pro and revamped iPad Mini, the Polishing Cloth joined the brand’s roster of offerings quietly and without any fanfare. Still, the cloth quickly made its way to best-seller status, despite not technically being a new product at all. The cloth has been included in Apple’s XDR Pro Displays before, but it’s now gone on-sale for all Apple devices.
(Photo: Natasha Connell/Unsplash)Researchers at Stanford University appear to have found a way to treat persistent depression using magnetic brain stimulation. In a published last week, the university’s School of Medicine shared that after treating 29 participants using Stanford accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy (SAINT), 78.6% of them experienced rapid remission. SAINT is a form of transcranial stimulation that involves delivering magnetic pulses to specific areas within the brain. Researchers at Stanford began by using MRI to determine which part of each participant’s dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that manages executive functions) would receive stimulation. They then applied 1,800 pulses—a level of stimulation usually reserved for treating other neurological disorders, like Parkinson’s—to a subregion that works closely with the subgenual cingulate, a part of the brain that is hyperactive in people with depression.
How did we get here? It’s no small question. Scientists have been hacking away at the origin of life ever since we opened up “science” in the human skill tree. In 1952, two chemists conducted an experiment designed to brew up a kettle of primordial soup, and in doing so, they began to probe the circumstances under which life arose on Earth. Their work still bears their names: the Miller-Urey experiment inspired countless other studies, and it’s in every freshman biology text. But a new analysis of the OG experiment has concluded that one component of the primordial soup must have come from an unexpected source.
