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Two seconds of hope for fusion power
Enlarge / The interior or the DIII-D tokamak. (credit: General Atomics)
Using nuclear fusion, the process that powers the stars, to produce electricity on Earth has famously been 30 years away for more than 70 years. But now, a breakthrough experiment done at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego may finally push nuclear fusion power plants to be roughly 29 years away.
Nuclear fusion ceilingThe DIII-D facility is run by General Atomics for the Department of Energy. It includes an experimental tokamak, a donut-shaped nuclear fusion device that works by trapping astonishingly hot plasma in very strong, toroidal magnetic fields. Tokamaks, compared to other fusion reactor designs like stellarators, are the furthest along in their development; ITER, the world’s first power-plant-size fusion device now under construction in France, is scheduled to run its first tests with plasma in December 2025.
But tokamaks have always had some issues. Back in 1988, Martin Greenwald, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology expert on plasma physics, proposed an equation that described an apparent limit on how dense plasma could get in tokamaks. He argued that maximum attainable density is dictated by the minor radius of a tokamak and the current induced in the plasma to maintain magnetic stability. Going beyond that limit was supposed to make the magnets incapable of holding the plasma, heated up to north of 150 million degrees Celsius away from the walls of the machine.
Inside Shōgun: How special effects brought 17th-century feudal Japan to vivid life
Enlarge / FX/Hulu's Shōgun is a stunning new adaptation of the bestselling 1975 novel by James Clavell. (credit: FX/Hulu)
FX/Hulu's new historical epic series, Shōgun, based on the bestselling 1975 novel by James Clavell, has met with both popular and critical acclaim since its February premiere, drawing over 9 million views across all platforms in the first six days alone. The storytelling, the characters, the stellar performances, the expert pacing all contribute to that success. But it's also a visually stunning achievement that brings 17th-century feudal Japan to vivid life, thanks to masterful special effects that have been woven in so seamlessly, it can be challenging to distinguish between the CGI and the real footage.
The novel is a fictionalized account of the key players and events in 17th-century feudal Japan that ultimately led to the naming of a new shōgun (central ruler), Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the advent of the Edo period. The climactic event was the October 21, 1600, Battle of Sekigahara, in which Tokugawa defeated a coalition of clans led by Ishida Mitsunari. Clavell's novel also includes a fictionalized version of an English navigator named William Adams, aka Miura Anjiin ("the pilot of Miura"), who was the first of his nation to reach Japan in 1600, eventually becoming a samurai and one of Tokugawa's key advisers.
Clavell's epic saga was a blockbuster success, selling over 6 million copies by 1980. The author changed the names of all the main characters, purportedly to "add narrative deniability," and despite some inevitable inaccuracies and authorial liberties, the novel is breathtaking in scope, chock-full of encyclopedic period details. In fact, Shōgun is often credited with introducing an entire generation of Western readers to Japanese history and culture. "In sheer quantity, Shōgun has probably conveyed more information about Japan to more people than all the combined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the Pacific War," an editor named Henry Smith wrote in 1980.
Over 100 far-right militias are coordinating on Facebook
Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto via Getty)
“Join Your Local Militia or III% Patriot Group,” a post urged the more than 650 members of a Facebook group called the Free American Army. Accompanied by the logo for the Three Percenters militia network and an image of a man in tactical gear holding a long rifle, the post continues: “Now more than ever. Support the American militia page.”
Other content and messaging in the group is similar. And despite the fact that Facebook bans paramilitary organizing and deemed the Three Percenters an “armed militia group" on its 2021 Dangerous Individuals and Organizations List, the post and group remained up until WIRED contacted Meta for comment about its existence.
Free American Army is just one of around 200 similar Facebook groups and profiles, most of which are still live, that anti-government and far-right extremists are using to coordinate local militia activity around the country.
What’s happening at Tesla? Here’s what experts think.
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | Beata Zawrzel)
No car company in recent years has been able to generate more news headlines than Tesla. Its original founders were among the very first to realize that lithium-ion laptop cells were just about good enough to power a car, assuming you put enough of them in a pack, and with critical funding from current CEO Elon Musk, the company was able to kick-start an electric vehicle revolution. But those headlines of late have been painting a picture of a company in chaos. Sales are down, the cars are barely profitable, and now the CEO is culling vast swaths of the company. Just what is going on?
Tesla had some good timesAlways erratic, Musk's leadership has nevertheless seen the company sell electric cars in volume, profitably. What's more, Musk has at times been able to inspire faith in and devotion to his company's products in a way that makes the late Steve Jobs look like a neophyte—after the Model 3 debuted in 2016, 450,000 people gave $1,000 deposits to Tesla for a product that wouldn't go into production for at least 18 months.
Of course, that example also illustrates a long-running concern with the company and Musk's investment-attracting pitches: overhyping and underdelivering. By 2018, more than one in five reservation holders wanted a refund after cheaper models were delayed and delayed.
Mini Settlers is a city builder that you can both enjoy and actually put down
Enlarge / Are you enticed by this kind of orderly madness with a clean graphical layout? Then I suggest you… settle in. (credit: Goblinz Studio)
You can't buy Mini Settlers right now, but I think you should play the free "Prologue" demo and wishlist the full game if you dig it. It's not quite like any other city builder I've played.
Mini Settlers is "mini" like minimalism. It is in the same genre, but quite far from, games like Cities: Skylines 2 (a choice with some proven merit). Your buildings are not 3D-rendered with real-time lighting. Your buildings are colored squares, sometimes with a few disc tokens stacked on them, tabletop-style. Your roads don't have traffic, but they have drivers (tiny squares) that take resources between nodes. When things go wrong, you don't get depressing news about pollution and riots; some people just leave their homes, but they'll come back if you fix what's wrong.
Mini Settlers announcement video.
Mini Settlers is not the game to play to satisfy your long-running suspicion that urban planning was your missed calling. In the (non-progress-saving) Prologue-free demo out this week, the mines and quarries have infinite resources. There is no "money" to speak of, so far as I can tell. Apple farms must be placed near apple orchards and water pumps by water, and the rest is up to you. The interface looks like a thought experiment in how far you can get from traditional city sim HUDs, but then someone implemented it.
Rocket Report: Astroscale chases down dead rocket; Ariane 6 on the pad
Enlarge / This image captured by Astroscale's ADRAS-J satellite shows the discarded upper stage from a Japanese H-IIA rocket. (credit: Astroscale)
Welcome to Edition 6.42 of the Rocket Report! Several major missions are set for launch in the next few months. These include the first crew flight on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, set for liftoff on May 6, and the next test flight of SpaceX's Starship rocket, which could happen before the end of May. Perhaps as soon as early summer, SpaceX could launch the Polaris Dawn mission with four private astronauts, who will perform the first fully commercial spacewalk in orbit. In June or July, Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket is slated to launch for the first time. Rest assured, Ars will have it all covered.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
German rocket arrives at Scottish spaceport. Rocket Factory Augsburg has delivered a booster for its privately developed RFA One rocket to SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland, the company announced on X. The first stage for the RFA One rocket was installed on its launch pad at SaxaVord to undergo preparations for a static fire test. The booster arrived at the Scottish launch site with five of its kerosene-fueled Helix engines. The remaining four Helix engines, for a total of nine, will be fitted to the RFA One booster at SaxaVord, the company said.
Aims is UP (http://maps.jocogov.org)
Apple’s Q2 2024 earnings reveal a drop in iPhone, iPad sales
Enlarge / The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. (credit: Anadolu Agency | Getty)
Apple's earnings report for the second quarter of the company's 2024 fiscal year showed a slide in hardware sales, especially for the iPhone. Nonetheless, Apple beat analysts' estimates for the quarter thanks to the company's rapidly growing services revenue.
iPhone revenue dropped from $51.33 billion in the same quarter last year to $45.96 billion, a fall of about 10 percent. This was the second consecutive quarter with declining iPhone revenues. That said, investors feared a sharp drop before the earnings call.
Notably, Apple's revenue in the region it dubs Greater China (which includes China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong) fell 8 percent overall. The company fared a little better in other regions. China's economy is slowing even as China-based Huawei is taking bigger slices of the pie in the region.
Missourians could vote this fall whether to mandate paid sick leave and a $15 minimum wage
Meet the Press NOW – May 2
AT&T announces $7 monthly add-on fee for “Turbo” 5G speeds
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)
AT&T is now charging mobile customers an extra $7 per month for faster wireless data speeds. AT&T says the Turbo add-on, available starting today, is "built to support high-performance mobile applications, like gaming, social video broadcasting and live video conferencing, with optimized data while customers are on the go."
While Turbo "boosts all the high-speed and hotspot data on a user's connection," AT&T said the difference will be more noticeable for certain kinds of applications. For example, gaming applications using Turbo will experience "less freezing or stuttering and lower latency," AT&T said.
The $7 charge is for each line. Adding Turbo to multiple lines on the same account requires paying the extra fee for each line. AT&T said that Turbo lets users "optimize their plan's high-speed (premium) and hotspot data allotments" and provides better data performance "even during busy times on the network."
Apple deal could have been “suicide” for Google, company lawyer says
Enlarge / John Schmidtlein, partner at Williams & Connolly LLP and lead litigator for Alphabet Inc.'s Google, arrives to federal court in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023. (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)
Halfway through the first day of closing arguments in the Department of Justice's big antitrust trial against Google, US District Judge Amit Mehta posed the question that likely many Google users have pondered over years of DOJ claims that Google's market dominance has harmed users.
"What should Google have done to remain outside the crosshairs of the DOJ?" Mehta asked plaintiffs halfway through the first of two full days of closing arguments.
According to the DOJ and state attorneys general suing, Google has diminished search quality everywhere online, primarily by locking rivals out of default positions on devices and in browsers. By paying billions for default placements that the government has argued allowed Google to hoard traffic and profits, Google allegedly made it nearly impossible for rivals to secure enough traffic to compete, ultimately decreasing competition and innovation in search by limiting the number of viable search engines in the market.
UHF in UHD: Weird Al’s cult classic movie will get its first 4K release
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Weird Al's Rambo parody was a drop in the bucket amidst all the other jokes in the film, but it's among the most memorable. [credit: Shout Factory ]
Believe it or not, it's been 35 years since Weird Al's quotable cult classic UHF first came out. Right on time for that anniversary, Shout Factory will release an UltraHD Blu-ray of the movie. This will be the first time it has ever been available in 4K.
Releasing July 2 but pre-ordering now, the disc will include a new 4K scan of the original 35mm negative, along with audio commentary from Weird Al and Jay Levy, the film's director.
It will also come bundled with a standard HD Blu-ray that includes the film in that older format along with a bunch of special features, including video of a 2024 Comic-Con panel on the movie, delete scenes, behind-the-scenes videos, and some other assets. Some of those return from the movie's last physical edition, which was a 25th anniversary HD Blu-ray, but not 4K.
One and done: Elden Ring’s first DLC expansion will also be its last
Enlarge / A big erdtree casts a big shadow. (credit: Namco Bandai)
The good news for Elden Ring fans is that the two-plus-year wait for the game's first DLC, "Shadow of the Erdtree," will end in just a couple of months. The bad news is that "Shadow of the Erdtree" will also be the last bit of DLC for FromSoftware's multimillion-selling action RPG.
In a wide-ranging interview with Chinese site Zhihu (machine translation), Elden Ring producer Hidetaka Miyazaki said "Shadow of the Erdtree" contains a lot of existing lore and content that was created for the original game but couldn't fit into the final package. Miyazaki said the team decided to release all of that unused content as one large DLC expansion, rather than multiple smaller bits, because "if they were sold separately, the freedom of exploration and sense of adventure would be reduced."
As for just how big the DLC will be, Miyazaki balked when the interviewer asked how long it would take players to complete. Miyazaki brought up memories of being called a liar after estimating in an earlier interview that the original game would only take about 30 hours of play to complete—crowdsourced game-length database HowLongToBeat puts the "main story" estimate closer to 60 hours.
Maximum-severity GitLab flaw allowing account hijacking under active exploitation
A maximum severity vulnerability that allows hackers to hijack GitLab accounts with no user interaction required is now under active exploitation, federal government officials warned as data showed that thousands of users had yet to install a patch released in January.
A change GitLab implemented in May 2023 made it possible for users to initiate password changes through links sent to secondary email addresses. The move was designed to permit resets when users didn’t have access to the email address used to establish the account. In January, GitLab disclosed that the feature allowed attackers to send reset emails to accounts they controlled and from there click on the embedded link and take over the account.
While exploits require no user interaction, hijackings work only against accounts that aren’t configured to use multifactor authentication. Even with MFA, accounts remained vulnerable to password resets, but the attackers ultimately are unable to access the account, allowing the rightful owner to change the reset password. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-7028, carries a severity rating of 10 out of 10.
GeForce Now has made Steam Deck streaming much easier than it used to be
Enlarge / Streaming Fallout 4 from GeForce Now might seem unnecessary, unless you know how running it natively has been going. (credit: Kevin Purdy)
The Steam Deck is a Linux computer. There is, technically, very little you cannot get running on it, given enough knowledge, time, and patience. That said, it's never a bad thing when someone has done all the work for you, leaving you to focus on what matters: sneaking game time on the couch.
GeForce Now, Nvidia's game-streaming service that uses your own PC gaming libraries, has made it easier for Steam Deck owners to get its service set up on their Deck. On the service's Download page, there is now a section for Gaming Handheld Devices. Most of the device links provide the service's Windows installer, since devices like the ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go run Windows. Some note that GeForce Now is already installed on devices like the Razer Edge and Logitech G Cloud.
But Steam Deck types are special. We get a Unix-style executable script, a folder with all the necessary Steam icon image assets, and a README.md file.
Wear OS’s big comeback continues; might hit half of Apple Watch sales
Enlarge / The Samsung Watch 6 classic. (credit: Samsung)
Wear OS was nearly dead a few years ago but is now on a remarkable comeback trajectory, thanks to renewed commitment from Google and a hardware team-up with Samsung. Wear OS is still in a distant second place compared to the Apple Watch, but a new Counterpoint Research report has the wearable OS at 21 percent market share, with the OS expected to hit 27 percent in 2024.
Counterpoint's market segmentation for this report is basically "smartwatches with an app store," so it excludes cheaper fitness bands and other, more simple electronic watches. We're also focusing on the non-China market for now. The report has Apple's market share at 53 percent and expects it to fall to 49 percent in 2024. The "Other" category is at 26 percent currently. That "Other" group would have to be Garmin watches, a few remaining Fitbit smartwatches like the Versa and Ionic, and Amazfit watches. Counterpoint expects the whole market (including China) to grow 15 percent in 2024 and that a "major part" of the growth will be non-Apple watches. Counterpoint lists Samsung as the major Wear OS driver, with OnePlus, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Google getting shout-outs too.
2023 are actual numbers, while 2024 is a forecast. (credit: Counterpoint Research)
China is a completely different world, with Huawei's HarmonyOS currently dominating with 48 percent. Counterpoint expects the OS's smartwatch market share to grow to 61 percent this year. Under the hood, HarmonyOS-for-smartwatches is an Android fork, and for hardware, the company is gearing up to launch an Apple Watch clone. Apple is only at 28 percent in China, and Wear OS is relegated to somewhere in the "Other" category. There's no Play Store in China, so Wear OS is less appealing, but some Chinese brands like Xiaomi and Oppo are still building Wear OS watches.
Hades II’s new combat options enhance an already great game
Enlarge / New gods, same old drama. (credit: Supergiant)
Here at Ars, we were obviously excited by the late 2022 announcement of Hades II as a follow-up to our favorite game of 2020. But when early coverage of that sequel suggested major changes to the game's core combat, we were a bit worried that the developers at Supergiant risked messing up the core gameplay loop that made the original game so satisfying.
So far, it seems like those worries were unfounded. After spending a few hours playing through the game's recent technical test—which covers content up through the game's first major "boss" character—we found a confident sequel that keeps the original games familiar flow while adding just enough changes to avoid feeling like a rehash. If anything, the new systems in Hades II make the original game's positional combat more satisfying than ever.
Spoiler warning: The rest of this piece offers minor spoilers for the early parts of Hades II.
Maya used hallucinogenic plants in “ensouling” rituals for their ball courts
Enlarge / A decorative ring made from carved stone is embedded in the wall of a ballcourt in the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza. (credit: Kåre Thor Olsen/CC BY-SA 3.0)
It's well-known that the ancient Maya had their own version of ball games, which were played with a rubber ball on stone courts. Such games served not just as athletic events but also religious ones that often involved ritual sacrifices. Archaeologists have now found evidence that the Maya may have blessed newly constructed ball courts in rituals involving plants with hallucinogenic properties, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.
“When they erected a new building, they asked the goodwill of the gods to protect the people inhabiting it,” said co-author David Lentz of the University of Cincinnati. “Some people call it an ensouling ritual, to get a blessing from and appease the gods.” Lentz and his team previously used genetic and pollen analyses of the wild and cultivated plants found in the ancient Maya city Yaxnohcah in what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, revealing evidence of sustainable agriculture and forestry spanning a millennia.
As we've reported previously, there is ample evidence that humans in many cultures throughout history used various hallucinogenic substances in religious ceremonies or shamanic rituals. That includes not just ancient Egypt but also ancient Greek, Vedic, Maya, Inca, and Aztec cultures. The Urarina people who live in the Peruvian Amazon Basin still use a psychoactive brew called ayahuasca in their rituals, and Westerners seeking their own brand of enlightenment have also been known to participate.
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