Galactic neighbor: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a massive panoramic view of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy (Messier 31), which is situated just over 2.5 million light-years away from Earth and is visible to the naked eye under the right conditions. The photomosaic is the largest ever assembled by Hubble, requiring more than 1,000 orbits and over a decade to create. The stunning panorama features over 600 overlapping Hubble images that have been painstaking stitched together. Spread across 2.5 billion pixels, you'll find some 200 million stars all of which are brighter than our own Sun. That is a huge number, yet only a fraction of the estimated one trillion stars in the Andromeda galaxy. Many of Andromeda's less massive stars are beyond Hubble's sensitivity limit and thus, are not represented in the imaged.Data from two surveys the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) program and the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury (PHAST) program was used to construct the mosaic.With it, astronomers will be able to learn more about the age of Andromeda as well as its heavy-element abundance and the stellar masses inside of it. The surveys will also help astronomers understand how Andromeda might have merged with other galaxies in its past."Andromeda's a train wreck. It looks like it has been through some kind of event that caused it to form a lot of stars and then just shut down," said Daniel Weisz at the University of California, Berkeley."This was probably due to a collision with another galaxy in the neighborhood."NASA has multiple sizes of the panoramic available for download, including the full-size 203 MB image (42,208 x 9,870) and a more user friendly 9 MB variant (10,552 x 2,468).Hubble has been in orbit for more than three decades, and continues to provide astronomers with meaningful science data. That said, NASA already has its successor waiting in the wings. // Related StoriesThe Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled to launch by May 2027, will feature a mirror roughly the same size as the one Hubble uses but will be able to capture much higher resolution images. A single Roman exposure will capture the equivalent of at least 100 high-resolution Hubble snaps, according to NASA.

Instantly access to your favorite games on Steam, with thousands of games, exclusive deals, automatic game updates and other great perks. With Steam you can also join the Steam Community of PC gamers, join game groups, form clans, chat in-game and more.Name a few great free games available on Steam...We have two dedicated articles highlighting great titles available for free on Steam, but to name a few popular ones: Counter-Strike, Apex Legends, Lost Ark, PUBG, Destiny 2, War Thunder, Dota 2, Warframe, Team Fortress 2, and World of Warships.Why is Steam so popular?Steam was originally created by Half-Life developer Valve as a platform to update their games and distribute them digitally back in 2003. The service had a slow start, at the time facing competition from brick and mortar stores and physical game copies, but it didn't take long until it became the top digital distribution platform for PC gamers. Over the years Valve has successfully grown a platform that hosts games from most other publishers, studios, and game creators in general.Is there anything better than Steam?Steam remains the biggest PC gaming platform, but there are good alternatives like the Epic Games Store, GOG Galaxy, Uplay, Origin and Itch.io.Does Steam have Fortnite?Fortnite is developed by Epic Games, who have their own competing platform, so Fortnite is not on Steam.Is there a monthly fee for Steam?Absolutely not. Steam is free and the platform makes money through the sale of games and other digital content.How do I install Steam Beta?Opting in to the Steam Beta Client lets you use the latest features before they're released. Follow these instructions to participate in the beta:With Steam running, click on "Steam" in the upper left, then choose the "Settings" menu. (Preferences on Mac)On the "Account" tab under "Beta Participation" click the "Change..." button.Select the "Steam Beta Update" from the drop down list and click "OK".You will be prompted to restart Steam, please select the "Restart Steam" button.Create and Share ContentGift your friends, trade items, and even create new content for games in the Steam Workshop. Help shape the future of your favorite games.Entertainment AnywhereWhether you're on a PC, Mac, Linux box, mobile device, or even your television, you can enjoy the benefits of Steam. Take the fun with you.Available on PC, Mac, and LinuxWe offer a catalog of PC, Mac, and Linux games, many of which support Steam Play so you can buy once and play anywhere, and Cross-Platform Multiplayer so you can play with all your friends, no matter where they log in.What's NewAndroid version updated to 3.9.6Note: This update was re-released on January 21st with the following additional changes:Fixed an issue where dropdown menus would sometimes fail to appear.Fixed "Processing Shaders" status window failing to show during game launch on Linux.Fixed an issue where foreground colors did not apply correctly to Steam Input Virtual menus.Updated localization.GeneralAdded a global setting for improved management of game updates.Added a panel to manage per-game exceptions to the global setting.Added keyboard controls for dropdown lists in the client.Added "View In Library" to the context menu for games on the downloads page.Clicking on the game image of the actively downloading item on the downloads page will now navigate to the game's library page.Updated layout of downloads page for the active item.Improved caching of Soundtrack album covers in library.Improved library asset loading times for large libraries.Fixed Steam Client exiting instead of showing a refresh login dialog if another client session starts playing a game or resumes from suspend in a game session.Fixed Steam Client exiting while running a game if a Steam Deck is resumed while running a non-Steam app.Fixed a case where Steam would prefer to stream from another PC on your local network if the game was installed on both PCs and could be played without streaming.Fixed a stall in games after taking a screenshot for users with very large numbers of local screenshots (10's of thousands).Fixed Steam window being draggable from left and right edges when maximized on the Store/Community view.LibraryFixed friends showing multiple times in the "In-Game" section if they also had the game on their wishlist.Game RecordingImproved error messages for limited accounts sharing messages in chat or via the share menu.Fixed OpenGL games failing to record on Linux.Fixed issue which prevented audio capture from some games on Windows 11 24H2.Steam OverlayAdded support for bookmarks saved per game in the overlay browser.Improved reliability of saving for notes.Fixed scroll position, selection, and undo history getting lost when switching between notes.When editing notes, the "Insert Link" button can now edit links as well, and can be opened with ctrl-k.The toolbar buttons in notes will now display the associated keyboard shortcut in their tooltips.Remote PlayFixed Remote Play Together session not fully starting for some games running on macOS host systems.Big Picture ModeUpdated suspend animation when not on Steam Deck.Fixed several issues where navigation could get stuck behind menus or dialogs.Fixed an issue where the guide button would open the menu in the main steam window instead of in the game overlay.Fixed cases where repeatedly accessing the controller configurator in the overlay would leave extra instances of it in the backstack after exiting the game.macOSAdded "End of Life" alert for macOS 10.15 ("Catalina"). Steam Client support for these operating systems will end on February 15th, 2025 at 10am. See here for additional details.Fixed game recording failures on Apple Silicon Macs when recording native games.Fixed audio in Remote Play Together sessions when streaming a native game from an Apple Silicon Mac.Fixed mouse input to Steam Overlay not working for some multi-display configurations.LinuxFixed a case where Steam could permanently inhibit the screensaver if it crashed while holding the screensaver lock.Fixed potential crash when exiting a game if Game Recording is enabled on systems with recent versions of pipewire.Fixed high single core CPU usage for users with large libraries during Steam startup.Fixed a rare issue which resulted in a GetTimelineLoaderForGame() error showing in the in-game overlay.Fixed crash in games using Steam P2P Voice Chat.Fixed a crash in the game recording viewer caused by unstable vaapi drivers (disable GPU in recording settings).Fixed a case where navigation menus stopped showing after closing a game.Fixed a rare crash when hotplugging a mouse and keyboard.Steam InputReduced overhead/latency of controller input in Big Picture Mode and Virtual Menus.Slightly reduced steady-state CPU usage of Steam Input overall.Added visualization of mode shifts to the Preview Layout page.Added the ability to have a mode shift without needing to have a mode already on a source.Added Nintendo Switch controller configurations to the options shown by default for the Wireless HORIPAD for Steam so that gyro configurations are more easily found.Made the "Choose a Configuration" page remember which tab you were on when returning from previewing a configuration.Made the "Choose a Configuration" page remember the setting to show/hide configurations from other controller types.In Options->Controller->Calibration & Advanced Settings->Gyro Calibration, the gamepad Pitch, Yaw, and roll ion rotation now come from the internal quaternion that drives many of the new "Gyro to..." modes, and Steam Input api's GetMotionData.Gyro Drift Corrections now save during successful manual calibration, rather than only when exiting Steam.Fixed some Linux-specific crashes.Fixed a crash at startup when certain analog keyboards are connected.Fixed not being able to use "Export Layout->Save New Layout" when using a "Sharable Personal Layout".Fixed an issue where previewing a configuration, then editing your original configuration could corrupt it.Fixed a case where the title of the configuration in the summary screen would break after making an edit.Fixed a case where inputs with multiple bindings would show up as [object] [object] after removing a binding.Fixed SIAPI trigger bindings sometimes not working when bound to buttons.Fixed Gyro as Joystick mode ignoring sensitivity settings.Fixed a case where mode shift bindings leftover from a bug in 2019 could activate a mode shift that was disabled in the UI.Fixed detecting thumbsticks that have been mapped to a D-pad in controller setup.Fixed the left/right trigger soft pull showing in the mode shift button dropdown as "none".Fixed the mode shift button sometimes not having a localization token in the summary page.Fixed virtual menus showing as "Create Touch Menu" instead of "Touch Menu" in the summary page.

Table of ContentsTable of ContentsWhere to find Heartfelt Thoughts in Infinity NikkiHow to get Heartshine in Infinity NikkiThere are many items and materials in Infinity Nikki that are difficult to come by, and sometimes the open-world gacha game won't outright tell you where to get these items. While something like Floof Yarn is easy to come by, Dawn Fluff is only obtainable once per day and isn't easy to find.Recommended VideosDifficultyEasyDuration5 minutesBut for Heartfelt Thoughts, and even its more common version Calm Thoughts, it's not as easy to initially spot if you don't know where to look. You'll need Heartfelt Thoughts if you're itching to evolve some of your 5-star outfits, so here's how to get them in Infinity Nikki.Like its counterpart Calm Thoughts (meant for 4-star outfit evolving), there is only one way to farm Heartfelt Thoughts, and its by engaging in a certain Realm Challenge that only unlocks for you once you've beat Chapter 7 of the main campaign.Step 1: Interact with any Warp Spire and select Realm of Breakthrough. You will only be able to access this Realm Challenge if you've made it to Chapter 8 and beat Chapter 7 of the main story.InFold GamesStep 2: Select Phantom Trial: Wish Master Chigda, then challenge this boss. You will have to beat the boss again to collect your reward, but you can only do this challenge once per week.InFold GamesRelatedStep 3: After you complete the challenge, you should get a random amount of Heartfelt Thoughts, alongside Calm Thoughts and even Eurekas. Now take these rewards to the Evolution menu from your Pear-Pal.InFold GamesStep 4: Select any 5-star outfit and see if you have enough Heartfelt Thoughts to evolve it to its next level. Evolving an outfit grants you new color variations. You can even use Heartfelt Thoughts to evolve Miracle Outfits like Wishful Aurosa and Silvergale's Aria. 4-star outfits require Calm Thoughts, which you'll get more often through the Realm of Breakthrough.InFold GamesSome 5-star outfits require Heartshine to evolve. You can only come by this material in a completely different way that Heartfelt and Calm Thoughts.Step 1: Head to the Resonance menu from your Pear-Pal and look at the Distant Sea banner. This is the permanent banner. Then select the box icon on the right-hand side that says Deep Echoes.InFold GamesStep 2: You'll notice that after a certain amount of draws from the Distant Sea banner, you can obtain a Heartshine. You'll need to pull at least 715 times from this banner to get a total of eight Heartshine. After pulling 185 times, you'll obtain your first Heartshine.InFold GamesEditors Recommendations

Netflix is one of the most popular streaming services in the world, with over 280 million subscribers. And just what do those people tend to watch? In particular, what is the most popular movie on Netflix? Each week, the streaming service releases a list of its 10 most-watched movies over a recent seven-day period to keep subscribers in the loop regarding its most popular titles.Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz have returned to the top of Netflix with their new movie,Back in Action. The action comedy earned the best opening weekend for an English-language film since 2022sThe Adam Project. The other new movie in the top 10 is Hereditary, a terrifying horror by Ari Aster. Below, weve listed the top 10 movies in the U.S. from January 13 to January 19, along with general information about each film, such as genre, rating, cast, and synopsis.Recommended VideosLooking for something else? Weve also rounded up the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Amazon Prime, and the best movies on Disney+. For Netflix fans, check out the 10 most popular shows on Netflix right now.RelatedEditors Recommendations

Spains Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the EU should put an end to anonymity of users in social media platforms and hold their CEOs personally accountable if they fail to comply with the blocs regulations.

The billionaire wrote on social media that the companies behind the project dont have enough money to follow through on their pledges.

Fellowship of the dollars Trump announces $500B Stargate AI infrastructure project with AGI aims Trump: "The largest AI infrastructure project in history, and it's taking place here in America." Benj Edwards Jan 22, 2025 10:20 am | 77 US President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House while SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, Oracle CTO Larry Ellison, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman look on on January 21, 2025, in Washington, DC. Credit: Andrew Harnik via Getty Images US President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House while SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, Oracle CTO Larry Ellison, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman look on on January 21, 2025, in Washington, DC. Credit: Andrew Harnik via Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOn Tuesday, OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX announced plans to form Stargate, a new company that will invest $500 billion in AI computing infrastructure across the United States over four years. The announcement came during a White House meeting with President Donald Trump, who called it the "largest AI infrastructure project in history."The goal is to kickstart building more data centers to expand computing capacity for current and future AI projects, including OpenAI's goal of "AGI," which the company defines as a highly autonomous AI system that "outperforms humans at most economically valuable work.""This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world," wrote OpenAI in a press statement. "This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies."The project will start with a $100 billion investment to construct data centers and computing systems. Oracle has begun building the first facility, a 1 million-square-foot data center in Texas. The companies expect Stargate to create 100,000 US jobs.SoftBank will handle financial operations while OpenAI manages technical operations. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank's CEO, will serve as chairman.The partnership includes technology collaborations with Arm, Microsoft, and Nvidia. Notably, MGX is part of Abu Dhabi's push into AI investments, backed by substantial sovereign wealth from the United Arab Emirates. Video of the Stargate announcement conference at the White House. Despite optimism from the companies involved, as CNN reports, past presidential investment announcements have yielded mixed results. In 2017, Trump and Foxconn unveiled plans for a $10 billion Wisconsin electronics factory promising 13,000 jobs. The project later scaled back to a $672 million investment with fewer than 1,500 positions. The facility now operates as a Microsoft AI data center.The Stargate announcement wasn't Trump's only major AI move announced this week. It follows the newly inaugurated US president's reversal of a 2023 Biden executive order on AI risk monitoring and regulation.Altman speaks, Musk respondsOn Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared at a White House press conference alongside Present Trump, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to announce Stargate.Altman said he thinks Stargate represents "the most important project of this era," allowing AGI to emerge in the United States. He believes that future AI technology could create hundreds of thousands of jobs. "We wouldn't be able to do this without you, Mr. President," Altman added.Responding to off-camera questions from Trump about AI's potential to spur scientific development, Altman said he believes AI will accelerate the discoveries for cures of diseases like cancer and heart disease. Screenshots of Elon Musk challenging the Stargate announcement on X. Meanwhile on X, Trump ally and frequent Altman foe Elon Musk immediately attacked the Stargate plan, writing, "They don't actually have the money," and following up with a claim that we cannot yet substantiate, saying, "SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority."Musk's criticism has complex implications given his very close ties to Trump, his history of litigating against OpenAI (which he co-founded and later left), and his own goals with his xAI company.Benj EdwardsSenior AI ReporterBenj EdwardsSenior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 77 Comments

THE IDEAL DDOS TOOL The Internet is (once again) awash with IoT botnets delivering record DDoSes Bigger, badder DDoSes are flooding the Internet. Dismal IoT security is largely to blame. Dan Goodin Jan 22, 2025 10:10 am | 7 Credit: Getty Images Credit: Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWere only three weeks into 2025, and its already shaping up to be the year of Internet of Things-driven DDoSes. Reports are rolling in of threat actors infecting thousands of home and office routers, web cameras, and other Internet-connected devices.Here is a sampling of research released since the first of the year.Lax security, ample bandwidthA post on Tuesday from content-delivery network Cloudflare reported on a recent distributed denial-of-service attack that delivered 5.6 terabits per second of junk traffica new record for the largest DDoS ever reported. The deluge, directed at an unnamed Cloudflare customer, came from 13,000 IoT devices infected by a variant of Mirai, a potent piece of malware with a long history of delivering massive DDoSes of once-unimaginable sizes.The same day, security company Qualys published research detailing a "large-scale, ongoing operation" dubbed the Murdoc Botnet. It exploits vulnerabilities to install a Mirai variant, primarily on AVTECH Cameras and Huawei HG532 routers. Late Tuesday afternoon, searches like this one indicated devices on more than 1,500 IP addresses were compromised, up from a figure of 1,300 reported a few hours earlier by Qualys. These devices are also waging DDoSes. Its unknown if Cloudflare and Qualys are reporting on the same botnet.Last week, security company Trend Micro said it also found an IoT botnet. The botnet, which is driven by variants of Mirai and a similar malware family known as Bashlite, has been delivering large-scale DDoSes since the end of last year, primarily to targets in Japan.A report early last week from security firm Infoblox revealed a botnet comprising 13,000 devicesmostly routers manufactured by MikroTikthat researchers likened to a large cannon, poised and ready to unleash a barrage of malicious activities. The primary activity Infoblox has observed from this botnet is a flood of malicious spam emails that attempt to trick recipients into executing malicious file attachments.On January 7, researchers at China-based security firm Xlab said they've been tracking an IoT botnet since last February. The botnet, named with an offensive term, was mostly unremarkable until later in the year when it began targeting zero-day and recently fixed n-day vulnerabilities to infect more devices. By November, it began exploiting a zero-day in industrial routers sold by Four-Faith and unknown vulnerabilities in routers sold by Neterbit and in smart home devices from Vimar. The botnet comprises on average 15,000 compromised devices, mostly located in China, the United States, Iran, Russia, and Turkey. Threat actors are using it to wage DDoSes.IoT devices are an ideal DDoS tool from the standpoint of an attacker. They typically ship running a version of Linux that is missing months, if not years, of security updates; infections are difficult to detect; and the devices often have lots of available bandwidth. In 2016when IoT botnets were a new phenomenonthey were observed delivering DDoSes as high as 1Tbps, a once-unimaginable size. Cloudflares revelation on Tuesday that it observed and blocked an IoT botnet delivering a DDoS more than five times bigger indicates that these attacks continue to grow more potent.A Cloudflare spokesperson said in an email that the attack was delivered not just by IoT devices but also virtual machines hosted inside cloud environments. The hybrid approach may be one example of the growing evolution of botnets in the race to create larger DDoSes.The most effective way to protect IoT devices from compromise is to replace all default passwords with long, randomly generated ones that are unique to each device. Turning off remote management is also a good move when possible. And as always, installing security updates promptly is a must.Dan GoodinSenior Security EditorDan GoodinSenior Security Editor Dan Goodin is Senior Security Editor at Ars Technica, where he oversees coverage of malware, computer espionage, botnets, hardware hacking, encryption, and passwords. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and following the independent music scene. Dan is based in San Francisco. Follow him at here on Mastodon and here on Bluesky. Contact him on Signal at DanArs.82. 7 Comments

A generic drug is pharmacologically identical to its counterpart branded medicationAegeanBlue/Getty ImagesDrugs seem to cause worse side effects if people think they are cheap. This finding could encourage doctors to explain to people that treatments can be effective and safe regardless of whether they are trademarked brands or less expensive copies.Most people have heard of the placebo effect, says Kate Faasse at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Its this idea that you can take a sugar pill, think it will work, and its going to cause health improvement.

SpaceThe physicist trying to build humanity's lunar future with moon dirtWhen it comes to sending humans back to the moon, knowing how to work with the regolith that coats the ground will be make-or-break. Phil Metzger is studying how to mitigate its dangers and use it as a crucial resource 22 January 2025 Paul RydingAny astronauts reaching the surface of the moon will be greeted first by a plume of dirt, sent flying by the boosters of their spacecraft. They will emerge and put bootprints in the dirt, take samples and study the dirt, and eventually they may use the dirt to make the fuel and other supplies needed to maintain a long-term lunar presence. When it comes to exploring the moon, its all about dirt.Planetary physicist Philip Metzger at the University of Central Florida is the king of moon dirt, or regolith. In 2013, he cofounded a group of research labs at NASAs Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where research teams spend their days working with artificial lunar regolith, like the sample pictured below, to learn how it behaves and what we will be able to do with it. With NASAs Artemis programme aiming to put humans back on the surface of the moon in 2027 and eventually set up a permanent base there, that knowledge is becoming increasingly important.Regolith will be both a danger to astronauts as they land and a crucial resource as they build. Metzger works with scientists at a variety of labs who are figuring out how to protect astronauts and their dwellings from the pointy, perilous dust grains and how to use the dirt to make rocket fuel and radiation shielding.He spoke to New Scientist about what a permanent human presence on the moon might look like, why regolith is so important to that vision and how understanding this thick