You’ve heard of Elf on the Shelf — now get ready for the spore in the core. Or maybe the coccus in the rock-us. Researchers looking at ancient Australian halite cores have reported 830-million-year-old microbes inside the rock salt crystals — and they think some of the microbes might even be alive. The Browne Formation of central Australia is a gigantic sedimentary basin beneath what used to be a shallow, salty inland sea. Nearly a billion years ago, it began to dry up. As it did, the salt and gypsum and other minerals in the water crystallized into huge mineral deposits called evaporites.
At the dawn of the smartphone era, Apple famously quipped, “there’s an app for that,” to promote its rapidly expanding App Store. Somewhere along the way, we stopped being impressed by how many were available on iOS and Android. Maybe we just hit the point where there were enough, and the numbers don’t matter anymore. In fact, a lot of those apps we were so excited about 10 years ago might now be on the chopping block. A new report estimates that recent policy changes in the Play Store and App Store , amounting to about a third of both platforms.
(Photo: Tingey Injury Law Firm/Unsplash)Warning: This story touches on gun violence against a community of color. On Saturday, a white 18-year-old gunman traveled 200 miles to Buffalo, NY, entered a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and opened fire. He killed ten shoppers, and injured an additional three. Beyond committing an unthinkable act of violence resulting in a tragic loss of life and community peace, the killer also chose to livestream his crime on Twitch for the world to see. But we’re not here to report on the shooting itself; plenty of other outlets have gone over the incident in great detail.
(Photo: P. Bombelli/Energy & Environmental Science)Scientists have found a way to power a low-energy computer chip with algae. Biochemist Christopher Howe led a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge to experiment with photosynthesis as a means of powering electronics. Together they created a tiny enclosure (about the size of a AA battery) to house a type of algae referred to as “blue-green algae.” Then they connected the enclosure to an ARM Cortex-M0+ microprocessor and left the pair on a team member’s windowsill. Blue-green algae photosynthesize when exposed to sunlight. In this case the algae’s photosynthesis produced a small current of electricity, which in turn powered the ARM chip.
The days of one-and-done rockets may be coming to an end… . After SpaceX seemingly perfected propulsive landings for the Falcon 9, Rocket Lab is developing another means of reusing rocket boosters. , the company succeeded in catching a parachuting rocket with a helicopter, and now it’s released a much better video showing how it went down. On May 2nd, Rocket Lab launched a mission dubbed “There and Back Again,” a reference to The Hobbit. The functional purpose of the mission was to deliver 34 satellites to orbit, and that part went fine. The second stage carried the payload off to space, but it’s the first stage booster that got all of the attention.
The global PC market is entering into a period of uncertainty as the pandemic begins to recede. This is causing demand for PCs and components to decline for the first time in years. Despite this gloomy forecast, AMD is making steady progress. Market analyst Mercury Research have released its Q1 2022 report, and it shows AMD chipping away at Intel’s market share in multiple markets. Before you get your violin out for Chipzilla, Mercury’s numbers show it still dominates AMD in every market where they directly compete. Overall AMD ended Q1 with a 27.7 percent market share for x86 processors, according to a summary posted by .
(Photo: Markus Tatzgern et al.)Virtual Reality (VR) developers have been hard at work recently figuring out ways to increase the immersion level of VR hardware. Since today’s VR kits are just a headset and handheld controllers, this has required hardware add-ons in some scenarios. The latest immersion-boosting add-on to come to VR is one we hadn’t anticipated (or asked for): The sensation of suffocating. This harrowing experience is now possible thanks to the (subscription required). It was designed by Markus Tatzgern and a team of researchers at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in Austria according to . It involves attaching a respirator to your face that’s connected to a resistance valve that controls the amount of air you can breathe.
These days it seems like everything in the GPU world is beginning to fall back to earth. We all know prices have begun to reflect the impact of post-pandemic gravity. Also, several weeks ago AMD’s upcoming RDNA3’s specs were taken down a peg by the rumor mill. Now, it’s Nvidia’s turn in the barrel. Noted GPU rumor monger @ has released a “summary” of the AD102 die’s rumored specs, and they’re decidedly more sane than what they previously reported. The biggest news, in our opinion, is the Total Board Power (TBP) has been significantly reduced. It was first reported to be an back in February.
The pandemic-based revenue-a-thon seems to be starting to slow down, at least in the global PC market. There were predictions this would occur at the end of 2021. Now we’re seeing it play out just as the prophecy foretold. The latest company to chime in is Asus, which held a quarterly earnings call this week. On the call Asus executives predicted the company’s PC and component sales would drop significantly in the coming quarter. They also addressed crytomining’s impact on Asus’ business, revealing its importance has already been diminished. The earnings call was transcribed by , and it was kicked off by Nick Wu, who is the Chief Financial Officer.
