Ars Technica
After 48 years, Zilog is killing the classic standalone Z80 microprocessor chip
Enlarge / A cropped portion of a ca. 1980 ad for the Microsoft Z80 SoftCard, which allowed Apple II users to run the CP/M operating system. (credit: Microsoft)
Last week, chip manufacturer Zilog announced that after 48 years on the market, its line of standalone DIP (dual inline package) Z80 CPUs is coming to an end, ceasing sales on June 14, 2024. The 8-bit Z80 architecture debuted in 1976 and powered a small-business-PC revolution in conjunction with CP/M, also serving as the heart of the Nintendo Game Boy, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Pac-Man arcade game, and the TI-83 graphing calculator in various forms.
In a letter to customers dated April 15, 2024, Zilog wrote, "Please be advised that our Wafer Foundry Manufacturer will be discontinuing support for the Z80 product and other product lines. Refer to the attached list of the Z84C00 Z80 products affected."
Designers typically use the Z84C00 chips because of familiarity with the Z80 architecture or to allow legacy system upgrades without needing significant system redesigns. And while many other embedded chip architectures have superseded these Z80 chips in speed, processing power, and capability, they remained go-to solutions for decades in products that didn't need any extra horsepower.
Why a GameCube/Wii emulator may not be possible on the iOS App Store
Enlarge / Don't expect to see this on the iOS App Store any time soon. (credit: OatmealDome)
Last week's release of the Delta emulation suite finally gave iOS users easy, no-sideloading-required access to classic Nintendo game emulation up through the Nintendo 64 era. When it comes to emulating Nintendo's subsequent home consoles on iOS, though, some technical restrictions imposed by Apple are making it difficult to get a functional emulator on the App Store.
In a recent blog post, DolphiniOS developer (and longtime Switch hacker) OatmealDome explains how a Dolphin code fork—which ports the popular GameCube and Wii emulator to Apple's smartphone OS—uses just-in-time (JIT) compilation to translate the PowerPC instructions from those retro consoles into ARM-compatible iOS code. But Apple's App Store regulations against apps that "install executable code" (Section 3.3.1B) generally prevent JIT recompilation on iOS, with very limited exceptions such as web browsers. That restriction may have some valid security reasoning behind it, but it can also get in the way for developers of tools like third-party browser engines (except recently in the EU).
While MacOS developers can make use of an explicit entitlement to allow JIT recompilation in an app, that exception doesn't apply to iOS developers. And while alternative App Stores and sideloaded apps (including DolphiniOS) have discovered various ways to enable JIT compilation on both jailbroken and stock iOS devices, these workarounds can get quite arcane and occasionally break with new iOS releases.
Tesla cuts Full Self Driving cost by 1/3 ahead of earnings call
Enlarge / Tesla's "Full Self Driving" system just got a third cheaper. (credit: Edie Leong for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Tesla has dropped the price of its controversial "Full Self Driving" partially automated driver assist. Last week, getting access to FSD would cost you $12,000—today, it's a third cheaper at $8,000. Alternatively, customers can subscribe to the feature for $99 a month.
Tesla has bet heavily on FSD for the future of the company. It's one of two partially automated driving systems offered by Tesla—Autopilot is the older and less-capable system. FSD includes features such as auto lane changes, auto parking, the ability to summon the car from its parking space, and lane keeping (Autosteer in Tesla-speak) on surface streets.
Tesla claims that "[y]our car will be able to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention and will continuously improve," but then also notes that "[t]he currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."
The official Deadpool and Wolverine trailer is finally here, and yes, it’s awesome
Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman join forces in Deadpool and Wolverine.
We were already looking forward to the summer release of Deadpool and Wolverine, which will bring together Ryan Reynolds' R-rated antihero with Hugh Jackman's iconic X-Man. We're even more eager to see the film after Marvel dropped the official trailer, which is chock-full of off-color witticisms, meta-references, slo-mo action, and a generous sprinkling of F-bombs. (But no cocaine! Wade promised Feige! "They know all the slang terms. They have a list.")
"You’re talking about two massive movie stars in their most iconic roles,” Director Shawn Levy (Free Guy) told Screen Rant earlier this month. “It also gave me an opportunity. It’s the third Deadpool movie, but it’s not Deadpool 3. It’s a different thing that’s very much Deadpool and Wolverine. And it’s not trying to copycat anything from the first two movies. They were awesome, but this is a two-hander character adventure.”
(Spoilers for Deadpool 2 below.)
TikTok ready to “move to the courts” to prevent ban in US
Enlarge (credit: Sheldon Coope | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images)
TikTok is gearing up for a long legal battle to fight legislation in the US that threatens to ban the app in its largest market if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, refuses to sell the viral video platform.
The US House of Representatives on Saturday passed a package of national security bills that included legislation that would result in TikTok being banned in the country if Chinese parent company ByteDance does not divest the app.
Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s public policy head in the US, told staff in response that if the bill became law, the company would “move to the courts for a legal challenge.”
Meet QDEL, the backlight-less display tech that could replace OLED in premium TVs
What comes after OLED?
With OLED-equipped TVs, monitors, and other gadgets slowly becoming more readily available at lower prices, attention is turning to what the next landmark consumer display tech will be.
Micro LED often features in such discussions, but the tech is not expected to start hitting consumer devices until the 2030s. Display makers are also playing with other futuristic ideas, like transparent and foldable screens. But when it comes to technology that could seriously address top user concerns—like image quality, price, and longevity—quantum dots seem the most pertinent at the moment.
Explore a digitized collection of doomed Everest climber’s letters home
Enlarge / The final letter from George Mallory from Camp I, Mount Everest, to his wife Ruth Mallory, May 27, 1924. (credit: The Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge)
In June 1924, a British mountaineer named George Leigh Mallory and a young engineering student named Andrew "Sandy" Irvine set off for the summit of Mount Everest and disappeared—just two casualties of a peak that has claimed over 300 lives to date. Mallory was an alumnus of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge, which maintains a collection of his personal correspondence, much of it between Mallory and his wife, Ruth. The college has now digitized the entire collection for public access. The letters can be accessed and downloaded here.
“It has been a real pleasure to work with these letters," said Magdalene College archivist Katy Green. "Whether it’s George’s wife Ruth writing about how she was posting him plum cakes and a grapefruit to the trenches (he said the grapefruit wasn’t ripe enough), or whether it’s his poignant last letter where he says the chances of scaling Everest are '50 to 1 against us,' they offer a fascinating insight into the life of this famous Magdalene alumnus.”
As previously reported, Mallory is the man credited with uttering the famous line "because it's there" in response to a question about why he would risk his life repeatedly to summit Everest. An avid mountaineer, Mallory had already been to the mountain twice before the 1924 expedition: once in 1921 as part of a reconnaissance expedition to produce the first accurate maps of the region and again in 1922—his first serious attempt to summit, although he was forced to turn back on all three attempts. A sudden avalanche killed seven Sherpas on his third try, sparking accusations of poor judgement on Mallory's part.
Secrets of the Octopus takes us inside the world of these “aliens on Earth”
Enlarge / A Day octopus (Octopus cyanea) named Scarlet parachutes her web over a coral head while Dr. Alex Schnell observes. (credit: National Geographic/Disney/Craig Parry)
With Earth Day fast approaching once again, it's time for another new documentary from National Geographic and Disney+: Secrets of the Octopus. It's the third in what has become a series, starting with the remarkable 2021 documentary Secrets of the Whales (narrated by Sigourney Weaver) and 2023's Secrets of the Elephants (Natalie Portman as narrator). James Cameron served as producer on all three.
Secrets of the Octopus is narrated by Paul Rudd. Per the official synopsis:
Octopuses are like aliens on Earth: three hearts, blue blood and the ability to squeeze through a space the size of their eyeballs. But there is so much more to these weird and wonderful animals. Intelligent enough to use tools or transform their bodies to mimic other animals and even communicate with different species, the secrets of the octopus are more extraordinary than we ever imagined.
Each of the three episodes focuses on a specific unique feature of these fascinating creatures: "Shapeshifters," "Masterminds," and "Social Networks." The animals were filmed in their natural habitats over 200 days and all that stunning footage is accompanied by thoughtful commentary by featured scientists. One of those scientists is Dr. Alex Schnell, a native Australian and self described storytelling who has worked at Macquarie University, the University of Cambridge, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, among other institutions. Her research focuses on the intelligence of marine animals, particularly cuttlefish and octopuses.
The fungi in our guts can make cases of Covid worse
Enlarge / Computer illustration of Candida fungi. (credit: Kateryna Kon | Science Photo Library | Getty)
Fungi are an indispensable part of your microbiome, keeping the body’s host of microorganisms healthy as part of a system of checks and balances. But when you’re hit by an infection, fungi can be thrown out of equilibrium with other organisms inside you, leading to a more severe infection and other symptoms of illness.
For this reason, the pandemic immediately set off alarms for Iliyan Iliev, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medical School. “We were thinking, the first thing that’s going to happen is people will start getting fungal co-infections,” he says. With the microbiome unbalanced, fungi might start running riot inside Covidpatients, Iliev reasoned. His fears were soon realized.
In research published in Nature Immunology, he and his team discovered that in patients with severe Covid, certain strains of gut fungi—knocked off-kilter by the virus—set off a prolonged immune response that could last long after the initial infection. This response potentially led to some of the respiratory symptoms experienced by these patients. These results, Iliev says, point to the critical role of the gut microbiome in the human immune response and could lead to better disease treatments down the line.
War never changes: A Fallout fan’s spoiler-laden review of the new TV series
Enlarge / The nukes went off in 2077 in Fallout's universe. The show tells us more about this event than we've learned from the games before. (credit: Amazon)
It's been just over a week since the Fallout TV series premiered on Amazon Prime, and one thing's for sure: It's a huge hit. You can hardly open a social media app without seeing content about it, the reviews are positive, and the active players for the Fallout games have doubled over the past week.
A few days ago, I shared some spoiler-free impressions of the first three episodes. I loved what I'd seen up to that point—the show seemed faithful to the games, but it was also a great TV show. A specific cocktail of tongue-in-cheek humor, sci-fi campiness, strong themes, great characters, and visceral violence really came together into a fantastic show.
Still, I had some questions at that point: Would the franchise's penchant for satire and its distinct political and social viewpoint come through? Where was all this headed?
Why are groups of university students modifying Cadillac Lyriq EVs?
Enlarge / For the previous EcoCar 3 competition, student teams turned Camaro sportscars into hybrids. For the EcoCar EV challenge, their job is to improve on the Cadillac Lyriq. (credit: EcoCar)
Across the country, teams of students at 15 different universities are in the middle of a four-year project, dissecting an electric vehicle and figuring out ways to make it even better. The program, called the EcoCar EV Challenge, was founded more than three decades ago by the US Department of Energy and is run by the DOE's Argonne National Laboratory.
Over the last 35 years, more than 30,000 students from 95 universities have participated in the EcoCar Challenge, part of the DOE's Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition. Each segment spans four years, with the most recent cycle beginning in 2023 with a new Cadillac Lyriq donated by the General Motors automaker.
The students take this competition very seriously, as participation alone brings a lot of benefits, including the potential for a lifelong career path.
The GMO tooth microbe that is supposed to prevent cavities
Enlarge (credit: zhangshuang via Getty)
About seven years ago, Aaron Silverbook and his then-girlfriend, a biologist, were perusing old scientific literature online. “A romantic evening,” joked Silverbook. That night, he came across a study from 2000 that surprised him. Scientists had genetically engineered an oral bacterium that they said could possibly prevent tooth decay: “I read it and sort of boggled at it and said, ‘Wow, this is a cavity vaccine. Why don't we have this?’”
So, Silverbook tracked down the primary author, Jeffrey Hillman, a now-retired oral biologist formerly at the University of Florida, to see if he could pick up the torch.
In 2023, Silverbook founded Lantern Bioworks, which made a deal with Oragenics, the company Hillman co-founded and that owned the technology, for the materials. Lantern Bioworks then launched the genetically engineered bacteria under the name Lumina Probiotic. “I didn’t expect it to happen in my lifetime,” said Hillman.
Philosopher Daniel Dennett dead at 82
Enlarge / Daniel Dennett, a leading philosopher with provocative takes on consciousness, free will, and AI, has died at 82. (credit: Alonso Nichols/Tufts University)
World renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett, who championed controversial takes on consciousness and free will among other mind-bending subjects, died today at the age of 82.
(Full disclosure: This loss is personal. Dennett was a friend and colleague of my spouse, Sean Carroll. Sean and I have many fond memories of shared meals and stimulating conversations on an enormous range of topics with Dan over the years. He was a true original and will be greatly missed.)
Stunned reactions to Dennett's unexpected passing began proliferating on social media shortly after the news broke. "Wrenching news. He's been a great friend and incredible inspiration for me throughout my career," the Santa Fe Institute's Melanie Mitchell, author of Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, wrote on X. "I will miss him enormously."
It’s cutting calories—not intermittent fasting—that drops weight, study suggests
Enlarge (credit: Getty | David Jennings)
Intermittent fasting, aka time-restricted eating, can help people lose weight—but the reason why may not be complicated hypotheses about changes from fasting metabolism or diurnal circadian rhythms. It may just be because restricting eating time means people eat fewer calories overall.
In a randomized-controlled trial, people who followed a time-restricted diet lost about the same amount of weight as people who ate the same diet without the time restriction, according to a study published Friday in Annals of Internal Medicine.
The finding offers a possible answer to a long-standing question for time-restricted eating (TRE) research, which has been consumed by small feeding studies of 15 people or fewer, with mixed results and imperfect designs.
CNN, record holder for shortest streaming service, wants another shot
On March 29, 2022, CNN+, CNN's take on a video streaming service, debuted. On April 28, 2022, it shuttered, making it the fastest shutdown of any launched streaming service. Despite that discouraging superlative, CNN has plans for another subscription-based video streaming platform, Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday.
Mark Thompson, who took CNN's helm in August 2023, over a year after CNN+'s demise, spoke with FT about evolving the company. The publication reported that Thompson is "working on plans for a digital subscription streaming service." The executive told the publication that a digital subscription, including digital content streaming, is "a serious possibility," adding, "no decisions had been made, but I think it’s quite likely that we’ll end up there."
CNN++, or whatever a new CNN streaming package might be named, would not just be another CNN+, per Thompson.
Long-lost model of the USS Enterprise returned to Roddenberry family
Enlarge / This mysterious model appeared on eBay with little fanfare. (credit: eBay)
The first-ever model of Star Trek's USS Enterprise NCC-1701 has been returned to the Roddenberry family, according to an ABC News report.
The three-foot model was used to shoot the pilot and credits scene for Star Trek's original series in the 1960s and was used occasionally for shots throughout the series. (Typically, a larger, 11-foot model was used for shots after the pilot.) The model also sat on series creator Gene Roddenberry's desk for several years.
It went missing in the late 1970s; historians and collectors believe it belonged to Roddenberry himself, that he lent it to a production house working on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and that it was never returned. Its whereabouts were unknown until last fall, when a listing for a mysterious model of the Enterprise appeared on eBay.
Cities: Skylines 2 team apologizes, makes DLC free and promises a fan summit
Enlarge / Like the Beach Properties DLC itself, this property looks a bit unfinished and in need of some focus. (credit: Paradox Interactive)
Perhaps the first clue that something was not quite right about Beach Properties, the first $10 DLC "expansion" for the already off-kilter city-building sim Cities: Skylines 2, was that it did not contain a real beach house, which one might consider a key beach property. The oversight seemed indicative of a content pack that lacked for content.
C:S2's developers and publisher now agree and have published a letter to Cities fans, in which they offer apologies, updates, and refunds. Beach Properties is now a free add-on, individual buyers will be refunded (with details at a FAQ page), and Ultimate Edition owners will receive additional Creator Packs and Radio Stations, since partial refunds are tricky across different game stores.
"We thought we could make up for the shortcomings of the game in a timeframe that was unrealistic, and rushed out a DLC that should not have been published in its current form. For all this, we are truly sorry," reads the letter, signed by the CEOs of developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive. "When we’ve made statements like this one before, it’s included a pledge to keep making improvements, and while we are working on these updates, they haven’t happened at a speed or magnitude that is acceptable, and it pains us that we've now lost the trust of many of you. We want to do better."
Netflix doc accused of using AI to manipulate true crime story
Enlarge / A cropped image showing Raw TV's poster for the Netflix documentary What Jennifer Did, which features a long front tooth that leads critics to believe it was AI-generated. (credit: Raw TV)
An executive producer of the Netflix hit What Jennifer Did has responded to accusations that the true crime documentary used AI images when depicting Jennifer Pan, a woman currently imprisoned in Canada for orchestrating a murder-for-hire scheme targeting her parents.
What Jennifer Did shot to the top spot in Netflix's global top 10 when it debuted in early April, attracting swarms of true crime fans who wanted to know more about why Pan paid hitmen $10,000 to murder her parents. But quickly the documentary became a source of controversy, as fans started noticing glaring flaws in images used in the movie, from weirdly mismatched earrings to her nose appearing to lack nostrils, the Daily Mail reported, in a post showing a plethora of examples of images from the film.
Futurism was among the first to point out that these flawed images (around the 28-minute mark of the documentary) "have all the hallmarks of an AI-generated photo, down to mangled hands and fingers, misshapen facial features, morphed objects in the background, and a far-too-long front tooth." The image with the long front tooth was even used in Netflix's poster for the movie.
Huawei phone has a pop-out camera lens, just like a point-and-shoot camera
Enlarge / The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra. That red ring around the camera lens is how far it moves. (credit: Huawei)
Huawei is still out there making phones, even if it has been shunned by the US government and the US-aligned tech ecosystem. The latest phone has a new name: "Huawei Pura 70." While you wouldn't ever want to deal with the cobbled-together SoC or whatever is going on with Huawei's software, the "Ultra" model does have a cool party trick up its sleeve: a pop-out main camera lens.
In the years before the smartphone took over all entry-level photography, there used to be a thing called a "point-and-shoot camera." This was a purpose-built device that only took photos, couldn't go on the Internet, and wouldn't let you watch the latest TikTok videos. The trademark feature of these devices was a retractable camera lens, where the front lens (there was only one!) would grow out of the front of the camera when you turned it on. This would give your camera better, longer lens geometry to work with when the camera was on, and would collapse down for easier storage when it was off.
Huawei's latest phone is replicating that. The giant rear camera lens actually grows out of the phone somewhat, thanks to some complicated gearing inside the phone. It's only the tiniest few millimeters, but it's a start. Smartphone manufacturers often resist adding bigger lenses to their devices because they want to still have pocketable devices. A pop-up lens would give the camera engineers more room to work with while still maintaining pocketability.
Io: New image of a lake of fire, signs of permanent volcanism
Enlarge (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Thomas Thomopoulos)
Ever since the Voyager mission sent home images of Jupiter's moon Io spewing material into space, we've gradually built up a clearer picture of Io's volcanic activity. It slowly became clear that Io, which is a bit smaller than Mercury, is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, with all that activity driven by the gravitational strain caused by Jupiter and its three other giant moons. There is so much volcanism that its surface has been completely remodeled, with no signs of impact craters.
A few more details about its violence came to light this week, with new images being released of the moon's features, including an island in a lake of lava, taken by the Juno orbiter. At the same time, imaging done using an Earth-based telescope has provided some indications that this volcanism has been reshaping Io from almost the moment it formed.
Fiery, glassy lakesThe Juno orbiter's mission is primarily focused on studying Jupiter, including the dynamics of its storms and its internal composition. But many of its orbital passes have taken it right past Io, and this week, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory released some of the best images from these flybys. They include a shot of Loki Patera, a lake of lava that has an island within it. Also featured: the impossibly sheer slopes of Io's Steeple Mountain.