NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured a spectacular video of an April solar eclipse on Mars. The video clearly depicts Phobos as it eclipses the sun, as seen from the Martian surface. “You can see details in the shape of Phobos’ shadow, like ridges and bumps on the moon’s landscape,” said planetary astronomer Mark Lemmon in a statement. Lemmon, of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, has orchestrated most of the Phobos observations by Mars rovers to date. “You can also see sunspots. And it’s cool that you can see this eclipse exactly as the rover saw it from Mars.
Android apps used to be the wild west—Google would allow almost anything into the store, even apps that could root your phone with a single tap. The company has clamped down on such excesses, usually to the benefit of users. However, one upcoming change has people rankled. Next month, Google plans to enforce restrictions on the Accessibility API, which means all the best call recording will be banned or forced to downgrade to a more primitive method of recording. Google made the announcement in an off-handed fashion earlier this month during an hour-long seminar on developer policy changes. At just shy of 19 minutes into the video below, a Googler notes that the Accessibility API is not designed for, and cannot be used, to record phone calls.
Nvidia will reportedly be taking a no holds barred approach with its upcoming AD102 “Ada Lovelace” die. We’ve previously reported on the insane power requirements that are rumored for Nvidia’s next-gen GPUs, but Moore’s Law is Dead on YouTube says they are confirmed based on discussing the topic with system integrators and OEMs. These companies are already planning upcoming systems based on the RTX 4090 GPU, which is due to launch in Q3. In addition to cranking its consumer GPUs to 11, the company will also be raising the power limit for professional cards too. The popular YouTuber says although Nvidia was originally targeting an (TBP), it’s now aiming for its flagship board to be 600W.
(Photo: Taobao)Over the past month or so there have been reports of Alder Lake customers with bent or warped CPU sockets. Although it’s still not clear if this is happening only on certain boards, it’s legit enough that Intel has confirmed it is happening. No need to worry though, says Intel. Even if your CPU’s heat spreader is warped, or your motherboard is bent, the CPU will still operate within spec. For some, this is not exactly a satisfying “solution,” and now a company has taken the next step by offering an elegant fix. It’s called the Bending Corrector Frame (BCF), though it’s not available in the US, hopefully it will be someday.
After more than a year mapping the surface of Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has finally reached the ancient Martian river delta it was built to explore. Perseverance and its companion space helicopter, Ingenuity, landed in Mars’ Jezero Crater in February of 2021. Since then, the rover has carefully picked its way around the rim of Jezero, scooping up samples and mapping its surroundings as it goes. Perseverance and Ingenuity have spent their time making parallel progress on their directives. Ingenuity even makes its own scientific sorties away from the rover. But Perseverance is drawing near its target.
If there’s one thing PC power users dislike, it’s not being able to upgrade their systems. The recent trend towards soldered RAM and storage has been annoying and now Dell has a new (old) twist on the scenario: Proprietary RAM modules. We haven’t seen this kind of product in market before, but it’s something Dell is reportedly cooking up. The news broke when posted a photo of it on Twitter. Dell calls it CAMM, which stands for Compression Attached Memory Module. The company describes the new module as being designed with modularity and flexibility in mind. It goes on to say it’s thinner, lighter, and smaller than its predecessor while providing more power.
(Photo: Souvik Banerjee/Unsplash)Netflix may still be a household name, but it’s certainly seen better days. The streaming service has suffered several losses in recent months. Between a dip in subscriber count and a stock price nosedive, executives have been forced to rethink their strategy. Among Netflix’s options is introducing an ad-supported subscription, which would come with a lower price tag and therefore appeal to an added range of customers. In a Q1 earnings Tuesday, CEO Reed Hastings mentioned Netflix was open to creating a tier for those who are “advertising-tolerant,” opening the service up to a larger price spread and a new form of revenue.
(Photo: LifeTote)In “impressive inventions we wish people didn’t need,” a high schooler from Boulder, Colorado has created a tote bag that can be changed into a bulletproof vest. Eighteen-year-old Trent Bush Jr. created the bag shortly after a tragic shooting at Boulder’s King Soopers grocery store. Bush felt that it would be worthwhile to come up with something that could help people in a similar situation in the future, to Denver’s Daily Camera. He taught himself how to sew and worked with his father to create prototypes of the bag. He then took the final concept to a manufacturing company, which is slated to begin producing the bags this summer.
Back in February, AMD launched its revamped Ryzen Mobile 6000 family of CPUs. Now the company has released the Pro CPUs from the same family for business customers. They use the same Zen 3+ architecture as their non-Pro counterparts, but include extra security features enterprise customers appreciate. These chips also feature the company’s latest RDNA2 GPUs, and are made on TSMC’s 6nm process. Like the company’s , the Pro series comes in both high performance “H” variants, and battery-sensitive U series. In addition to offering 6000 series “Rembrandt” CPUs AMD is also offering three 5000 series “Cezanne” chips as well.
