Motorola invented the cell phone, but it fell behind during the early smartphone era. The Google acquisition probably saved it, but it continued to slide under the ownership of Lenovo. Until LG stumbled, that is. shows Motorola has risen in the ranks to become the third-largest smartphone maker in the US. It’s a distant third-place finish, but that’s still impressive. Counterpoint’s data runs through the end of 2021, showing Moto steadily gaining market share month after month throughout 2021. Not coincidentally, that’s just when LG began quietly spinning down its mobile division. The first rumors of LG’s exit percolated in early 2021, and .
(Photo: Intuit) Ah, tax season: an approximately three-month chunk of the year in which we all bite our nails in front of an accountant or our computer, awaiting our financial fate. For those of us who go the DIY route, software like Intuit’s TurboTax claim to make our lives a little easier—but are their claims actually true? Perhaps not. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken issue with Intuit’s advertising of TurboTax, specifically with the way the software is marketed as “free.” In a lawsuit filed Monday, the FTC claimed TurboTax traps customers with its deceptive advertising and pushes them toward paid products, even when some of those customers would have qualified for the actual zero-cost Free File option reserved for those with low to moderate income.
Ever since New Horizons first beamed back its beauty shots of Pluto in 2015, we’ve been poring over the data. Now, planetary scientists have reported evidence confirming the presence of cryovolcanoes on Pluto. The cryovolcanic region borders the southwest aspect of Sputnik Planitia, a brightly reflective, heart-shaped plateau of nitrogen ice. At up to 7km tall, these enormous mountains of ice are in the height class of the tallest peaks on Earth. Only the Himalayas and Karakoram reach higher. But unlike the craggy peaks of the Himalayas, these cryovolcanoes are like a frozen version of Hawaii’s shield volcanoes. Their shape and mass are like Mauna Loa, with the largest measuring up to 100km wide at the base.
There’s been a drumbeat of news lately about GPU prices slowly falling back to earth. The cause of this decline has been somewhat hard to pinpoint, as it’s the result of several factors. Now however, Asus has announced it will be lowering Nvidia GPU prices across the board. This confirms what we all hoped would be true: this is actually happening, and not some kind of supply chain anomaly. According to , Asus will begin lowering prices on its Nvidia GPUs starting on April 1st. Now, we know what you’re thinking given the target date. It’s all ruse, and it’s definitely not funny.
(Photo: Sandip Kalal/Unsplash)Your favorite side dish can help you do more than load up on vitamins. Researchers have found that okra, a tubular edible pod included in many cuisines around the world, can help remove microplastics from wastewater. Dr. Rajani Srinivasan of Tarleton State University in Texas led a team of researchers in investigating the uses of gooey plant extracts, such as those from okra, aloe vera, and various cacti, for wastewater cleanup. Having previously studied the plant extract-aided removal of textile-based pollutants and microorganisms from wastewater, Srinivasan thought to explore using those same extracts to wrangle microplastics, which have been the subject of increasing global concern in recent years.
(Photo: Wyss Center for Bio Neuroengineering)A completely paralyzed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient has successfully used a novel brain implant to communicate. The patient, a 34-year-old man living in Germany, is the first to be able to communicate without any voluntary muscle movement. He first consented to receiving the experimental implant back in March 2019, when he’d lost the ability to walk or talk but could still communicate with his eyes. Since losing the ability to fix his gaze shortly afterward, the patient has been unable to “talk” to family or caregivers. To make this possible, a team of neuroscientists at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, Switzerland pioneered a brain-computer interface with a chip that can be fitted to a patient’s motor cortex.
Unity Technologies released a new “cinematic teaser” last week showing just how detailed graphics can be that are made with its platform. The company makes the cross-platform game development engine named Unity. The demo, called “Enemies,” opens on a woman sitting behind a desk at the center of a lavish, light-filled room. As the “camera” creeps closer to the woman, the floor surrounding her desk opens. It reveals a complex gear system that looks like something straight out of the steampunk subgenre. Sunlight reflects off of the surface of the desk and her hair as she considers her next move in a game of chess.
SpaceX is the only entity with the capability to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), but it’s wrapping up production of the vessel that makes it possible. Following a , Elon Musk’s spaceflight company has confirmed that it will cap its fleet of Crew Dragon spacecraft at four, freeing up resources to work on the upcoming Starship that could eventually take over from the Falcon 9 and Dragon. The Crew Dragon was based on the flight-proven cargo version of the same vehicle. SpaceX conducted numerous uncrewed launches with this configuration before it sent its first astronauts up in a Dragon in 2020.
Robotic exploration of the red planet has taught us a great deal about our nearest planetary neighbor, and NASA’s Curiosity rover had an outsized role in accomplishing that. Its successor, a very similar rover called Perseverance, arrived on Mars last year. sports an impressive array of instruments for studying Mars, including a microphone. Recently a team from Los Alamos National Laboratory was able to use (PDF), and it’s surprisingly slow. NASA did not build Perseverance with a microphone for this particular task, . The mic sits at the top of the SuperCam assembly — that’s the part of the rover you probably think of as its “head.
