Astronomers started checking out a novel star a few years ago called KIC 8462852. A series of fluctuations in the star’s brightness brought up a number of interesting possibilities. Perhaps the star had dust clouds or gaggles of comets that periodically blocked out the light. That’s interesting in an expected way, but the proposal that made KIC 8462852 famous was pretty radical. Astronomer Jason Wright suggested it may be home to alien “megastructures” that blocked some of the light. It makes for a good headline, but now we have good evidence there are no alien megastructures to be found.
Apple has been taking heat for weeks about its decision to sharply throttle iPhone performance to preserve battery functionality. The problem, as we’ve , isn’t simply that the company reduces overall iPhone performance, but the way it introduced these changes without notifying customers or giving them any control over the capability. Apple has announced some changes to its customer policies and repair options as a result of the sustained fire it’s taking, though its updated policies aren’t going to address everyone’s concerns. In a note published , Apple kicks off by noting that it took action to protect battery life because it finds sudden, unexpected iPhone shutdowns unacceptable.
Anyone who has been playing for long enough has a story about the time they got so into a game they missed an appointment or called in sick to work. If someone does that consistently, is it fair to say they have a psychological disorder? Psychologists have been debating in recent years whether or not to classify excessive gaming as a distinct mental disease, and the World Health Organization (WHO) appears to be . While nothing is set in stone, a draft of the WHO’s 2018 international classification of diseases lists “gaming disorder” under section 6D11. According to the document, gaming disorder is a type of addictive behavior characterized by giving increased priority to gaming until it takes precedence over daily activities.
Curious about robotics? Want to try your hand at programming? Well, today’s StackSocial deal is a great place to start. For about the price of a video game, you can pick up a DIY robotics kit, and help turn 2018 into a year of personal growth and self-improvement. • (List price: $59.99) Nicknamed “Sloth,” this kit is designed to help you learn the basics of both robotics and programming. Featuring a main board, a servo control board, servos, an ultrasonic sensor, standoffs, numerous fasteners, cables, tubing, bearings, and more, this lets you grab just about everything you need right in one purchase.
In the wake of Apple’s admission that it slows down older iPhones to preserve battery life, there’ve been numerous questions as to whether or not Android manufacturers do the same thing. While Apple and the Android OEMs pursue very different strategies for device updates and improvement, they also rely on very similar technologies for batteries, displays, storage, and power management. Apple may not have moved past using two high-powered CPU cores for major workloads, but it’s been integrating more low-power cores for power savings and efficient operation. If other Android manufacturers were stealthily lowering phone performance to keep their batteries from failing, it would give Apple a leg to stand on when claiming this was simply done to improve hardware longevity.
Apple had a number of massive hits in the early 80s as the personal computer revolution was picking up steam. However, the Apple Lisa was not one of them. This computer was an undeniable flop, but it’s an important part of technology history. It was one of the first systems to run a graphical user interface (GUI), and included much more advanced hardware than competing systems. You may soon be able to relive the age of Lisa now that the source code . Apple is checking over the code and could give the green light to release it in a few months.
A few years ago, the Voyager probe crossed into interstellar space after decades traveling in our solar system. It was moving at an impressive speed after several gravitational slingshots, but a small group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is now working on early concepts with the aim of going much farther. This mission, with a , would send a probe several light years away to the Centauri system. NASA is all about forward thinking, but there’s a lot that needs to happen before this plan can come to fruition. The basic outline of this mission was presented in mid-December at American Geophysical Union conference in New Orleans.
French whistleblowers have gone public with explosive claims that could trigger a wholesale review of how American law enforcment agencies collaborate with other agencies around the world — at least, as far as software procurement is concerned. The two whistleblowers claim that their former employer knowingly sold the Federal Bureau of Investigation a fingerprint analysis software package that it knew contained code developed by Papillon Systems, a Russian firm with close ties to the Kremlin. They also claim that this information was deliberately not-disclosed to the FBI. that this same software package was deployed to more than 18,000 other law enforcement agencies across the country (presumably this refers to local and state police, though the TSA is also mentioned).
Comparing the input latency of a modern PC to a system that’s 30-40 years old seems ridiculous on the face of it. Even if the computer on your desk or lap isn’t particularly new or very fast, it’s still clocked a thousand or more times faster than the cutting-edge technology of the 1980s, with multiple CPU cores, specialized decoder blocks, and support for video resolutions and detail levels on par with what science fiction of the era had dreamed up. In short, you’d think the comparison would be a one-sided blowout. In many cases, it is, but not with the winners you’d expect.
