Some companies can still keep a secret A look at the Switch 2s initial games, both familiar and what-the-heck A bit of early 2020s triple-A, some neat originals, and two wild arrivals. Kevin Purdy Apr 2, 2025 3:20 pm | 15 Credit: FromSoftware Credit: FromSoftware Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreI don't think anybody outside Nintendo or FromSoftware was expecting a spiritual successor to Bloodborne to be one of the titles announced at the Nintendo Switch 2's launch today. Not just "playable" on the Switch 2, but exclusive to it. But there it was, The Duskbloods, debuting its dread horror action just a few minutes before the luminously pink and puffy Kirby Air Ride 2.The Switch 2's launch titles, and other announced games, are quite the rich stew. Here are some of the AAA ports, exclusives, and unexpectedly gruesome games arriving on the just-announced system.Switch exclusives, including Nintendos own Riding it like he stole it (in 2003). Credit: Nintendo Riding it like he stole it (in 2003). Credit: Nintendo We'll get to FromSoftware's surprising Switch 2 exclusive in a bit. Far less surprising is a new Mario Kart game, as Mario Kart 8sold more than 67 million copies, covering more than 40 percent of all Switches sold. Mario Kart World goes big, with 24 simultaneous players, and the ability to explore off the course in a kind of open-world setting.These are the other Switch 2 exclusives Nintendo touted today:Kirby Air Riders, a sequel to the 2003 GameCube titleKirby's Air Ride, puts the adorable pink inhalation monster and his friends on jet-powered stars.Donkey Kong Bananza has the big guy doing his usual 3D/2D platforming, but also digging into mines.Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonmenthas Koei Tecmo and Nintendo putting a prequel story toTears of the Kingdom into theDynasty Warriorsmass slash-em-up mold.Drag x Driveuses both the Joy-Con's mouse mode and motion controls for moving, shooting, and even waving to your teammates for the ball in a stylized wheelchair basketball match.Along with those Switch 2-only titles, Nintendo is offering "Switch 2 editions" of many titles for the original Switch, including the not-yet-released Pokmon Legends Z-A, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and Civilization 7. Existing titles Super Mario Party Jamboree, theZelda games Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, andKirby and the Forgotten Landwill have both Switch 2 Editions and upgrade packs for original Switch title owners.You can read a lot more about original Switch games' compatibility on the Switch 2, "Editions," and upgrade packs elsewhere in Ars' Switch 2 launch coverage.AAA games of recent vintage Switch 2's "Partner Spotlight," Part 1 With the promise of new hardware capable of 1080p, 120 frames per second, HDR, and even mouse capabilities, the Switch 2 is getting attention from developers eager to make up for lost timeand stake out a place on a sequel to the system that sold more than 150 million hardware units.Elden Ring Tarnished Edition,Yakuza 0,Hitman: World of Assassination,Cyberpunk 2077, Street Fighter 6, Hogwarts Legacy, andFinal Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade stood out as games from the near-to-middle past slated to arrive on the Switch 2.Final Fantasy 7 Remake,Street Fighter 6, Civilization 7, andCyberpunk 2077 are due to arrive at launch on June 5, with the rest arriving in 2025.Notable independents (most notably Silksong) Proof of life. Credit: Nintendo/Team Cherry Proof of life. Credit: Nintendo/Team Cherry The cruel games industry joke, ever sinceSilksong's announcement in 2019, is that the game, originally intended as DLC for acclaimed platformer/MetroidvaniaHollow Knight, is always due to be announced, never gets announced, and resumes torturing its expectant fans.But there it was, for a blip of a moment in the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal:Silksong, coming in "2025." That's all that is known: it will, purportedly, arrive on this console in 2025. It was initially due to arrive on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox when it was announced, but that remains to be seen.Another delayed indie gem,Deltarune, a kinda-sequel to Undertale, purports to land all four chapters of its parallel story on Switch 2 at the console's launch.Other notable games from across the studio-size spectrum:Hades 2(2025)Split Fiction (at launch)Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster(at launch)Enter the Gungeon 2 ("Coming soon")Two Point Museum (2025)Human Fall Flat 2("Coming soon")The legally distinct game that sure looks like Bloodborne 2 The hero of this sanguine tale. FromSoftware The hero of this sanguine tale. FromSoftware Everybody's excited about the Switch 2, even this person. FromSoftware Everybody's excited about the Switch 2, even this person. FromSoftware Dig in, it's an unexpectedly rich feast. FromSoftware Dig in, it's an unexpectedly rich feast. FromSoftware Everybody's excited about the Switch 2, even this person. FromSoftware Dig in, it's an unexpectedly rich feast. FromSoftware The next original game from FromSoftware, maker of beautifully realized finger-torture titles like Elden Ring and theDark Souls series, is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive,The Duskbloods. The trailer, with its gore-etched hands, gothic churches, and eldritch/Victorian machinery, certainly stood out from the Kirby andDonkey Kong games around it. The game arrives sometime in 2026.The Duskbloods announcement from the Switch 2 launch event. It's not FromSoftware's first visit to the Switch, as it broughtDark Souls Remasteredto the original in 2018. But it's the first console exclusive the successful studio has made sinceBloodborne, the 10-year-old PlayStation 4 title that remains available only on the PS4 and PS5, despite clamoring for a PC port or other re-release of many fans' favorite FromSoftware title. Sony, the publisher ofBloodborne, has yet to indicate it intends to release the game wider or even remaster it, while director Hidetaka Miyazaki has said he's keen on it but is hamstrung by Sony.FromSoftware does not typically go for direct sequelseven the multiplayer co-op Elden Ring: Nightreignplays very differently than its single-player predecessor. But the looks, name, and guns of The Duskbloods has even the most devoted Bloodborne fans optimistic that has, all along, been quietly hearing them. The Is Bloodborne on PC account on X posted after today's Switch event that, "I wanted to make an April Fools post about the Nintendo event today but the only fool would have been me. 2 Blood 2 Borne here we go!"An X post by Nintendo citesDuskbloods as multiplayer, and a translation of the game's website implies co-op play versus enemies. This would suggest that, likeNightreign, single-player may not be the focus, or it could not be available at all, though the latter would be surprising.While being a Nintendo exclusive will likely cut off future generations of fans from playing The Duskbloods on newer hardware or different platforms, that is seemingly just the price to pay for more blood-driven boss fights.Kevin PurdySenior Technology ReporterKevin PurdySenior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 15 Comments

A New Chapter for Google AI Google shakes up Gemini leadership, Google Labs head taking the reins With fresh leadership, Google aims to create new products based on Gemini. Ryan Whitwam Apr 2, 2025 3:40 pm | 5 Credit: Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Credit: Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOn the heels of releasing its most capable AI model yet, Google is making some changes to the Gemini team. A new report from Semafor reveals that longtime Googler Sissie Hsiao will step down from her role leading the Gemini team effective immediately. In her place, Google is appointing Josh Woodward, who currently leads Google Labs.According to a memo from DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, this change is designed to "sharpen our focus on the next evolution of the Gemini app." This new responsibility won't take Woodward away from his role at Google Labshe will remain in charge of that division while leading the Gemini team.Meanwhile, Hsiao says in a message to employees that she is happy with "Chapter 1" of the Bard story and is optimistic for Woodward's "Chapter 2." Hsiao won't be involved in Google's AI efforts for nowshe's opted to take some time off before returning to Google in a new role.Hsiao has been at Google for 19 years and was tasked with building Google's chatbot in 2022. At the time, Google was reeling after ChatGPT took the world by storm using the very transformer architecture that Google originally invented. Initially, the team's chatbot efforts were known as Bard before being unified under the Gemini brand at the end of 2023.This process has been a bit of a slog, with Google's models improving slowly while simultaneously worming their way into many beloved products. However, the sense inside the company is that Gemini has turned a corner with 2.5 Pro. While this model is still in the experimental stage, it has bested other models in academic benchmarks and has blown right past them in all-important vibemarks like LM Arena.In his role leading Google Labs, Woodward oversaw the launch of Notebook LM, a popular generative AI tool that can provide answers and analysis based on user-supplied data. It can also generate a "podcast" style conversation based on the data that is both informative and creepy. This capability was recently added to the Gemini Deep Research tool. A demo of Google's Project Mariner, which was developed by Woodward's group. In addition to working on Notebook LM, Woodwards team was involved with Google's Project Mariner, an experimental AI agent that can control the Chrome browser. Google and other major AI players see agentic systems as the next frontier in AI development, so it does make sense to bring someone with that experience in to lead the Gemini team during this crucial time.Anyone who uses Google products has no doubt seen Gemini in existing apps, but most of Google's Gemini integrations so far boil down to adding a chat window so you can query Gemini about the content in a product like Drive or Gmail. Putting Woodward in charge suggests Google hopes to use the success of Notebook LM as a guide as it begins finding ways to turn its most capable AI model into new AI-powered products. Google may find that people are more receptive to generative AI when it backs a new experience rather than invading the apps they've already been using.Ryan WhitwamSenior Technology ReporterRyan WhitwamSenior Technology Reporter Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he's written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards. 5 Comments

cha-ching $70 and $80 game price tags send an early signal about Switch 2 game pricing Early first-party games are getting bumped up to the $70-to-$80 range. Andrew Cunningham Apr 2, 2025 3:30 pm | 7 Mario Kart World's $80 price tag increase is a significant bump from the current Switch. Credit: Nintendo Mario Kart World's $80 price tag increase is a significant bump from the current Switch. Credit: Nintendo Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreNintendo's Switch 2 presentation gave us pricing for the console ($449 to start) and Nintendo's product pages have given us pricing information for accessories ($80 for a Pro Controller, $90 for another pair of Joy-Cons, and $110 for a replacement dock, sheesh). But what Nintendo didn't mention during the presentation was game pricing, either for standalone Switch 2 titles or the Switch 2 Edition upgrades for existing Switch games.We do have one solid first-party data point for US game pricing:Mario Kart World, the console's flagship launch title, will cost $50 when you buy a digital copy as part of a Switch 2 bundle. But the game will cost $80 when you buy it on its own, $30 more than the pack-in version and $20 more than the usual $60 price for first-party Switch games.That doesn't mean that $80 is the starting price forall Switch 2 games.Donkey Kong Bananza, slated for a near-launch July 17 release, has a $69.99 MSRP, which is more in line with the $70 default for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S games.Nintendo hasn't explained that first-party pricing gap between the two games, but it could reflect Mario Kart World's more involved online multiplayer, or simply be a way to push people on the fence in the direction of the cheaper bundled version.Inflation alone would be enough to justify the price increasesa $60 game in 2017 could cost $78 now (though that's using the overall rate of inflation, and prices have risen more steeply in some corners of the economy than others). But with a new console comes the potential for better and more detailed graphics, and those can take more money to produce, too.The big question mark is how expensive the Switch 2 Edition game upgrades will be, and what the price gap (if any) will be between games likeMetroid Prime 4 orPokmon Legends: Z-Athat are going to launch on both the original Switch and the Switch 2.But we can infer fromMario Kart andDonkey Kong that the pricing for these Switch 2 upgrades will most likely be somewhere in the $10 to $20 rangethe difference between the $60 price of most first-party Switch releases and the $70-to-$80 price for Switch 2 games. Sony charges a similar $10 fee to upgrade from the PS4 to the PS5 editions of games that will run on both consoles.Nintendo will also use some Switch 2 Edition upgrades as a carrot to entice people to the more expensive $50-per-year tier of the Nintendo Switch Online service. The company has already announced that the upgrade packs for Breath of the Wild andTears of the Kingdom will be offered for free to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers. The list of extra benefits for that service now includes additional emulated consoles (Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, and now Gamecube) and paid DLC for both Animal Crossing: New Horizons andMario Kart 8.Andrew CunninghamSenior Technology ReporterAndrew CunninghamSenior Technology Reporter Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. 7 Comments

Losses RFK Jr.s bloodbath at HHS: Blowback grows as losses become clearer "Americans will be sicker and face increased health care costs." Beth Mole Apr 2, 2025 5:26 pm | 63 A sign marks the entrance to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) headquarters building on October 7, 2024, in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty | J. David Ake A sign marks the entrance to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) headquarters building on October 7, 2024, in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty | J. David Ake Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreLast week, Health Secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the Trump administration would hack off nearly a quarter of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees critical agencies including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).The downsizing includes pushing out about 10,000 full-time employees through early retirements, deferred resignations, and other efforts. Another 10,000 will be laid off in a brutal restructuring, bringing the total HHS workforce from 82,000 to 62,000."This will be a painful period," Kennedy said in a video announcement last week. Early yesterday morning, the pain began.It beginsAt the FDAwhich will lose 3,500 employees, about 19 percent of staffsome employees learned they were being laid off from security guards after their badges no longer worked when they showed up to their offices, according to Stat. At CMSwhich will lose 300 employees, about 4 percentlaid-off employees were instructed to file any discrimination complaints they may have with Anita Pinder, identified as the director of CMSs Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights. However, Pinder died last year, The Washington Post noted.At the NIHwhich is set to lose 1,200 employees, about 6 percentnew director Jay Bhattacharya sent and email to staff saying he would implement new policies "humanely," while calling the layoffs a "significant reduction." Five NIH institute directors and at least two other senior leaders have been ousted, in addition to hundreds of lower-level employees. Bhattacharya wrote that the remaining staff will have to find new ways to carry out "key NIH administrative functions, including communications, legislative affairs, procurement, and human resources."At CDCwhich will lose 2,400 employees, about 18 percentthe cuts slashed employees working in chronic disease prevention, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, tuberculosis, global health, environmental health, occupational safety and health, maternal and child health, birth defects, violence prevention, health equity, communications, and science policy.Some leaders and workers at the CDC and NIH were reportedly reassigned or offered transfers to work at the Indian Health Services (IHS), an HHS division that provides medical and health services to Native American tribes. The transfers, which could require employees to move to a remote branch, are seen as another way to force workers out.Among those reportedly offered an IHS reassignment are Jonathan Mermin, the director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, and Jeanne Marrazzo, the director of the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who replaced former director Anthony Fauci."In a matter of just a couple days, we are losing our nations ability to prevent HIV," Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, said in a statement. "The expertise of the staff, along with their decades of leadership, has now been destroyed and cannot be replaced. We will feel the impacts of these decisions for years to come and it will certainly, sadly, translate into an increase in new HIV infections and higher medical costs."Swift backlashOverall, the effects of the sweeping cuts are expected to take time to fully realize. But backlash and concern are mounting quickly.At the FDA, the chief tobacco regulator and dozens of other employees at the agency's tobacco center were among those ousted Tuesday. That includes two entire offices responsible for drafting new tobacco regulations and setting policy, according to the Associated Press."If you make it virtually impossible to create and draft policy, then you are eviscerating the role of the center," Mitch Zeller, the FDAs former tobacco chief, told the AP. "From a public health perspective, it makes absolutely no sense."Over the weekend, dismay grew over the dramatic ouster of the FDA's top vaccine regulator, Peter Marks, who was reportedly given the choice of resigning or being fired. In a searing resignation letter Friday, Marks wrote that "it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary [Kennedy], but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies." Kennedy is a longtime anti-vaccine advocate who is now using his position as the top US health official to spread misinformation and doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.The effects of Marks' departure are already coming to light, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that the agency has now missed its deadline to decide on Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine. According to the Journal's sources, the agency was set to give full approval to Novavaxs shot by the April 1 deadline, but senior FDA leaders are now "sitting on the decision," saying that Novavax needs to provide more data and that the FDA is unlikely to grant approval soon.The cuts and changes at the FDA have made companies nervous. Alex Schriver, senior vice president at the powerful pharmaceutical industry group PhRMA, told Axios that "The rapid and substantial changes at [the Food and Drug Administration] this week raise questions about the agency's ability to fulfill its mission to bring new innovative medicines to patients."Threat to AmericaMeanwhile, NPR reports that at least 40 percent of the staff of the Administration for Community Living, or ACL, were laid off Tuesday. The ACL runs and funds various programs for older and disabled people, including Meals on Wheels."The programs that ACL implements improve the lives of literally tens of millions of older adults, people with disabilities and their families and caregivers," Alison Barkoff, former ACL director under Biden, told NPR. "There's no way to have these RIFs [reductions in force] and not impact the programs and the people who rely on them."The ACL is set to be eliminated, with its responsibilities split across three other HHS divisions, Kennedy announced last week.David Skorton, president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges, noted that the work of HHS "touches the lives of every American." The loss of "critical leaders" is "likely to slow scientific advancement and negatively impact the health and well-being of the American people."In an op-ed Tuesday, Tom Frieden, former CDC director under Obama, called the cuts to the CDC a threat to "Americas health, safety, and economy.""Despite claims of efficiency, these cuts target proven programs that prevent disease and save livesand as a result, Americans will be sicker and face increased health care costs," he wrote.Tracking the effects of the cuts and the health of Americans will also get more difficult under the Trump administration and Kennedy. The majority of the teams handling communications, media relations, and Freedom of Information Act requests at the NIH, CDC, and FDA have also been cut, according to Stat.Beth MoleSenior Health ReporterBeth MoleSenior Health Reporter Beth is Ars Technicas Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes. 63 Comments

another round Male fruit flies drink more alcohol to get females to like them Alcohol makes male fruit flies sexier by stimulating the production of sex pheromones. Jennifer Ouellette Apr 2, 2025 3:50 pm | 20 Credit: Anna Schroll/CC BY-SA Credit: Anna Schroll/CC BY-SA Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreFruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) are tremendously fond of fermented foodstuffs. Technically, it's the yeast they crave, produced by yummy rotting fruit, but they can consume quite a lot of ethanol as a result of that fruity diet. Yes, fruit flies have ultra-fast metabolisms, the better to burn off the booze, but they can still get falling-down drunkso much so, that randy inebriated male fruit flies have been known to court other males by mistake and fail to mate successfully.Then again, apparently adding alcohol to their food increases the production of sex pheromones in male fruit flies, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances. That, in turn, makes them more attractive to the females of the species."We show a direct and positive effect of alcohol consumption on the mating success of male flies," said co-author Ian Keesey of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. "The effect is caused by the fact that alcohol, especially methanol, increases the production of sex pheromones. This in turn makes alcoholic males more attractive to females and ensures a higher mating success rate, whereas the success of drunken male humans with females is likely to be questionable."Fruit flies are the workhorses of modern genetics research, used to study everything from cancer to sleep disorders. They make excellent model systems because they share so many genes with humans, plus they are cheap, easy to breed, and can be genetically altered easily. Many years ago, I had the privilege of visiting the University of California, San Francisco laboratory of behavior geneticist Ulrike Heberlein, who spent years getting fruit flies drunk in an "Inebriometer" to learn about the various genes that influence alcohol tolerance. (Heberlein is now scientific program director and laboratory head at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus.)Driven to drink?For instance, Heberlein co-authored a 2012 paper discussing experimental results that suggested romantic rejection (i.e., "social defeat") could drive male fruit flies to drink. She paired virgin males with females who had already mated for an hour at a time, three times a day, for four straight days. (Mated females will vehemently reject advances from other males, often aggressively so.) Then the males were placed in an alcohol-drinking assay, where they would drink more than twice as much alcohol as male fruit flies in the control group who had successfully mated. Ian Keesey of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, studies fruit flies. Credit: Anna Schroll/CC BY-SA In terms of a mechanism, the rejection seems to decrease levels of a neuropeptide in the brain, which increases after mating, leading Heberlein et al. to conclude that drinking the ethanol activates reward centers in the fruit fly brain. The end goal is to find equivalent mechanisms in the human brain to guide future interventions into human drug and alcohol addiction and abuse.While their latest findings are generally consistent with this and other fruit fly studies, Keesey and his co-authors offer an alternative hypothesis to explain these alcohol-related behaviors in fruit flies. They concluded that fruit flies "are attracted to ethanol (and methanol) not as a means to cope with the negative psychological effects of mate rejection, but rather that flies are driven toward these alcohols to increase their chances for subsequent mating success," they wrote. In other words, rejected male fruit flies chug down alcohol as a strategy to get girls to like them.The researchers studied the behavioral responses of male fruit flies using an experimental apparatus called a Flywalk, in which 15 fruit flies in individual glass tubes lined up in parallel were exposed to odors (including ethanol and methanol) and monitored for their responses to those odors. They also employed imaging techniques to visualize what was happening in those tiny fruit fly brains.The results: In keeping with prior research, male fruit flies who had not yet mated were more drawn to alcohol. Those that consumed methanol showed a marked increase in the levels of pheromones known to be involved with the elaborate fruit fly courtship rituals. And males who had access to natural sources of methanol, like fermented oranges, were more successful in attracting females than males who did not. Of course, when it comes to alcohol, there can be too much of a good thing. Keesey et al. also found that too much methanol can kill the flies."What is unique about our results is that we found not just one, but three neural circuits that we were able to show actually balance each other in terms of this risk assessment, that is, attraction and aversion," said Keesey. "This means that the flies have a control mechanism that allows them to get all the benefits of alcohol consumption without risking alcohol intoxication. That different neural pathways with opposite valence for the same odor are combined to balance attraction and aversion based on physiological state is a rarity."So male fruit flies, essentially, know when they've reached the optimal level of inebriation to attract more females and successfully mate, before they become so intoxicated that they repulse the females, or approach other males by mistake.Science Advances, 2025. DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adi9683 (About DOIs).Jennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 20 Comments

one series, infinite adventures Genres are bustin out all over in Strange New Worlds S3 teaser "We want to give audiences a reflection of their own world through the lens of fantasy." Jennifer Ouellette Apr 2, 2025 3:52 pm | 4 Credit: YouTube/Paramount+ Credit: YouTube/Paramount+ Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreStar Trek: Strange New Worlds returns this summer with ten new episodes. Paramount+ has dropped a tantalizing one-minute teaser for the upcoming third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds., and it looks like the latest adventures of the starship Enterprise will bring romance, comedy, mystery, and even a bit of analog tech, not to mention a brand new villain.(Some spoilers for S2 below)We haven't seen much from the third season to date. There was an exclusive clip during San Diego Comic Con last summera callback to the S2 episode "Charades," in which a higher-dimensional race, the Kerkohvians, accidentally reconfigured Spock's half-human, half-Vulcan physiology to that of a full-blooded human, just before Spock was supposed to meet his Vulcan fiancee's parents. The S3 clip had the situation reversed: The human crew had to make themselves Vulcan to succeed on a new mission but weren't able to change back.The S2 finale found the Enterprise under vicious attack by the Gorn, who were in the midst of invading one of the Federation's colony worlds. Several crew members were kidnapped (La'an, M'Benga, Ortegas, and Sam), along with other survivors of the attack. Pike faced a momentous decision: follow orders to retreat, or disobey them to rescue his crew. In October, we learned that Pike naturally chose the latter. New footage shown at New York City Comic-Con picked up where the finale left off, giving us the kind of harrowing high-stakes pitched space battle against a ferocious enemy that has long been a hallmark of the franchise.In addition to the returning main and recurring cast members, Cillian O'Sullivan joins the recurring cast as Dr. Roger Korby, a legacy character (originally played by Michael Strong). Korby was a renowned archaeologist in the field of medical archaeology, introduced in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" as Nurse Chapel's long-missing fianc. That's bound to cause problems for SNW's Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), who is currently romantically involved with Spock (Ethan Peck). Rhys Darby (Our Flag Means Death) and Patton Oswalt will guest star in as-yet-undisclosed roleswe catch glimpses of both in the teaser. A throwback to classic sci-fi, with "weekly space adventures." YouTube/Paramount+ A throwback to classic sci-fi, with "weekly space adventures." YouTube/Paramount+ Looks like the crew will be solving a groovy murder mystery this season YouTube/Paramount+ Looks like the crew will be solving a groovy murder mystery this season YouTube/Paramount+ Spock and Nurse Chapel are an item now. YouTube/Paramount+ Spock and Nurse Chapel are an item now. YouTube/Paramount+ Looks like the crew will be solving a groovy murder mystery this season YouTube/Paramount+ Spock and Nurse Chapel are an item now. YouTube/Paramount+ Ooh, Patton Oswalt! YouTube/Paramount+ Rhys Darby is looking downright dapper YouTube/Paramount+ Jennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 4 Comments

Tales from the digital commons AI bots strain Wikimedia as bandwidth surges 50% Automated AI bots seeking training data threaten Wikipedia project stability, foundation says. Benj Edwards Apr 2, 2025 1:06 pm | 42 Credit: Carol Yepes and Dana Neibert via Getty Images Credit: Carol Yepes and Dana Neibert via Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOn Tuesday, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that relentless AI scraping is putting strain on Wikipedia's servers. Automated bots seeking AI model training data for LLMs have been vacuuming up terabytes of data, growing the foundation's bandwidth used for downloading multimedia content by 50 percent since January 2024. Its a scenario familiar across the free and open source software (FOSS) community, as we've previously detailed.The Foundation hosts not only Wikipedia but also platforms like Wikimedia Commons, which offers 144 million media files under open licenses. For decades, this content has powered everything from search results to school projects. But since early 2024, AI companies have dramatically increased automated scraping through direct crawling, APIs, and bulk downloads to feed their hungry AI models. This exponential growth in non-human traffic has imposed steep technical and financial costsoften without the attribution that helps sustain Wikimedias volunteer ecosystem.The impact isnt theoretical. The foundation says that when former US President Jimmy Carter died in December 2024, his Wikipedia page predictably drew millions of views. But the real stress came when users simultaneously streamed a 1.5-hour video of a 1980 debate from Wikimedia Commons. The surge doubled Wikimedias normal network traffic, temporarily maxing out several of its Internet connections. Wikimedia engineers quickly rerouted traffic to reduce congestion, but the event revealed a deeper problem: The baseline bandwidth had already been consumed largely by bots scraping media at scale.This behavior is increasingly familiar across the FOSS world. Fedoras Pagure repository blocked all traffic from Brazil after similar scraping incidents covered by Ars Technica. GNOMEs GitLab instance implemented proof-of-work challenges to filter excessive bot access. Read the Docs dramatically cut its bandwidth costs after blocking AI crawlers.Wikimedias internal data explains why this kind of traffic is so costly for open projects. Unlike humans, who tend to view popular and frequently cached articles, bots crawl obscure and less-accessed pages, forcing Wikimedias core datacenters to serve them directly. Caching systems designed for predictable, human browsing behavior dont work when bots are reading the entire archive indiscriminately.As a result, Wikimedia found that bots account for 65 percent of the most expensive requests to its core infrastructure despite making up just 35 percent of total pageviews. This asymmetry is a key technical insight: The cost of a bot request is far higher than a human one, and it adds up fast.Crawlers that evade detectionMaking the situation more difficult, many AI-focused crawlers do not play by established rules. Some ignore robots.txt directives. Others spoof browser user agents to disguise themselves as human visitors. Some even rotate through residential IP addresses to avoid blocking, tactics that have become common enough to force individual developers like Xe Iaso to adopt drastic protective measures for their code repositories.This leaves Wikimedias Site Reliability team in a perpetual state of defense. Every hour spent rate-limiting bots or mitigating traffic surges is time not spent supporting Wikimedias contributors, users, or technical improvements. And its not just content platforms under strain. Developer infrastructure, like Wikimedias code review tools and bug trackers, is also frequently hit by scrapers, further diverting attention and resources.These problems mirror others in the AI scraping ecosystem. Curl developer Daniel Stenberg has detailed how fake, AI-generated bug reports are wasting human time. SourceHuts Drew DeVault has highlighted how bots hammer endpoints like git logs, far beyond what human developers would ever need.Across the Internet, open platforms are experimenting with technical solutions: proof-of-work challenges, slow-response tarpits (like Nepenthes), collaborative crawler blocklists (like "ai.robots.txt"), and commercial tools like Cloudflare's AI Labyrinth. These approaches address the technical mismatch between infrastructure designed for human readers and the industrial-scale demands of AI training.Open commons at riskWikimedia acknowledges the importance of providing "knowledge as a service," and its content is indeed freely licensed. But as the Foundation states plainly, "Our content is free, our infrastructure is not."The organization is now focusing on systemic approaches to this issue under a new initiative: WE5: Responsible Use of Infrastructure. It raises critical questions about guiding developers toward less resource-intensive access methods and establishing sustainable boundaries while preserving openness.The challenge lies in bridging two worlds: open knowledge repositories and commercial AI development. Many companies rely on open knowledge to train commercial models but don't contribute to the infrastructure making that knowledge accessible. This creates a technical imbalance that threatens the sustainability of community-run platforms.Better coordination between AI developers and resource providers could potentially resolve these issues through dedicated APIs, shared infrastructure funding, or more efficient access patterns. Without such practical collaboration, the platforms that have enabled AI advancement may struggle to maintain reliable service. Wikimedia's warning is clear: Freedom of access does not mean freedom from consequences.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. 42 Comments

Trump's Signal man Not just Signal: Michael Waltz reportedly used Gmail for government messages More damaging reports for Trump official who invited journalist to Signal chat. Jon Brodkin Apr 2, 2025 1:46 pm | 50 US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz at the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Jim Watson/AFP US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz at the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Jim Watson/AFP Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreNational Security Advisor Michael Waltz and a senior aide used personal Gmail accounts for government communications, according to a Washington Post report published yesterday.Waltz has been at the center of controversy for weeks because he inadvertently invited The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat in which top Trump administration officials discussed a plan for bombing Houthi targets in Yemen. Yesterday's report of Gmail use and another recent report on additional Signal chats raise more questions about the security of sensitive government communications in the Trump administration.A senior Waltz aide used Gmail "for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict," The Washington Post wrote.The Post said it reviewed the emails. "While the NSC official used his Gmail account, his interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, headers from the email correspondence show," the report said.Waltz himself "had less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents, said officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe what they viewed as problematic handling of information," the report said. "The officials said Waltz would sometimes copy and paste from his schedule into Signal to coordinate meetings and discussions."Separately, The Wall Street Journal described additional Signal chats in a report on Sunday about Waltz losing support inside the White House. "Two US officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national-security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations. They declined to address if any classified information was posted in those chats," the WSJ wrote.We contacted the White House about the reported use of Gmail and Signal today and will update this article if we get a response.Waltzs denials increasingly hard to believeAccording to The Washington Post, National Security Council "spokesman Brian Hughes said he has seen no evidence of Waltz using his personal email as described and said on occasions when 'legacy contacts' have emailed him work-related materials, he makes sure to 'cc' his government email to ensure compliance with federal records laws that require officials to archive official correspondence.""Waltz didn't and wouldn't send classified information on an open account," Hughes was quoted as saying. Hughes also said that Signal is approved for government use but "acknowledged that it is not supposed to be used for classified material and insisted Waltz never used it as such."Trump administration officials previously claimed that no classified information about war plans was shared in the Signal chat that included Goldberg. The Atlantic subsequently published texts showing that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared planned strike times and information about targets and weapons before the attacks in Yemen.The Post wrote that "US officials say Trump is much more upset about the inclusion of a liberal journalist on a confidential group chat than he is about exposing secrets to foreign adversaries. But White House officials have found Waltz's denials increasingly hard to believe."Waltz denied even knowing Goldberg despite a 2021 picture of the two men standing next to each other at an event. Explaining how Goldberg might have been added to the Signal group, Waltz told Fox News, "I'm sure everybody out there has had a contact where it said one person and then a different phone number... if you have somebody else's contact, and then somehow it gets sucked in, it gets sucked in."In response, Goldberg told NBC News, "Well, this isn't The Matrix. Phone numbers don't just get sucked into other phones. I don't know what he's talking about there... He's telling everyone that he's never met me or spoken to me. That's simply not true. I understand why he's doing it but this has become a somewhat farcical situation. There's no subterfuge here. My number was in his phone, he mistakenly added me to the group chatthere we go."Jon BrodkinSenior IT ReporterJon BrodkinSenior IT Reporter Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry. 50 Comments

Revenge of the nerds RIP Val Kilmer: Celebrating cult classic Real Genius is now a moral imperative The 80s comedy has stood the test of time, even inspiring a 2009 Mythbusters episode. Jennifer Ouellette Apr 2, 2025 12:21 pm | 6 Mitch (Gabriel Jarret) and Chris (Val Kilmer) play young science whizzes trying to build a 5-kilowatt laser in the 1985 film Real Genius. Credit: TriStar Pictures Mitch (Gabriel Jarret) and Chris (Val Kilmer) play young science whizzes trying to build a 5-kilowatt laser in the 1985 film Real Genius. Credit: TriStar Pictures Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreActor Val Kilmerstar of Top Gun, The Doors, and Batman Forever, among other roleshas died at the age of 65 of pneumonia, Deadline Hollywood reports.Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 and while chemotherapy and two tracheotomies helped him defeat it, the procedures destroyed his voice. He spoke in a rasp or used an electric voice box for the remainder of his life and largely left acting. (He made a brief cameo in 2022's Top Gun: Maverick, for which his voice was digitally altered.) The 2021 documentary Val, narrated by his son Jack Kilmer, followed his life and health struggles.Kilmer had a reputation for being eccentric and difficult to work with, but he also had his champions, and his talent was undeniable. While working with Val on Heat, I always marveled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Vals possessing and expressing character," Michael Mann, who directed the actor in 1995's Heat, told Deadline. "After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.Sure, there were some stinkers over the course of Kilmer's career, but he leaves behind an impressive list of roles that have stood the test of time. His portrayal of rock star Jim Morrison in The Doors (1991) was widely praised, as was his work in the 2004 black comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang opposite Robert Downey, Jr.And who could forget his deliciously profligate Doc Holliday ("I'll be your Huckleberry") in 1993's Tombstone or his colorful turn as Elvis Presley in True Romance that same year? Then there was the cocky "Iceman" opposite Tom Cruise's Maverick in 1986's Top Gunand Madmartigan in the classic fantasy adventure Willow (1988) that turned him into a major star.But here at Ars, we'd like to remember him as Chris Knight in Real Genius, the rebellious, irreverent science whiz kid at the fictional Pacific Tech (a thinly disguised Caltech) who befriends a shy young 15-year-old freshman (Gabriel Jarret). It was only his second feature film role, but Kilmer was unforgettable. So we're re-upping our 2020 tribute to the film in Kilmer's honor.[Original article:]Back to the Future justly dominated the summer box office in 1985, but it's too bad its massive success overshadowed another nerd-friendly gem, Real Genius,which debuted one month later, on August 9. Now celebrating its 35th anniversary, the film remains one of the most charming, winsome depictions of super-smart science whizzes idealistically hoping to change the world for the better with their work. It also boasts a lot of reasonably accurate sciencea rare occurrence at the time.Real Geniuscame out the same year as the similarly themed filmsWeird Sciencewhich spawned a 1990s TV sitcomand My Science Project, because 1980s Hollywood tended to do things in threes.But I'd argue that Real Genius has better stood the test of time, despite being so quintessentially an '80s filmright down to the many montages set to electronic/synth-pop chart-toppers. The film only grossed$12.9 million domestically against its $8 million budget, compared to $23.8 million domestically for its fellow cult classic,Weird Science.(My Science Project bombed with a paltry$4.1 million.) Reviews were mostly positive, however, and over time it became a sleeper hit via VHS, and later, DVD and streaming platforms.(Spoilers for the 35-year-old film below.)Fifteen-year-old Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret) is a science genius and social outcast at his high school. So he is over the moon when Professor Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton), a star researcher at the fictional Pacific Technical University, stops by the science fair to inform Mitch he's been admitted to the university. Even better, Hathaway has handpicked Mitch to work in his own lab on a laser project. But unbeknownst to Mitch, Hathaway is in league with a covert CIA program to develop a space-based laser weapon called "Crossbow," designed for precisely targeted political assassinations. The only remaining obstacle is the weapon's power source: they need a 5-megawatt laser and are relying on Hathaway to deliver.The first act is a nerdier version of the classic fish-out-of-water tale, as Mitch arrives at Pacific Tech and tries to fit in. His roommate, Chris Knight (Val Kilmer), is a senior who was once a bright young star like Mitch but has since rebelled against the high-pressure academic grind and embraced a goofy YOLO approach to life, urging his fellow students to allow themselves to blow off a little steam now and then. Mitch butts heads with Kent (Robert Prescott), a less gifted older proteg of Hathaway's who is jealous of the attention Mitch receives. He finds friends and allies not just in Chris, but also fellow science nerds "Ick" Ikagami (Mark Kamiyama) and Jordan Cochran (Michelle Meyrink), a hyperactive young woman who rarely stops talking or inventing gadgets, and by her own admission almost never sleeps.Then there is Lazlo Hollyfeld (Jon Gries), a former star student who cracked under the pressure and is now an eccentric hermit living in the dormitory steam tunnels. Fun fact: Lazlo's steam tunnel hideout, accessible through Mitch's closet, is an elaborate homage to Leonardo da Vinci. As depicted when Mitch finally figures out how to gain access, it features a multidirectional elevator built out of a small car controlled by a rotating screw. The car descends to a horizontal track and is propelled forward by a hidden drive chain. The automated scribbler Lazlo uses to submit more than a million entries to the Frito-Lay Sweepstakes was inspired by a sketch in one of Leonardo's notebooks.Eventually, Mitch and Chris succeed in solving the power problem for their laser, only to realize (thanks to Lazlo) that it will be used to build a powerful directed-energy laser weapon. The five of them team up to foil Hathaway's big military test of the system, in their usual eccentrically ingenious way. 15-year-old Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret) is admitted to the fictional "Pacific Tech" to work on lasers. TriStar Pictures 15-year-old Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret) is admitted to the fictional "Pacific Tech" to work on lasers. TriStar Pictures Mitch's rival, Kent (Robert Prescott), and his rather shady mentor, Dr. Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton). TriStar Pictures Mitch's rival, Kent (Robert Prescott), and his rather shady mentor, Dr. Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton). TriStar Pictures Mitch's roommate is the equally brilliant but idiosyncratic Chris Knight (Val Kilmer). TriStar Pictures Mitch's roommate is the equally brilliant but idiosyncratic Chris Knight (Val Kilmer). TriStar Pictures Mitch's rival, Kent (Robert Prescott), and his rather shady mentor, Dr. Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton). TriStar Pictures Mitch's roommate is the equally brilliant but idiosyncratic Chris Knight (Val Kilmer). TriStar Pictures Jordan (Michelle Meyrink) surprises Mitch in the men's room with the sweater she knitted. TriStar Pictures Lazlo Hollyfeld (Jon Gries) is a former genius who cracked and keeps mysteriously going into Mitch's closetand vanishing. TriStar Pictures Mitch discovers the passage to Lazlo's secret lair. TriStar Pictures Conked out. TriStar Pictures Of course Chris sleeps like a pretzel. TriStar Pictures Chris engineers a "pool party" so everyone can let off some steam. TriStar Pictures Jordan and "Ick" Ikagami (Mark Kamiyama) help Chris and Mitch take revenge on Kent. TriStar Pictures "Is that you, Jesus?" TriStar Pictures Yes that is a giant pile of unpopped popcorn in Jerry's foyer. All it needs is a bit of heat. TriStar Pictures Hacking a defense department laser weapon provides that heat. TriStar Pictures Hathaway realizes his system has been hacked. TriStar Pictures The team celebrates a job well done. TriStar Pictures It fell to film consultant Martin A. Gunderson of the University of Southern California (who has a bit part as a math professor) to help ensure that the science and campus culture depicted in the film were plausible, even if certain liberties were taken. Certain details were deliberately left out, according to Director Martha Coolidge, such as those for Mitch's flash-pumped ultraviolet laser at the science fair, and technical details pertaining to a directed-energy laser weapon. ("We didn't want to inspire any lethal tinkering.")I've always appreciated how closely the laboratory laser setups hewed to reality: Gunderson himself provided the blue-green argon laser and tunable dye laser used in those scenes. Chris uses a cube beam splitter to create the laser light show announcing the Tanning Invitational pool party that incurs Hathaway's wrath. That said, a 5-megawatt laserhad certainly not been achieved in 1985. While Chris' construction of a xenon-halogen laser to solve the power problem was purely theoretical at the time, the underlying scientific details were later outlined in a scientific papera fitting example of how science and Hollywood can both benefit from such collaborations.For the "Smart People on Ice" scene, the crew used a frozen volatile gas, pumped through thousands of feet of tubing beneath the corridor flooring that was connected to a refrigeration unit to keep the gas cold. And as Ick explains when Kent asks him what will happen when the ice melts, the frozen gas shifts directly from a solid to a gaseous state, rather than melting into a liquid.Then there is the famous popcorn scene that marks the group's triumph over Hathaway. Mitch, Chris, Ick, Jordan, and Lazlo fill his newly renovated house (accomplished with funds embezzled from his CIA grant) with unpopped popcorn covered in tinfoil. They place a prismatic-like piece of glass on the window sill and hijack the computer during Hathaway's big military test to redirect the laser energy through that window. The kernels start popping, expanding to fill the entire house until it quite literally bursts at the seams.Real Genius movie clip: Jerry's House of Popcorn. In a 2010 interview with the AV Club, Atherton revealed that the studio had six ten-foot-high air poppers devoted to popping popcorn all day for three months, filling a massive storage tank. Since the popcorn had been treated with fire-retardant to keep it from combusting, additional measures had to be taken to ensure the birds didn't eat it. All that popcorn was then carted out to a new subdivision being built in Canyon Country just northwest of Los Angeles and then stuffed inside a Victorian frame house specifically built for the film. That way the crew could pull the whole thing down in the climactic scene with the help of an elaborate network of conveyor belts, hydraulic lifts, airblowers, and vacuum hoses. "Now they'd do it digitally, I guess, but in those days, you had to pop the dang popcorn and put it in a truck and schlep it out to the valley," Atherton said.As evidence of the film's enduring popularity with the nerdy set, the Mythbusters decided to test the feasibility of popping that much popcorn in 2009 with a laser and destroying a house. The initial test went well: the team successfully popped a single kernel wrapped in aluminum foil with a ten-watt laser. Unfortunately, they weren't able to get a sufficiently powerful laser for their scaled-up experiment, relying instead on a large pan used to cook the popcorn via induction heating. They also built a scaled-down model of the house in the film with a piston on the floor pushing popped popcorn upward to see if it could generate sufficient force to break apart the house. Alas, the Mythbusters determined it would require several tons of force. So myth: busted. But it's still an entertaining movie comeuppance.Real Genius is admittedly a bit cheesy. The plot is predictable, the characters are pretty basic, and the dialogue can be clunky. And it goes without saying that the sexually frustrated virgin nerds ogling hot cosmetology students in bikinis during the pool party reflects hopelessly outdated stereotypes on several fronts. But the film still offers smartly silly escapist fare, with a side of solid science for those who care about such things. And its yearning idealism is a good antidote to the current prevailing cynicism.Jennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 6 Comments

work-in-progress Some original Switch games will run better on Switch 2; some wont run at all Some Switch games will get free updates to improve Switch 2 performance. Andrew Cunningham Apr 2, 2025 12:33 pm | 0 Nintendo's Switch 2 console. Credit: Nintendo Nintendo's Switch 2 console. Credit: Nintendo Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWe've known for a few months now that the Nintendo Switch 2 will support backward compatibility for older Nintendo Switch games, and as of today's presentation, we also know that some Switch games will get special Switch 2 Editions that add new features and support higher resolutions and other features.Nintendo's product pages for the Switch add more details, including the status of backward-compatibility testing for original Switch games and a small handful of first-party Switch games that will get "free updates" to enhance them for Switch 2.First, some good news. There will be a second tier of updates for original Switch games that Nintendo says "may improve performance or add support for features such as GameShare in select games." These won't include the extra features or higher resolutions of Switch 2 Edition games, but they'll be available for free, and they ought to improve playability. Nintendo lists a dozen first-party Switch games that will benefit from free Switch 2 updates:ArmsCaptain Toad: Treasure TrackerSuper Mario OdysseySuper Mario 3D World + Bowser's FuryClubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide ClassicsThe Legend of Zelda: Link's AwakeningThe Legend of Zelda: Echoes of WisdomGame Builder GarageNew Super Mario Bros. U DeluxePokmon ScarletPokmon VioletBig Brain Academy: Brain vs. BrainNintendo says "the contents of these free updates will differ depending on the game."Compatibility testing is ongoingWe still don't know whether non-updated Switch games running on the Switch 2 will perform better by virtue of the updated hardware; we'll have to wait to test the console ourselves to know for sure. (There are, for better or worse, many Switch games with performance issues that we could use to test.) The current state of Switch 2 backward compatibility testing. The vast majority of first-party games are good to go; third-party testing is a work in progress. Credit: Nintendo Though Nintendo's plan is to support the vast majority of the Switch library on the Switch 2, there are some games that won't run, some games that will have specific requirements, and others that are still being tested.All of Nintendo's first-party games have passed "basic compatibility testing," meaning they should play more or less as reliably as they do on current Switch hardware. The one incompatible game is the Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 04 VR Kit, which requires you to put the Switch into a cardboard VR headset; since the Switch 2 is a lot bigger than the original Switch, it won't work.Other games, including most of the other Labo stuff, will require the use of original Switch Joy-Cons rather than the updated Switch 2 versions. These games are generally ones that were built specifically around the Joy-Cons, including Ring Fit Adventure, 1-2-Switch, and WarioWare: Move It!Third-party games are more of a work in progress. Nintendo says that roughly 20 percent of the "over 15,000" third-party Switch games have cleared the "no issues found during basic compatibility testing" bar, while the vast majority of the remaining games are still being tested but will at least start up without crashing.There are three other compatibility statuses: games that aren't compatible at all, games that won't start up properly, and games that are playable "with issues in certain parts of the game." Nintendo has published a full list of the games with start-up issues (PDF) and those that will start but have compatibility issues (PDF).The company says it is working to address these issues, "including by working with publishing and developing partners." This implies that some of the problems, whatever they are, can be resolved on Nintendo's end via Switch operating system updates, while others will require patches to be released by developers.For the games where testing is still in progress, Nintendo says it will provide another compatibility update "later in April." So while backward compatibility isn't a foregone conclusion, it seems that Nintendo is evaluating the Switch library pretty comprehensively and wants to make sure that the vast majority of Switch games on the new hardware will run as well as or better than than they do on the original Switch.Andrew CunninghamSenior Technology ReporterAndrew CunninghamSenior Technology Reporter Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. 0 Comments

Magic Unshittification: 3 tech companies that recently made my life better Enshittification is not the only option. Nate Anderson Apr 2, 2025 9:30 am | 0 Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreI've been complaining about tech a lot recently, and I don't apologize for it. Complaining feels great. That feeling of beleaguered, I-against-the-world self-righteousness? Highly underrated.But a little righteous complaint goes a long, long, loooong way. (Just ask my wife.) Too much can be corrosive, it can make you insufferable to others, and it can leave you jaded, as many people, myself included, have become about technology.I had three recent experiences, however, that were each quite small in their way but which reminded me that not everything in the tech world has fallen victim to the forces of "enshittification." Once in a while, technology still feels easy anddare I co-opt the world from Apple's marketing department?even magical.Call it "unshittification."Better DRMArs has complained about DRM since our founding over 25 years ago. As writers and editors ourselves, we certainly get the desire not to have one's work ripped off or repurposed without payment, but even effective DRM imposes annoying costs on those who actually paid the money for the thing.Case in point: I've been teaching myself songwriting, audio production, and mixing for the last 18 months, and part of that process has led me to invest some decent money into Universal Audio products. I bought its stellar and rock-solid-reliable Volt 2 audio interface and then spent much of 2024 snapping up high-quality plugins like Topline Vocal Suite, the Manley Voxbox, and the Electra 88 Rhodes piano. Terrific stuffbut not necessarily cheap.So it was just insulting to find out the hard way that Universal Audio used a variant of the iLok DRM systemitself unfortunately common in the audio industrythat required constant Internet connectivity to function.The iLok ecosystem can be configured in three main ways, authorizing your plugins 1) to a custom iLok USB dongle (which costs $50$70 and requires a USB portplus, you have to remember it at all times), 2) to the local machine you are working on, or 3) to the cloud. Universal Audio allowed only dongle and cloud authorizations, but I figured this wouldn't be a problem because, surely, the system would only need to check in semi-regularly.In fact, the system checked in constantly. Go even a few minutes without Internet access, and all your plugins will disable themselves, leading any mix that uses them to fall apart immediately. Want to work on your laptop during a power outage? Edit some audio on a flight? Use a studio computer thatfor stability, performance, and security reasonsis not generally online? Well, I hope you like dongles.(Some users dothough others have complained that they too can be unstable, they cost extra, and they permanently take up a USB port on your machine.)Universal Audio is a big name in the business, and their users have complained endlessly about this situation, but the response has generally been that machine-based authorization is less secure and therefore not supported.So it was a surprise and delight when, on March 25, Universal Audio saw the light and announced that "by popular demand" it was shifting to local machine or iLok USB authorizations. The cloud option was gone, and a company rep even admitted that cloud monitoring "requires a constant Internet and server connection. [In other words], more resources."In addition, Universal Audio now allows "up to three" simultaneous authorizations of each digital tool, while before you could only have two.The online response appears overwhelmingly positive. As one commenter put it, "Ok, I admit: I thought the 'submit feedback' feature was just there so users would vent without any serious change occurring... I was wrong on that front. Glad to see UA is listening. Good job!"Others stressed just how beneficial the move was for touring musicians who may use various bits of Universal Audio tech on stage or on tour. "For touring musicians and all other people that often work in an offline environment this is awesome!" wrote one commenter. Another added, "iLok dongle on stage is scary and glad that's over with. Power move!"I concur.Better customer serviceLet's stick with the "musical" theme for example No. 2.I purchased Native Instruments' terrific piano library Noire, which sampled the specific grand piano used by Nihls Frahm in both standard and felted formatsand all of it capturing the ambience of Saal 3 in the East Berlin Funkhaus recording facility where Frahm works. The library is one of my favoritesevocative and gorgeous. But I was apparently the victim of fraud.See, I purchased the library secondhand. This is completely legal and explicitly allowed by Native Instruments, though the company needs to get manually involved in the transfer process. I purchased Noire from a UK user who already had a "transfer code" approved by Native Instruments, indicating that the software in question was genuine and available for sale.So I purchased Noire, completed the transfer, and the software showed up in my Native Instruments account. Everything went smoothly, and I was (very gently) rocking out with Noire's felted piano.A few weeks (!) later, I received a note, completely out of the blue, from Native Instruments support. They had removed Noire from my account, they said, because the seller had committed some unspecified fraud, and Native Instruments had transferred my copy of Noire back to the original purchaser.This was extremely uncool. Not only did I have nothing to do with any fraud, nor any reason to think fraud had occurred, but Native Instruments had vetted the software and approved it for transfer, which gave me the confidence to move forward with the purchase. So why was I now the only person to suffer? The original buyer got the plugin restored, the scammer had my money, and Native Instruments hadn't lost anything.There appeared to be little I could do about all this. Sure, I could file a dispute with PayPal and try to claw my money back, but Native Instruments is a German company, andlet's face itI wasn't going to do anything if they decided to screw me out of a purchase they had helped me make. (WellI was going to do something, namely, never purchase from them again. After all, who knew, when they awoke in the morning, if their purchased products would still function?)This may sound like a complaint, but here's the thing: When I made my case to Native Instruments over email, they got back to me in a day or two and agreed to put a free though "not for resale" copy of Noire on my account as a goodwill gesture. This was all conducted politely, in impeccable English, and without undue delay. It felt fair to me, and I'm likely to continue purchasing their excellent sample libraries.Customer service can feel like a lesser priority to most companies, but done right, it actually ensures future sales.Better money-takingFinally, an almost trivial example, but one that worked so smoothly I still remember my feeling of shock. "Where's the catch?" pretty much summed it up.I'm talking, of course, about March Madness, the annual NCAA college basketball tournament. It's a terrific spectacle if you can ignore all the economic questions about overpaid coaches, no-longer-amateur players, recruiting violations, and academic distortions that the big sports programs generate. And my University of North Carolina Tar Heels had juuuust squeaked in this year.Ordinarily, watching the tournament is a nightmare if you don't have a pay-TV package. For years, streaming options were terrible, forcing you to log in with your "TV provider" (i.e., an expensive cable or satellite company) account or otherwise jump through hoops to watch the games, which are generally shown across three or four different TV channels.All I wanted was a simple way to give someone my money. No gimmicks, no intro offers, no "TV provider" BSjust a pure streaming play that puts all the games in one place, for a reasonable fee. When I looked into the situation this year, I was surprised to find that this did now exist, it was easy, and it was cheap.The Max streaming service had all the games, except for those shown on CBS. (You can't have everything, I guess, but I get CBS in HD using an over-the-air antenna.) It was $10 for a month of service. There were no "intro offers," no lock-ins, no "before you go!" pleas, no nothing. Indeed, I didn't even have to create a new account or share a credit card with some new vendor. I just added Max as a "subscription" within Amazon's video app and boomtournament time. It took about four seconds, and it has worked flawlessly.That something this simple could feel revelatory was a good reminder of just how crapified our tech and media ecosystems have become. On my expensive LG OLED TV, for instance, I have to go out of my way to literally prevent my TV from spying on everything that I watch. (Seriously, you should turn this "feature" off. Otherwise, your TV will watch your screen and try to identify everything you watch, then send that data back to whatever group of zombified MBAs thought this was a good idea.) Roku, which provides streaming services to my basement television, is toying with new ads. Every streaming service I've subscribed to has jacked up rates significantly over the last year or so.So just being able to sign up quickly and easily, for 10 bucks, felt frictionless and magical in the way that tech used to do more often. As a bonus, I've been able to watch full episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which I have never seen before.Magic?"Unshittification" is not always the result of "innovation"sometimes it's just about treating people decently. Responding to feedback, personal customer service, and non-gimmicky pricing aren't new or hot technologies, but they are the sort of things that make for satisfied long-term customers.So much tech has fallen victim to algorithms, scale, and monetization that it can be a surprising relief to connect easily with a Real Live Human, one empowered to act on your behalf, or to make a purchase without being part of some constantly upselling "sales funnel." But when it does happen, it feels good. Indeed, in a cynical and atomized age, it feels a tiny bit magical. Listing image: Getty Images Nate AndersonDeputy EditorNate AndersonDeputy Editor Nate is the deputy editor at Ars Technica. His most recent book is In Emergency, Break Glass: What Nietzsche Can Teach Us About Joyful Living in a Tech-Saturated World, which is much funnier than it sounds. 0 Comments

gee, I wonder why? Tesla sales and production slumped heavily in Q1 2025 The numbers are going the wrong way for a company valued on continuing growth. Jonathan M. Gitlin Apr 2, 2025 10:34 am | 0 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - FEBRUARY 22: Demonstrators gather for a protest against Elon Musk and electric car maker Tesla on February 22, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. Credit: David Ryder/Getty Images SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - FEBRUARY 22: Demonstrators gather for a protest against Elon Musk and electric car maker Tesla on February 22, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. Credit: David Ryder/Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreTesla posted its production and sales numbers for the first quarter of 2025 this morning, and they continue the bad news streak for the electric automaker. Tesla produced 362,615 vehicles in total between January and the end of March, a 16.3 percent decrease from the same period in 2024.The drop in sales was a little less bad; unlike this time last year, Tesla was able to more closely match production with demand. As a result, the company delivered 336,681 EVs in Q1, a drop of 12.9 percent compared to Q1 2024.The Models 3 and Y make up the vast majority of Tesla's businessit built 345,454 of them in Q1 2025, a 16.2 percent reduction compared to the same period last year. Despite a recent refresh for the Model Y, which comprised the majority of these two EVs, sales declined by 12.4 percent year-over-year, with just 323,800 being sold, compared to 386,810 for Q1 2024.Things look even worse for the even more outdated Models S and X and the often-recalled Cybertruck. Production for these EVs fell by 18.3 percent year-over-year to 17,161 units in Q1 2025, with sales dropping year-over-year by 24.3 percent to just 12,881.Things were slightly rosier for Tesla's energy storage business, which deployed 10.4 GWh, but this part of the business contributes a small fraction to the bottom line; in 2024, automotive sales accounted for 77 percent of revenues.Much of Tesla's sales collapse has occurred in Europe, where customers are displaying even greater revulsion for CEO Elon Musk's political activity than here in the US. But protests at US Tesla stores are becoming a weekly event, as a majority of Americans disapprove of his interference with the federal government. In the US and abroad, Tesla stores and storage lots have been vandalized and cars have been destroyed. The fall in sales is greater than most market analysts were expectingthey had predicted between 360,000 and 370,000 deliveries for the quarter.These sales numbers are the automaker's worst for several years, but we have to wait until April 22 for the full extent to be revealed, when Tesla publishes its first quarter financial results. Its profit marginwhich briefly rivaled that of OEMs like Ferrari and Porschewas barely half the industry average at just 6.2 percent for Q4 2024.However, it seems that Tesla investors aren't too fazed by these details. Although Tesla was trading below yesterday's closing price at the start of trading this morning, that has steadily been reversing itself, leaving a very long way to go for the price to fall into the $114$100 zone, where it's thought that CEO Musk would face a margin call.Jonathan M. GitlinAutomotive EditorJonathan M. GitlinAutomotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 0 Comments

The real story Starliners flight to the space station was far wilder than most of us thought "Hey, this is a very precarious situation we're in." Eric Berger Apr 1, 2025 1:26 pm | 10 NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore receives a warm welcome at Johnson Space Center's Ellington Field in Houston from NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Woody Hoburg after completing a long-duration science mission aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore receives a warm welcome at Johnson Space Center's Ellington Field in Houston from NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Woody Hoburg after completing a long-duration science mission aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAs it flew up toward the International Space Station last summer, the Starliner spacecraft lost four thrusters. A NASA astronaut, Butch Wilmore, had to take manual control of the vehicle. But as its thrusters failed, Wilmore lost the ability to move Starliner in the direction he wanted to go.He and his fellow astronaut, Suni Williams, knew where they wanted to go. Starliner had flown to within a stone's throw of the space station, a safe harbor if only they could reach it. But already, the failure of so many thrusters violated the mission's flight rules. In such an instance, they were supposed to turn around and come back to Earth. Approaching the station was deemed too risky for Wilmore and Williams, aboard Starliner, as well as the astronauts on the $100 billion space station.But what if it was not safe to come home, either?"I don't know that we can come back to Earth at that point," Wilmore said in an interview. "I don't know if we can. And matter of fact, I'm thinking we probably can't."Starliner astronauts meet with the mediaOn Monday, for the first time since they returned to Earth on a Crew Dragon vehicle two weeks ago, Wilmore and Williams participated in a news conference at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Afterward, they spent hours conducting short, 10-minute interviews with reporters from around the world, describing their mission. I spoke with both.A lot of the questions concerned the politically messy end of the mission, in which the Trump White House claimed it had rescued the astronauts after they were stranded by the Biden administration. This was not true, but it is also not a question that active astronauts are going to answer. They have too much respect for the agency and the White House that appoints its leadership. They are trained not to speak out of school. As Wilmore said repeatedly on Monday, "I can't speak to any of that. Nor would I."And so when Ars met with Wilmore at the end of the dayit was his final interview, scheduled for 4:55 to 5:05 pm in a small studio at Johnson Space Centerpolitics was not on the menu. Instead, I wanted to know the real story, the heretofore untold story of what it was really like to fly Starliner. After all, the problems with the spacecraft's propulsion system precipitated all the other eventsthe decision to fly Starliner home without crew, the reshuffling of the Crew-9 mission, and their recent return in March after nine months in space.I have known Wilmore a little bit for more than a decade. I was privileged to see his launch on a Soyuz rocket, from Kazakhstan in 2014, alongside his family. We both are about to become empty nesters, with daughters who are seniors in high school, soon to go off to college. Perhaps because of this, Wilmore felt comfortable sharing his experiences and anxieties from the flight. We blew through the 10-minute interview slot and ended up talking for nearly half an hour.It's a hell of a story.Launch and a cold nightBoeing's Starliner spacecraft faced multiple delays before the vehicle's first crewed mission, carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched on June 5, 2024. These included a faulty valve on the Atlas V rocket's upper stage, and then a helium leak inside Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.The valve issue, in early May, stood the mission down long enough that Wilmore asked to fly back to Houston for additional time in a flight simulator, to keep his skills fresh. Finally, with fine weather, the Starliner Crew Flight Test took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It marked the first human launch on the Atlas V rocket, which had a new Centaur upper stage with two engines. Suni Williams' first night on Starliner was quite cold. Credit: NASA/Helen Arase Vargas Suni Williams' first night on Starliner was quite cold. Credit: NASA/Helen Arase Vargas Sunita "Suni" Williams: "Oh man, the launch was awesome. Both of us looked at each other like, 'Wow, this is going just perfectly.' So, the ride to space and the orbit insertion burn, all perfect."Barry "Butch" Wilmore: "In simulations, there's always a deviation. Little deviations in your trajectory. And during the launch on Shuttle STS-129 many years ago, and Soyuz, there's the similar type of deviations that you see in this trajectory. I mean, it's always correcting back. But this ULA Atlas was dead on the center. I mean, it was exactly in the crosshairs, all the way. It was much different than what I'd expected or experienced in the past. It was exhilarating. It was fantastic. Yeah, it really was. The dual-engine Centaur did have a surge. I'm not sure ULA knew about it, but it was obvious to us. We were the first to ride it. Initially we asked, 'Should that be doing that? This surging?' But after a while it was kind of soothing. And again, we were flying right down the middle."After Starliner separated from the Atlas V rocket, Williams and Wilmore performed several maneuvering tests, and put the vehicle through its paces. Starliner performed exceptionally well during these initial tests on day one.Wilmore: "The precision, the ability to control to the exact point that I wanted, was great. There was very little, almost imperceptible cross-control. I've never given a handling qualities rating of "one," which was part of a measurement system. To take a qualitative test and make a quantitative assessment. I've never given a one, ever, in any test I've ever done, because nothing's ever deserved a one. Boy, I was tempted in some of the tests we did. I didn't give a one, but it was pretty amazing."Following these tests, the crew attempted to sleep for several hours ahead of their all-important approach and docking with the International Space Station on the flight's second day. More so even than launch or landing, the most challenging part of this mission, which would stress Starliner's handling capabilities as well as its navigation system, would come as it approached the orbiting laboratory.Williams: "The night that we spent there in the spacecraft, it was a little chilly. We had traded off some of our clothes to bring up some equipment up to the space station. So, I had this small T-shirt thing, long-sleeve T-shirt, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I'm cold.' Butch is like, 'I'm cold, too.' So, we ended up actually putting our boots on, and then I put my spacesuit on. And then he's like, maybe I want mine too. So, we both actually got in our spacesuits. It might just be because there were two people in there."Starliner was designed to fly four people to the International Space Station for six-month stays in orbit. But for this initial test flight, there were just two people, which meant less body heat. Wilmore estimated that it was about 50 Fahrenheit in the cabin.Wilmore: "It was definitely low 50s, if not cooler. When you're hustling and bustling, and doing things, all the tests we were doing after launch, we didn't notice it until we slowed down. We purposely didn't take sleeping bags. I was just going to bungee myself to the bulkhead. I had a sweatshirt and some sweatpants, and I thought, I'm going to be fine. No, it was frigid. And I even got inside my space suit, put the boots on and everything, gloves, the whole thing. And it was still cold."Time to dock with the space stationAfter a few hours of fitful sleep, Wilmore decided to get up and start working to get his blood pumping. He reviewed the flight plan and knew this was going to be a big day. Wilmore had been concerned about the performance of the vehicle's reaction control system thrusters. There are 28 of them. Around the perimeter of Starliner's service module, at the aft of the vehicle, there are four "doghouses" equally spaced around the vehicle. Each of these doghouses contains seven small thrusters for maneuvering. In each doghouse, two thrusters are aft-facing, two are forward-facing, and three are in different radial directions (see an image of a doghouse, with the cover removed, here). For docking, these thrusters are essential. There had been some problems with their performance during an uncrewed flight test to the space station in May 2022, and Wilmore had been concerned those issues might crop up again. Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is pictured docked to the International Space Station. One of the four doghouses is visible on the service module. Credit: NASA Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is pictured docked to the International Space Station. One of the four doghouses is visible on the service module. Credit: NASA Wilmore: "Before the flight we had a meeting with a lot of the senior Boeing executives, including the chief engineer. (This was Naveed Hussain, chief engineer for Boeing's Defense, Space, and Security division). Naveed asked me what is my biggest concern? And I said the thrusters and the valves because we'd had failures on the OFT missions. You don't get the hardware back. (Starliner's service module is jettisoned before the crew capsule returns from orbit). So you're just looking at data and engineering judgment to say, 'Okay, it must've been FOD,' (foreign object debris) or whatever the various issues they had. And I said that's what concerns me the most. Because, in my mind I'm thinking, if we lost thrusters, we could be in a situation where we're in space and can't control it. That's what I was thinking. And oh my, what happened? We lost the first thruster."When vehicles approach the space station, they use two imaginary lines to help guide their approach. These are the R-bar, which is a line connecting the space station to the center of Earth. The "R" stands for radius. Then there is the V-bar, which is the velocity vector of the space station. Due to thruster issues, as Starliner neared the V-bar about 260 meters (850 feet) from the space station, Wilmore had to take manual control of the vehicle.Wilmore: "As we get closer to the V-bar, we lose our second thruster. So now we're single fault tolerance for the loss of 6DOF control. You understand that?"Here things get a little more complicated if you've never piloted anything. When Wilmore refers to 6DOF control he means six degrees or freedom, that is the six different movements possible in three-dimensional space: forward/back, up/down, left/right, yaw, pitch, and roll. With Starliner's four doghouses and their various thrusters, a pilot is able to control the spacecraft's movement across these six degrees of freedom. But as Starliner got to within a few hundred meters of the station, a second thruster failed. The condition of being "single fault" tolerant means that the vehicle could sustain just one more thruster failure before being at risk of losing full control of Starliner's movement. This would necessitate a mandatory abort of the docking attempt.Wilmore: "We're single fault tolerant, and I'm thinking, 'Wow, we're supposed to leave the space station.' Because I know the flight rules. I did not know that the flight directors were already in discussions about waiving the flight rule, because we've lost two thrusters. We didn't know why. They just dropped."The heroes in Mission ControlAs part of the Commercial Crew program, the two companies providing transportation services for NASA, SpaceX and Boeing, got to decide who would fly their spacecraft. SpaceX chose to operate its Dragon vehicles out of a control center at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Boeing chose to contract with NASA's Mission Control, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, to fly Starliner. So at this point the vehicle is under the purview of a Flight Director named Ed Van Cise. This was the capstone mission of his 15-year career as a NASA flight director.Wilmore: "Thankfully, these folks are heroes. And please print this. What do heroes look like? Well, heroes put their tank on and they run into a fiery building and pull people out of it. That's a hero. Heroes also sit in their cubicle for decades studying their systems, and knowing their systems front and back. And when there is no time to assess a situation and go and talk to people and ask, 'What do you think?' they know their system so well they come up with a plan on the fly. That is a hero. And there are several of them in Mission Control."From the outside, as Starliner approached the space station last June, we knew little of this. By following NASA's webcast of the docking, it was clear there were some thruster issues, and that Wilmore had to take manual control. But we did not know that in the final minutes before docking, NASA waived the flight rules about loss of thrusters. According to Wilmore and Williams, the drama was only beginning at this point.Wilmore: "We acquired the V-bar, and I took over manual control. And then we lose the third thruster. Now, again, they're all in the same direction. And I'm picturing these thrusters that we're losing. We lost two bottom thrusters. You can lose four thrusters, if they're top and bottom, but you still got the two on this side, you can still maneuver. But if you lose thrusters in off-orthogonal, the bottom and the port, and you've only got starboard and top, you can't control that. It's off-axis. So I'm parsing all this out in my mind, because I understand the system. And we lose two of the bottom thrusters. We've lost a port thruster. And now we're zero-fault tolerant. We're already past the point where we were supposed to leave, and now we're zero-fault tolerant and I'm manual control. And, oh my, the control is sluggish. Compared to the first day, it is not the same spacecraft. Am I able to maintain control? I am. But it is not the same."At this point in the interview, Wilmore went into some wonderful detail.Wilmore: "And this is the part I'm sure you haven't heard. We lost the fourth thruster. Now we've lost 6DOF control. We can't maneuver forward. I still have control, supposedly, on all the other axes. But I'm thinking, the F-18 is a fly-by-wire. You put control into the stick, and the throttle, and it sends the signal to the computer. The computer goes, 'Okay, he wants to do that, let's throw that out aileron a bit. Let's throw that stabilizer a bit. Let's pull the rudder there.' And it's going to maintain balanced flight. I have not even had a reason to think, how does Starliner do this, to maintain a balance?"This is a very precarious situation were inEssentially, Wilmore cannot fully control Starliner any longer. But simply abandoning the docking attempt is not a palatable solution. Just as the thrusters are needed to control the vehicle during the docking process, they're also necessary to position Starliner for its deorbit burn and reentry to Earth's atmosphere. So in Wilmore's mind, he is contemplating whether it is riskier to to approach the space station, or to try to fly back to Earth. Williams was worrying the same thing.Williams: "There was a lot of unsaid communication like, 'Hey, this is a very precarious situation we're in.' I think both of us overwhelmingly felt like it would be really nice to dock to that space station that's right in front of us. We knew that they (Mission Control) were working really hard to be able to keep communication with us, and then be able to send commands. We were both thinking, what if we lose communication with the ground? So, NORDO Con Ops (this means flying a vehicle without a radio), and we didn't talk about it too much, but we already had synced in our mind that we should go to the space station. This is our place that we need to probably go to, to have a conversation because we don't know exactly what is happening, and why the thrusters are falling off, and what the solution would be."Wilmore: "I don't know that we can come back to Earth at that point. I don't know if we can. And matter of fact, I'm thinking we probably can't. So there we are, loss of 6DOF control, four aft thrusters down, and I'm visualizing orbital mechanics. The space station is nose down. So we're not exactly level with the station, but below it. If you're below the station, you're moving faster. That's orbital mechanics. It's going to make you move away from the station. So I'm doing all of this in my mind. I don't know what control I have. What if I lose another thruster? What if we lose comm? What am I going to do?"One of the other challenges at this point, in addition to holding his position relative to the space station, was keeping Starliner's nose pointed directly at the orbital laboratory.Williams: "Starliner is based on a vision system that looks at the space station and uses the space station as a frame of reference. So, if we had started to fall off and lose that, which there's a plus or minus that we can have; we didn't lose the station ever, but we did start to deviate a little bit. I think both of us were getting a little bit nervous then, because the system would've automatically aborted us."After Starliner lost four of its 28 reaction control system thrusters, Van Cise and this team in Houston decided the best chance for success was resetting the failed thrusters. This is, effectively, a fancy way of turning off your computer and rebooting it to try to fix the problem. But it meant Wilmore had to go hands-off from Starliner's controls. Imagine that. You're drifting away from the space station, trying to maintain your position. The station is your only real lifeline, because if you lose the ability to dock, the chance of coming back in one piece is quite low. And now you're being told to take your hands off the controls.Wilmore: "That was not easy to do. I have lived rendezvous orbital dynamics going back decades. (Wilmore is one of only two active NASA astronauts who has experience piloting the space shuttle). Ray Bigonesse is our rendezvous officer. What a motivated individual. Primarily him, but me as well, we worked to develop this manual rendezvous capability over the years. He's a volunteer fireman, and he said, 'Hey, I'm coming off shift at 5:30 Saturday morning, will you meet me in the sim?' So we'd meet on Saturdays. We never got to the point of saying lose four thrusters. Who would've thought that, in the same direction? But we're in there training, doing things, playing around. That was the preparation."All of this training meant Wilmore felt like he was in the best position to fly Starliner, and did not relish the thought of giving up control. But finally, when he thought the spacecraft was temporarily stable enough, Wilmore called down to Mission Control, "Hands off." Almost immediately, flight controllers sent a signal to override Starliner's flight computer, and to fire the thrusters that had been turned off. Two of the four thrusters came back online.Wilmore: "Now we're back to single-fault tolerant. But then we lose a fifth jet. What if we'd have lost that fifth jet while those other four were still down? I have no idea what would've happened. I attribute to the providence of Lord getting those two jets back before that fifth one failed. So we're down to zero-fault tolerant again. I can still maintain control. Again, sluggish. Not only was the control different on the visual, what inputs and what it looked like, but we could hear it. The valve opening and closing. When a thruster would fire it was like a machine gun."Were probably not flying home in StarlinerMission Control decides that it wants to try to recover the failed thrusters again. After Wilmore takes his hands off the controls, this process recovers all but one of them. At this point, the vehicle can be flown autonomously, as it was intended to be. When asked to give up control of the vehicle for its final approach to the station, Wilmore said he was apprehensive about doing so. He was concerned that if the system went into automation mode, it may not be possible to get it back in manual mode. After all that had happened, he wanted to make sure he could take control of Starliner again. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams landed in a Crew Dragon spacecraft in March. Dolphins were among their greeters. Credit: NASA Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams landed in a Crew Dragon spacecraft in March. Dolphins were among their greeters. Credit: NASA Wilmore: "I was very apprehensive. In earlier sims, I had even told the flight directors, 'If we get in a situation where I got to give it back to auto, I may not.' And they understood. Because if I've got a mode that's working, I don't want to give it up. But because we got those jets back, I thought, 'Okay, we're only down one.' All this is going through my mind in real time. And I gave it back. And of course, we docked."Williams: "I was super happy. If you remember from the video, when we came into the space station, I did this little happy dance. One, of course, just because I love being in space and am happy to be on the space station and great friends up there. Two, just really happy that Starliner docked to the space station. My feeling at that point in time was like, 'Oh, phew, let's just take a breather and try to understand what happened.' There's really great people on our team. Our team is huge. The commercial crew program, NASA and Boeing engineers, were all working hard to try and understand, to try to decide what we might need to do to get us to come back in that spacecraft. At that point, we also knew it was going to take a little while. Everything in this business takes a little while, like you know, because you want to cross the T's and dot the I's and make sure. I think the decision at the end of the summer was the right decision. We didn't have all the T's crossed, we didn't have all the I's dotted. So do we take that risk where we don't need to?"Wilmore added that he felt pretty confident, in the aftermath of docking to the space station, that Starliner probably would not be their ride home.Wilmore: "I was thinking, we might not come home in the spacecraft. We might not. And one of the first phone calls I made was to Vincent LaCourt, the ISS flight director, who was one of the ones that made the call about waiving the flight rule. I said, 'Okay, what about this spacecraft, is it our safe haven?'"It was unlikely to happen, but if some catastrophic space station emergency occurred while Wilmore and Williams were in orbit, what were they supposed to do? Should they retreat to Starliner for an emergency departure, or cram into one of the other vehicles on station, for which they did not have seats or spacesuits? LaCourt said they should use Starliner as a safe haven for the time being. Therein followed a long series of meetings and discussions about Starliner's suitability for flying crew back to Earth. Publicly, NASA and Boeing expressed confidence in Starliner's safe return with crew. But Williams and Wilmore, who had just made that harrowing ride, felt differently.Wilmore: "I was very skeptical, just because of what we'd experienced. I just didn't see that we could make it. I was hopeful that we could, but it would've been really tough to get there, to where we could say, 'Yeah, we can come back.'"And so, they did not.Eric BergerSenior Space EditorEric BergerSenior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 10 Comments

might not be cheap, though Honda will sell off historic racing parts, including bits of Sennas V10 Honda will also find new homes for some heritage IndyCars and MotoGP bikes. Jonathan M. Gitlin Apr 1, 2025 10:00 pm | 1 This is a Honda RA100E 3.5 L V10 engine. It was used in McLaren's 1990 F1 season, during which time the team won the constructors championship and Ayrton Senna won the driver's title. Credit: Honda Racing Corporation This is a Honda RA100E 3.5 L V10 engine. It was used in McLaren's 1990 F1 season, during which time the team won the constructors championship and Ayrton Senna won the driver's title. Credit: Honda Racing Corporation Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreHonda's motorsport division must be doing some spring cleaning. Today, the Honda Racing Corporation announced that it's getting into the memorabilia business, offering up parts and even whole vehicles for fans and collectors. And to kick things off, it's going to auction some components from the RA100E V10 engines that powered the McLaren Honda MP4/5Bs of Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger to both F1 titles in 1990."We aim to make this a valuable business that allows fans who love F1, MotoGP and various other races to share in the history of Honda's challenges in racing since the 1950s," said Koi Watanabe, president of HRC, "including our fans to own a part of Honda's racing history is not intended to be a one-time endeavor, but rather a continuous business that we will nurture and grow."The bits from Senna's and Berger's V10s will go up for auction at Monterey Car Week later this year, and the lots will include some of the parts seen in the photo above: cam covers, camshafts, pistons, and conrods, with a certificate of authenticity and a display case. And HRC is going through its collections to see what else it might part with, including "heritage machines and parts" from IndyCar, and "significant racing motorcycles."The fact that the parts are going to be auctioned at Car Week suggests the RA100E parts won't be cheapthe annual gathering in Northern California attracts extremely well-heeled car enthusiasts, and the tickets for events like the Quail or the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance will put a hefty dent in your wallet.If your idea of fun isn't hanging out with a bunch of the 0.1 percent at a golf course looking at pre-war carsand I'll admit the lure of Car Week has worn pretty thin on me these last few yearsand your budget is more down to earth, fear not: F1 components are still within reach via an Etsy vendor in the UK. There's been some inflation in 12 years, but you can find F1 parts as gifts for under $100. Credit: Ledon Gifts I've had a coin tidy made from the 1st gear of one of Honda's late-2000s F1 cars sitting on my desk for 12 years now, and I can report it makes the most satisfying noise if you roll it back and forth along the gear teeth when you should be working.Jonathan M. GitlinAutomotive EditorJonathan M. GitlinAutomotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 1 Comments

Reasonable accomodations Satisfactory now has controller support, so theres no excuse for your bad lines Can you mine resources and build factories with merely sticks and buttons? Kevin Purdy Apr 1, 2025 2:52 pm | 8 Hitting the "ship it to space" button feels pretty good with a controller. Credit: Coffee Stain Studios Hitting the "ship it to space" button feels pretty good with a controller. Credit: Coffee Stain Studios Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreSatisfactory starts out as a game you play, then becomes a way you think. The only way I have been able to keep the ridiculous factory simulation from eating an even-more-unhealthy amount of my time was the game's keyboard-and-mouse dependency. But the work, it has found meon my couch, on a trip, wherever one might game, really.In a 1.1 release on Satisfactory's Experimental branch, there are lots of new things, but the biggest new thing is a controller scheme. Xbox and DualSense are officially supported, though anyone playing on Steam can likely tweak their way to something that works on other pads. With this, the game becomes far more playable for those playing on a couch, on a portable gaming PC like the Steam Deck, or over household or remote streaming. It also paves the way for the game's console release, which is currently slated for sometime in 2025. Coffee Stain Studios reviews the contents of its Experimental branch 1.1 update. Satisfactory seems like an unlikely candidate for controller support, let alone consoles. It's a game where you do a lot of three-dimensional thinking, putting machines and conveyer belts and power lines in just the right places, either because you need to or it just feels proper. How would it feel to select, rotate, place, and connect everything using a controller? Have I just forgotten that Minecraft, and first-person games as a whole, probably seemed similarly desk-bound at one time? I grabbed an Xbox Wireless controller, strapped on my biofuel-powered jetpack, and gave a reduced number of inputs a shot. Here is how Satisfactory works on an Xbox Wireless Controller. Coffee Stain Studios Here is how Satisfactory works on an Xbox Wireless Controller. Coffee Stain Studios Here is the PlayStation DualSense version of Satisfactory's controller scheme. Coffee Stain Studios Here is the PlayStation DualSense version of Satisfactory's controller scheme. Coffee Stain Studios Here is how Satisfactory works on an Xbox Wireless Controller. Coffee Stain Studios Here is the PlayStation DualSense version of Satisfactory's controller scheme. Coffee Stain Studios The biggest hurdle to get past, for me, is not jumping in place when I wanted to do something, though it's not unique to this game. In most games that have some kind of building or planning through a controller, the bottom-right button ("A" on Xbox, "X" on PlayStation DualSense) is often the do/interact/confirm button. In Satisfactory, and some other games where I switch between keyboard/mouse and controller, A/X is jump. Satisfactory wants you to primarily use the triggers and bumpers to select, build, and dismantle things, which feels okay when you've got the hang of things. But even after an hour or so, I still found my pioneer unexpectedly jumping, as if he needed to get the zoomies out before placing a storage container.Wherever you go, there your blueprints areWhatSatisfactory has going in its favor is its relatively forgiving nature when it comes to objects clipping through each other, and the perfect amount of snappiness when combining buildings and logistics. I managed to build out my new-to-me remote oil production facility (oil into rubber and plastic, residue into fuel for generators, excess material into the Awesome Sink) using only a controller. I might switch back to keyboard and mouse if I knew I were going to be building a big project, the kind you sketch out on paper, or an online calculator. But I'm otherwise impressed at what the developers have pulled off here, having only reached for my mouse once or twice for what was seemingly a missing option (in the crafting bench). Using the chainsaw with a controller generates a lot of rumble, which feels appropriate. Coffee Stain Studios Using the chainsaw with a controller generates a lot of rumble, which feels appropriate. Coffee Stain Studios It's not too bad moving through your inventory with a controller, and there are common mechanics across all interfaces. Coffee Stain Studios It's not too bad moving through your inventory with a controller, and there are common mechanics across all interfaces. Coffee Stain Studios I built this rat's nest of fuel-powered generators, refineries, and reservoirs using a controller. Don't be too impressed. Coffee Stain Studios I built this rat's nest of fuel-powered generators, refineries, and reservoirs using a controller. Don't be too impressed. Coffee Stain Studios It's not too bad moving through your inventory with a controller, and there are common mechanics across all interfaces. Coffee Stain Studios I built this rat's nest of fuel-powered generators, refineries, and reservoirs using a controller. Don't be too impressed. Coffee Stain Studios You'll want to build out your item selection wheels if you have not previously. They make on-the-spot building far faster to get through than clicking the left shoulder for a build menu, then pacing through the categories and options, merely to get to a power line or foundation. You will also want to give the order of your hand-held items more consideration than normal, as you can only move through them in one direction with a controller. Discovering this while in the midst of conflict with a native creature is ill-advised.Generally, I'm very impressed with the controls as implemented (by Fishlabs). There is a common language to each panel and situation that slowly seeps into your fingers, like moving between panels with the right stick, and holding the left trigger while clicking brings up a kind of right-click contextual actions menu. If you started the game with a controllerpresumably something the developers hope lots of people will do on consolesyou would never know to miss your Q, F, and V keys.I will be both glad and somewhat concerned that I can now take my exploitative space factory into more relaxing spaces than the same desk where I do my full-time job. There is no excuse now for the conveyor spaghetti, the inefficient truck paths, the missing alternative recipes I could be scavenging from hard drives. What else was I doing, really?Kevin PurdySenior Technology ReporterKevin PurdySenior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 8 Comments

The stream of life How a 1980s Atari creator with cystic fibrosis crafted a story of salmon survival Doctors said he'd die by 13, but Bill Williams turned long odds into iconic art about endurance. Benj Edwards Apr 1, 2025 3:33 pm | 0 A 1982 screenshot of Salmon Run for the Atari 400/800 computers from Atari Program Exchange. Credit: Atari A 1982 screenshot of Salmon Run for the Atari 400/800 computers from Atari Program Exchange. Credit: Atari Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreIn 1982, while most game developers were busy with space invaders and maze ghosts, Bill Williams created something far more profound: a game about swimming upstream against impossible odds. Salmon Run for the Atari 800 served as a powerful metaphor for life itself, one that resonates even more deeply when you learn about the creator's own struggles with cystic fibrosis.As a kid growing up in the 1980s with an Atari 800 home computer, I discovered this hidden gem in our family's game collection, and it soon became a favorite.What struck me mostand what still amazes me todaywas its incredible audio design, creating water sounds that seemed impossible for 8-bit hardware. But Salmon Run was about far more than impressive audio.In the game, you play as Sam the Salmon, swimming upriver to spawn with a female salmon waiting upstream. You control your speed while dodging obstacles like rocks, waterfalls, and riverbanks, moving left to right and leaping from the water. And predatorsbears, fishermen, and birdsare constantly trying to eat you. Gameplay of <em>Salmon Run</em> for the Atari 8-bit computer family. The "swimming against the current" gameplay isn't just clever game design. Williams spent his life navigating his own treacherous currentshospital visits, treatments, and the constant struggle just to breathe. His personal battle with cystic fibrosis, characterized by chronic pain, infused Salmon Run with authentic meaning that transcends its simple pixels.In a world grappling with anxiety, uncertainty, and relentless pressures, Salmon Run feels especially timely to me. While not all of us face challenges of Williams' magnitude, I am sure anyone reading can attest that life isn't easy. It isn't a passive processit's a deliberate, ongoing work of labor. We constantly get pushed back by the current. And all the while, both metaphorical and literal bears are trying to eat us. The Atari 800 home computer, as seen in an Atari promotional brochure. Credit: Atari In a way, the inherent struggles and dangers of life make the ostensibly non-violent gameplay of Salmon Run even more enjoyable. Unlike most Atari games, you're not blasting aliens or dodging maze ghosts; instead, you're navigating a natural, down-to-earth challenge.I'm not alone in my appreciation for this gem. As one Atari Mania reviewer named JSUK wrote: "Bill Williams' first game shows why he is so revered. The concept is simple but the execution is perfect. Controls are responsive, the sound effects replicate ocean waves better than you'd imagine the A8 hardware could, and there's even a little animated reward after each level. Magical."The digital rapids of sound designFor fun, I have recently been developing a modern computer game for myself set in the rainy, natural outdoors, and I was trying to figure out the best way to make rain sound effects. That had me looking back at Salmon Run. How did Williams achieve what he did? According to the Digital Antiquarian, it turns out that Williams' sound effects in Salmon Run were so highly regarded that he was asked to write a regular "Atari Sound" column for Softline Magazine in the early 1980s.The water sounds in Salmon Run weren't just impressive for their realismthey showed a deep understanding of the Atari's sound capabilities. In his Softline columns, Williams explained how noise could create a wide range of natural sounds, from "the soothing sounds of wind and surf" to "the pitter-patter of raindrops on a window." This wasn't just random beepingit required careful manipulation of the Atari's POKEY sound chip and its various noise patterns, which generate certain frequencies to make white noise, pink noise, and brown noise (what audio engineers call "colors of noise").By controlling both the randomness and the frequency range of these sounds, he could create everything from gentle burbles to rushing cascades. "We live in an audible universe," Williams wrote, explaining why sound design mattered so much in games. "The correct blend of the visual and auditory makes good games good." A photo of the author's brother and the next-door neighbor playing Atari 800 games circa 1985. Credit: Benj Edwards The Atari POKEY chip might seem primitive by today's standardswith just four 8-bit sound channelsbut in Williams' hands, it sang like a mountain stream. While many developers at the time settled for simple beeps and boops, Williams coaxed naturalistic environmental sounds from the silicon that modern audio designers, working with gigabytes of sampled audio, would still appreciate.While popular memory of retro sound tends to fixate on the chiptune melodies of the NES era, Williams was pioneering environmental sound design years earlier. The rushing water in Salmon Run doesn't just sound realisticit creates genuine atmosphere, pulling players into its pixelated river in a way few games of the era managed. I still play the game sometimes just to hear that water.Swimming against the currentIn some ways, it's amazing that Salmon Run was Williams' first game. Williams saw an advertisement for Atari's pioneering Atari Program Exchange (APX) division, which promised to publish games from talented amateurssort of like an indie game store at the time. Salmon Run became one of APX's most popular titles and launched Williams into the games industry.APX deserves more credit in gaming history. While today's indie scene has digital storefronts and game jams, APX pioneered the concept of giving amateur creators a distribution platform decades before Steam or itch.io. The program created space for unique voices like Williams' to enter game development, embracing games that major publishers might have dismissed as too weird or niche.Williams' success with APX led him to create several games for Synapse Software, including the beloved Alley Cat and the incomprehensible fantasy masterpiece Necromancer, before moving to the Amiga, where he created the experimental Mind Walker and his ambitious "cultural simulation" Knights of the Crystallion.Necromancer, Williams' later creation for the Atari 800, plays like a fever dreamyou control a druid fighting off spiders while growing magic trees and battling an undead wizard. It makes absolutely no sense by conventional standards, but it's brilliant in its otherworldliness."The first games that I did were very hard to explain to people and they just kind of bought it on faith," Williams said in a 1989 interview with YAAM (Yet Another Amiga Magazine), suggesting this unconventional approach started early. That willingness to create deeply personal, almost surreal experiences defined Williams' work throughout his career. An Atari 800 that Benj Edwards set up to play M.U.L.E. at his mom's house in 2015, for nostalgia purposes. Credit: Benj Edwards After a brief stint making licensed games (like Bart's Nightmare) for the Super Nintendo at Sculptured Software, he left the industry entirely to pursue his calling as a pastor, attending seminary in Chicago with his wife Martha, before declining health forced him to move to Rockport, Texas. Perhaps reflecting on the choices that led him down this path, Williams had noted years earlier in that 1989 interview, "Sometimes in this industry we tend to forget that life is a lot more interesting than computers."Bill Williams died on May 28, 1998, just one day before his 38th birthday. He died young, but he outlived his doctors' prediction that he wouldn't reach age 13, and created cultural works that stand the test of time.Like Sam the Salmon, Williams pushed forward relentlesslyin his case, creating powerful digital art that was uniquely his own.In our current era of photorealistic graphics and cinematic game experiences, Salmon Run's blocky pixels might seem quaint. But its core themespersistence, natural beauty, and finding purpose against long oddsremain as relevant as ever. We all face bears in lifewhether they come from natural adversity or from those who might seek to do us harm. The beauty of Williams' game is in showing us that, despite their menacing presence, there's still a reward waiting upstream for those willing to keep swimming.If you want to try Salmon Run yourself, you can potentially play it in your browser through an emulated Atari 800, hosted on The Internet Archive. Press F1 to start the game.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. 0 Comments

Anything can happen What were expecting from Nintendos Switch 2 announcement Wednesday We take some wild stabs ahead of the big "Nintendo Direct" presentation. Kyle Orland Apr 1, 2025 4:12 pm | 8 Credit: Nintendo Credit: Nintendo Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWith its planned Switch 2 Direct presentation scheduled for Wednesday morning, Nintendo is set to finally fully pull back the curtain on a console we've been speculating about for years now. We'll have plenty of reporting and analysis of whatever Nintendo announces in the days to come. In the meantime, though, we thought it would be fun to put down a marker on some of the key announcements we expect Nintendo to make tomorrow.Rather than limiting ourselves to a single prediction, though, we've broken things down into increasingly outlandish categories of "Likely," "Possible," and "Implausible." Consider this an exercise in expectation-setting for one of the most important moments in Nintendo's recent history, and be sure to let us know what you think will happen in the comments section below.Price Yen per US dollar, charted. Credit: MacroTrends Yen per US dollar, charted. Credit: MacroTrends Likely: A $399 MSRP would reflect some of the eight years of inflation-related erosion that Nintendo has seen in the (seemingly unmovable) $299 price of the original Switch. That price point would also put the Switch 2 at rough parity with the market-proven price point of the (older, non-portable) Xbox Series X and PS5.Possible: Nintendo could surprise everyone and launch the Switch 2 at the same $299 price point that the Switch has enjoyed since 2017. Such a move, paired with the first-ever price drop for the original Switch, would supercharge interest in the new console and likely make initial Switch 2 supplies that much harder to find on store shelves.Implausible: A price of $449 or more would be pretty out of character for Nintendo, which tends to launch its consoles at the lower end of the prevailing price distribution.Release date It's beginning to look a lot like a holiday launch. Credit: Aurich Lawson It's beginning to look a lot like a holiday launch. Credit: Aurich Lawson Likely: Back in 2017, there were two months between Nintendo's wider reveal of the Switch in January 2017 and that console's launch in March 2017. The same pattern would point to a June launch for the Switch 2, timing that also lines up with the conclusion of Nintendo's currently scheduled Switch 2 hands-on experiences.Possible: Nintendo might push the Switch 2 launch to the 2025 holiday season in order to give its developers and third-party partners a little more time to work on games (and manufacturing partners a little more time to make hardware). That later launch would still capture the all-important end-of-year sales period, which represents a good chunk of all game industry sales most years.Implausible: Nintendo could try to end its Direct presentation by surprise-announcing a launch right now (or within a few days), just as Sega tried to do with the ill-fated E3 debut of the Saturn in 1995. But such a shocking move would be even tougher to pull off in today's tightly integrated online media and retail market and would give Nintendo precious little time to build the launch-day marketing juggernaut it likely wants.Launch games It has taken nearly 8 years. What's another few months for the galaxy's top bounty hunter? Credit: Nintendo It has taken nearly 8 years. What's another few months for the galaxy's top bounty hunter? Credit: Nintendo Likely: A new Mario Kart was already shown briefly during Nintendo's Switch 2 teaser in January, and the long-awaited Metroid Prime 4 seems increasingly likely to launch, at least with an enhanced Switch 2 "Edition" alongside a scaled-down original Switch version. A new 3D Mario title also seems likely for the Switch 2 launch, given Nintendo's on-and-off tradition of launching new hardware with Mario games (and how long it has been since 2017's incredibly popular Super Mario Odyssey).Possible: Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the surprise Switch hit of the early pandemic lockdowns. A new Animal Crossing game would be a good way to draw some of those lapsed Switch players back for a new, more powerful Switch 2.Implausible: Long-suffering Earthbound fans have been hoping for a new game in the series (or even an official localization of the Japan-exclusive Mother 3) for literal decades now. Personally, though, I'm hoping for a surprise revisit to the Punch-Out series, following on its similar surprise return on the Wii in 2009.Screen This compressed screenshot of a compressed video is by no means the resolution of the Switch 2 screen, but it's going to be higher than the original Switch. Credit: Nintendo This compressed screenshot of a compressed video is by no means the resolution of the Switch 2 screen, but it's going to be higher than the original Switch. Credit: Nintendo Likely: While a 720p screen was pretty nice in a 2017 gaming handheld, a full 1080p display is much more standard in today's high-end gaming portables. We expect Nintendo will follow this trend for what looks to be a nearly 8-inch screen on the Switch 2.Possible: While a brighter OLED screen would be nice as a standard feature on the Switch 2, we expect Nintendo will follow the precedent of the Switch generation and offer this as a pricier upgrade at some point in the future.Implausible: The Switch 2 would be the perfect time for Nintendo to revisit the glasses-free stereoscopic 3D that we all thought was such a revelation on the 3DS all those years ago.C Button C-ing is believing. Credit: Nintendo C-ing is believing. Credit: Nintendo Likely: The mysterious new button labeled "C" on the Switch 2's right Joy-Con could serve as a handy way to "connect" to other players, perhaps through a new Miiverse-style social network.Possible: Recent rumors suggest the C button could be used to connect to a second Switch console (or the TV-connected dock) for a true dual-screen experience. That would be especially fun and useful for Wii U/DS emulation and remasters.Implausible: The C stands for Chibi-Robo! and launches a system-level mini-game focused on the miniature robot.New featuresLikely: After forcing players to use a wonky smartphone app for voice chat on the Switch, we wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo finally implements full on-device voice chat for online games on the Switch 2at least between confirmed "friends" on the system.Possible: Some sort of system-level achievement tracking would bring Nintendo's new console in line with a feature that the competition from Sony and Microsoft has had for decades now.Implausible: After killing it off for the Switch generation, we'd love it if Nintendo brought back the Virtual Console as a way to buy permanent downloadable copies of emulated classics that will carry over across generations. Failing that, how about a revival of the 3DS's StreetPass passive social network for Switch 2 gamers on the go?Kyle OrlandSenior Gaming EditorKyle OrlandSenior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper. 8 Comments

This is only a test First tokamak component installed in a commercial fusion plant A tokamak moves forward as two companies advance plans for stellarators. John Timmer Apr 1, 2025 5:05 pm | 13 Credit: Commonwealth Fusion Credit: Commonwealth Fusion Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreThere are a remarkable number of commercial fusion power startups, considering that it's a technology that's built a reputation for being perpetually beyond the horizon. Many of them focus on radically new technologies for heating and compressing plasmas, or fusing unusual combinations of isotopes. These technologies are often difficult to evaluatethey can clearly generate hot plasmas, but it's tough to determine whether they can get hot enough, often enough to produce usable amounts of power.On the other end of the spectrum are a handful of companies that are trying to commercialize designs that have been extensively studied in the academic world. And there have been some interesting signs of progress here. Recently, Commonwealth Fusion, which is building a demonstration tokamak in Massachussets, started construction of the cooling system that will keep its magnets superconducting. And two companies that are hoping to build a stellarator did some important validation of their concepts.Doing donutsA tokamak is a donut-shaped fusion chamber that relies on intense magnetic fields to compress and control the plasma within it. A number of tokamaks have been built over the years, but the big one that is expected to produce more energy than required to run it, ITER, has faced many delays and now isn't expected to achieve its potential until the 2040s. Back in 2015, however, some physicists calculated that high-temperature superconductors would allow ITER-style performance in a far smaller and easier-to-build package. That idea was commercialized as Commonwealth Fusion.The company is currently trying to build an ITER equivalent: a tokamak that can achieve fusion but isn't large enough and lacks some critical hardware needed to generate electricity from that reaction. The planned facility, SPARC, is already in progress, with most of the supporting facility in place and superconducting magnets being constructed. But in late March, the company took a major step by installing the first component of the tokamak itself, the cryostat base, which will support the hardware that keeps its magnets cool.Alex Creely, Commonwealth Fusion's tokamak operations director and SPARC's chief engineer, told Ars that the cryostat's materials have to be chosen to be capable of handling temperatures in the area of 20 Kelvin, and be able to tolerate neutron exposure. Fortunately, stainless steel is still up to the task. It will also be part of a structure that has to handle an extreme temperature gradient. Creely said that it only takes about 30 centimeters to go from the hundreds of millions of degrees C of the plasma down to about 1,000 C, after which it becomes relatively simple to reach cryostat temperatures.He said that construction is expected to wrap up about a year from now, after which there will be about a year of commissioning the hardware, with fusion experiments planned for 2027. And, while ITER may be facing ongoing delays, Creely said that it was critical for keeping Commonwealth on a tight schedule. Not only is most of the physics of SPARC the same as that of ITER, but some of the hardware will be as well. "We've learned a lot from their supply chain development," Creely said. "So some of the same vendors that are supplying components for the ITER tokamak, we are also working with those same vendors, which has been great."Great in the sense that Commonwealth is now on track to see plasma well in advance of ITER. "Seeing all of this go from a bunch of sketches or boxes on slidesclip art effectivelyto real metal and concrete that's all coming together," Creely said. "You're transitioning from building the facility, building the plant around the tokamak to actually starting to build the tokamak itself. That is an awesome milestone."Seeing stars?The plasma inside a tokamak is dynamic, meaning that it requires a lot of magnetic intervention to keep it stable, and fusion comes in pulses. There's an alternative approach called a stellarator, which produces an extremely complex magnetic field that can support a simpler, stable plasma and steady fusion. As implemented by the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Germany, this meant a series of complex-shaped magnets manufactured with extremely low tolerance for deviation. But a couple of companies have decided they're up for the challenge.One of those, Type One Energy, has basically reached the stage that launched Commonwealth Fusion: It has made a detailed case for the physics underlying its stellarator design. In this instance, the case may even be considerably more detailed: six peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of Plasma Physics. The papers detail the structural design, the behavior of the plasma within it, handling of the helium produced by fusion, generation of tritium from the neutrons produced, and obtaining heat from the whole thing.The company is partnering with Oak Ridge National Lab and the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a demonstration reactor on the site of a former fossil fuel power plant. (It's also cooperating with Commonwealth on magnet development.) As with the SPARC tokamak, this will be a mix of technology demonstration and learning experience, rather than a functioning power plant.Another company that's pursuing a stellarator design is called Thea Energy. Brian Berzin, its CEO, told Ars that the company's focus is on simplifying the geometry of the magnets needed for a stellarator and is using software to get them to produce an equivalent magnetic field. "The complexity of this device has always been really, really limiting," he said, referring to the stellarator. "That's what we're really focused on: How can you make simpler hardware? Our way of allowing for simpler hardware is using really, really complicated software, which is something that has taken over the world."He said that the simplicity of the hardware will be helpful for an operational power plant, since it allows them to build multiple identical segments as spares, so things can be swapped out and replaced when maintenance is needed.Like Commonwealth Fusion, Thea Energy is using high-temperature superconductors to build its magnets, with a flat array of smaller magnets substituting for the three-dimensional magnets used at Wendelstein. "We are able to really precisely recreate those magnetic fields required for accelerator, but without any wiggly, complicated, precise, expensive, costly, time-consuming hardware," Berzin said. And the company recently released a preprint of some testing with the magnet array.Thea is also planning on building a test stellarator. In its case, however, it's going to be using deuterium-deuterium fusion, which is much less efficient than deuterium-tritium that will be needed for a power plant. But Berzin said that the design will incorporate a layer of lithium that will form tritium when bombarded by neutrons from the stellarator. If things go according to plan, the reactor will validate Thea's design and be a fuel source for the rest of the industry.Of course, nobody will operate a fusion power plant until sometime in the next decadeprobably about at the same time that we might expect some of the first small modular fission plants to be built. Given the vast expansion in renewable production that is in progress, it's difficult to predict what the energy market will look like at that point. So, these test reactors will be built in a very uncertain environment. But that uncertainty hasn't stopped these companies from pursuing fusion.John TimmerSenior Science EditorJohn TimmerSenior Science Editor John is Ars Technica's science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots. 13 Comments

Not a priority Apple enables RCS messaging for Google Fi subscribers at last Apple only supported RCS on the big three carriers in the first iOS18 releases. Ryan Whitwam Apr 1, 2025 4:22 pm | 3 Credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto Credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreApple spent years ignoring RCS, allowing iPhones to offer a degraded messaging experience with Android users. This made Android folks unwelcome in many a group chat, but Apple finally started rectifying this issue last year with the addition of RCS support in iOS. It has been a slow rollout, though, with Google's mobile service only now getting support.While Apple supports RCS messaging on iPhones now, it has not exactly been enthusiastic about it. Anyone using Google Fi on an iPhone was left in the lurch even after Apple changed course. The first RCS update rolled out in iOS 18 last fall, but it only supported postpaid plans on the big three carriers. Everyone else was left waiting, including Google Fi, as confirmed to Ars last year. It was a suitably amusing outcome, considering Google is largely responsible for reviving the RCS standard and runs the Jibe back-end servers through which many iPhone RCS messages flow.Slowly but surely, Apple is making good on its promises to enable RCS. The company released iOS 18.4 this week, and hiding amid the control center tweaks and priority notifications is support for RCS on Google Fi and other T-Mobile MVNOs. Some users spotted this feature in the recent beta releases, but the servers that handle RCS for Google's mobile service were not yet connectable. With the final release, Google has confirmed that RCS is ready at last.With RCS, iPhone users can converse with non-Apple users without losing the enhanced features to which they've become accustomed in iMessage. That includes longer messages, HD media, typing indicators, and much more. Google Fi has several different options for data plans, and the company notes that RCS does use mobile data when away from Wi-Fi. Those on the "Flexible" Fi plan pay for blocks of data as they go, and using RCS messaging could inadvertently increase their bill.If that's not a concern, it's a snap for Fi users to enable RCS on the new iOS update. Head to Apps > Messages, and then find the Text Messaging section to toggle on RCS. It may, however, take a few minutes for your phone number to be registered with the Fi RCS server.In hindsight, the way Apple implemented iMessage was clever. By intercepting messages being sent to other iPhone phone numbers, Apple was able to add enhanced features to its phones instantly. It had the possibly intended side effect of reinforcing the perception that Android phones were less capable. This turned Android users into dreaded green bubbles that limited chat features. Users complained, and Google ran ads calling on Apple to support RCS. That, along with some pointed questions from reporters prompted Apple to announce the change in late 2023. It took some time, but you almost don't have to worry about missing messaging features in 2025.Ryan WhitwamSenior Technology ReporterRyan WhitwamSenior Technology Reporter Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he's written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards. 3 Comments

States sue RFK Jr. RFK Jr. illegally rescinded $11B in public health grants, states lawsuit says RFK Jr. killed grants "with no warning or legally valid explanation," states say. Jon Brodkin Apr 1, 2025 4:37 pm | 0 Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks with President Donald Trump during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Monday, March 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images | Washington Post Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks with President Donald Trump during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Monday, March 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images | Washington Post Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreNearly half of US states sued the federal government and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today in a bid to halt the termination of $11 billion in public health grants. The lawsuit was filed by 23 states and the District of Columbia."The grant terminations, which came with no warning or legally valid explanation, have quickly caused chaos for state health agencies that continue to rely on these critical funds for a wide range of urgent public health needs such as infectious disease management, fortifying emergency preparedness, providing mental health and substance abuse services, and modernizing public health infrastructure," said a press release issued by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.The litigation is led by Colorado, California, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Washington. The other plaintiffs are Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.Nearly all of the plaintiffs are represented by a Democratic attorney general. Kentucky and Pennsylvania have Republican attorneys general and are instead represented by their governors, both Democrats.The complaint, filed in US District Court for the District of Rhode Island, is in response to the recent cut of grants that were originally created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. "The sole stated basis for Defendants' decision is that the funding for these grants or cooperative agreements was appropriated through one or more COVID-19 related laws," the states' lawsuit said.The lawsuit says the US sent notices to states that grants were terminated "for cause" because "the grants and cooperative agreements were issued for a limited purpose: to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic. Now that the pandemic is over, the grants and cooperative agreements are no longer necessary as their limited purpose has run out."An HHS public statement last week said, "The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago. HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump's mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again."Programs will have to be dissolved or disbandedBut the funding approved by Congress was not limited to the period of the COVID-19 emergency, the states' lawsuit said. "And after the pandemic was declared over, Congress reviewed the COVID-19 related laws, rescinded $27 billion in funds, but determined not to rescind any of the funding at issue here," the states told the court.The end of the pandemic is not a lawful basis to end the grants because for-cause terminations may only be "based on the grant recipient's 'material failure' to comply with the agreement," the lawsuit said. The lawsuit asks the court to declare illegal and vacate the grant terminations, and "preliminarily and permanently enjoin Defendants from implementing or enforcing the Public Health Terminations or reinstituting the terminations for the same or similar reasons and without required statutory or regulatory process."The grant terminations raise significant public health risks, the lawsuit said."If the funding is not restored, key public health programs and initiatives that address ongoing and emerging public health needs of Plaintiffs (collectively, 'Plaintiff States') will have to be dissolved or disbanded," the lawsuit said. "Large numbers of state and local public health employees and contractors have been, or may soon be, dismissed from their roles. The result of these massive, unexpected funding terminations is serious harm to public health, leaving Plaintiff States at greater risk for future pandemics and the spread of otherwise preventable disease and cutting off vital public health services."We contacted the US Department of Health and Human Services about the lawsuit and will update this article if it provides a response.Jon BrodkinSenior IT ReporterJon BrodkinSenior IT Reporter Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry. 0 Comments

Genetic privacy FTC: 23andMe buyer must honor firms privacy promises for genetic data Agency issues warning about privacy of genetic information and DNA samples. Jon Brodkin Apr 1, 2025 1:40 pm | 23 23andMe headquarters in Sunnyvale, California on March 25, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Anadolu 23andMe headquarters in Sunnyvale, California on March 25, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Anadolu Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreFederal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson said he's keeping an eye on 23andMe's bankruptcy proceeding and the company's planned sale because of privacy concerns related to genetic testing data. 23andMe and its future owner must uphold the company's privacy promises, Ferguson said in a letter sent yesterday to representatives of the US Trustee Program, a Justice Department division that oversees administration of bankruptcy proceedings."As Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, I write to express the FTC's interests and concerns relating to the potential sale or transfer of millions of American consumers' sensitive personal information," Ferguson wrote. He continued:As you may know, 23andMe collects and holds sensitive, immutable, identifiable personal information about millions of American consumers who have used the Company's genetic testing and telehealth services. This includes genetic information, biological DNA samples, health information, ancestry and genealogy information, personal contact information, payment and billing information, and other information, such as messages that genetic relatives can send each other through the platform.23andMe's recent bankruptcy announcement set off a wave of concern about the fate of genetic data for its 15 million customers. The company said that "any buyer of 23andMe will be required to comply with our privacy policy and with all applicable law with respect to the treatment of customer data." Many users reacted to the news by deleting their data, though tech problems apparently related to increased website traffic made that process difficult.23andMe's ability to secure user data is also a reason for concern. Hackers stole ancestry data for 6.9 million 23andMe users, the company confirmed in December 2023.The bankruptcy is being overseen in US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.FTC: Bankruptcy law protects customersFerguson's letter points to several promises made by 23andMe and says these pledges must be upheld. "The FTC believes that, consistent with Section 363(b)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code, these types of promises to consumers must be kept. This means that any bankruptcy-related sale or transfer involving 23andMe users' personal information and biological samples will be subject to the representations the Company has made to users about both privacy and data security, and which users relied upon in providing their sensitive data to the Company," he wrote. "Moreover, as promised by 23andMe, any purchaser should expressly agree to be bound by and adhere to the terms of 23andMe's privacy policies and applicable law, including as to any changes it subsequently makes to those policies."23andMe has "commit[ed] to its users that they are in control of their data, and that users can decide how their information is used and for what purposesincluding honoring the right of users to delete their personal information at any time," Ferguson wrote. The firm says that explicit authorization from users is needed to disclose genetic information to third parties.Ferguson's letter said that 23andMe tells customers "that it restricts the use and sharing of personal information to what is necessary to provide its services," and that it shares the personal data "with a limited number of service providers who are contractually bound to protect the confidentiality and security of user personal information." The company says in its privacy statement "that it does not share personal information with insurance companies, employers, public databases, or law enforcement, absent a valid court order, subpoena, or search warrant," Ferguson wrote."Importantly, 23andMe promises users that these protections (and its entire Privacy Statement) shall apply continuously to their personal information, even if the data is sold or transferred in a bankruptcy proceeding," the FTC chair wrote.Ferguson said he is "pleased to see" that 23andMe has indicated since its bankruptcy filing that it will continue to honor its privacy promises. But the letter serves as a reminder that the FTC can take action when companies fail to live up to their promises.Just how active Ferguson will be in the 23andMe bankruptcy process isn't clear. President Trump has attempted to limit FTC authority by issuing an executive order declaring that it and similar agencies are no longer independent and must be supervised by the president.Trump also fired both Democratic FTC commissioners despite a US law and a 1935 Supreme Court ruling stating that the president cannot do so without good cause. The Democrats are challenging the firings in court, but for now the FTC has only Republican commissioners. Ferguson backed Trump in the firings, and his FTC reportedly instructed staff to stop describing the agency as "independent" in official filings.Jon BrodkinSenior IT ReporterJon BrodkinSenior IT Reporter Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry. 23 Comments

Op-ed Cheap TVs incessant advertising reaches troubling new lows Op-ed: TV screensavers shouldn't show immigration ads from the Trump administration. Scharon Harding Apr 1, 2025 2:19 pm | 23 Credit: Getty Credit: Getty Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreTVs offer us an escape from the real world. After a long day, sometimes theres nothing more relaxing than turning on your TV, tuning into your favorite program, and unplugging from the realities around you.But what happens when divisive, potentially offensive messaging infiltrates that escape? Even with streaming services making it easy to watch TV commercial-free, it can still be difficult for TV viewers to avoid ads with these sorts of messages.Thats especially the case with budget brands, which may even force controversial ads onto TVs when theyre idle, making users pay for low-priced TVs in unexpected, and sometimes troubling, ways.Vizio TVs reportedly show Trump immigration messaging when in standbyAn experience recently shared by an apparent Vizio TV owner illustrates how ads delivered via TV operating systems (OSes) can take ads from annoying to intrusive and offensive.Reddit user DoubleJumps claimed last week that when their Vizio TV is idle, it plays calming nature video, calming music, and then loops a message from the [T]rump admin[istration] telling illegal immigrants to gtfo over and over and over again. They explained:I left the [TV] idle while I went to the other room to play with my dog. After about a half an hour, I started hearing [US Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem praising Trump and telling immigrants to get out of America, over and over. I went in to check, and caught this video looping 3 more times before it went back to the nature clips.The user added that when trying to replicate this, the TV played the video again after about 20 minutes, but only once.As Distractify detailed, the video in question includes Noem telling people who live outside of the US that the US government will hunt you down if they enter the country illegally. Noem also claims in the video that weak leadership has left our borders wide open, flooding our communities with drugs, human trafficking, and violent criminals.This TV will be out of my house by the end of the week. Fucking dystopian bullshit company," DoubleJumps said.Ars Technica hasnt been able to replicate this internally. We also havent seen other reports of Vizio TV owners seeing this ad. Vizio and parent company Walmart didnt respond to requests for comment.However, what DoubleJumps detailed is completely within the scope of Vizios advertising efforts. Vizio TVs have something called Scenic Mode, which has the sets show, per Vizio, relaxing, ambient content when your TV is idle for a period of time," along with ads. Scenic Mode can be disabled, but if it's enabled, the ads cannot be turned off. Vizio says the ads help it pay for things like the TVs free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels and help keep Vizio TV prices low.Vizio also has ties to political ads. It has previously boasted about its work with "a political candidate on an ad campaign that combined CTV ads with our Household Connect omnichannel feature to reach potential voters both on their TV sets and on other opted in devices." The company says it can play a "powerful role... in helping political campaigns reach their intended audiences."The possibility that the ad placement was a mistake doesn't bring that much comfort either. If TV OS operators want to be so dependent on the advertising business, they owe it to customers to at least make sure errors like this (assuming this was an error) don't happen.Idle TVs are advertisers playthingsEven though Vizio TV owners can turn off Scenic Mode, a company marketing screensaver ads as an experience that adds to the environment of your home or office shows how far some TV brands are willing to go to make advertising dollars. Selling screensaver ad space to politicians delivering threats and associating immigration with drugs, human trafficking, and violence suggests a lack of discernment over what sort of ads are shown where. A political ad shown during a TV commercial break is reasonable. However, seeing one when using a TV functionality that's supposed to offer relaxing, ambient content seems wholly misguided.But TV brands, especially more budget ones like Vizio, are increasingly looking for new places to show ads. And one of the biggest opportunities for more ad space is idle TVs.TV OS operators besides Vizio are trying to seize that opportunity. For example, in 2022, Roku launched Roku City, a screensaver for devices using Roku OS that shows an animated city with advertisements in the form of logos splattered across the city. Roku claims that Roku City reaches 38.5 million streaming households a week on average. A shot of a Roku City screensaver. Credit: Roku A shot of a Roku City screensaver. Credit: Roku Smart TVs and streaming devices running Amazons Fire OS have screensaver ads, too. Even LG, which is considered a more premium brand, launched screensaver ads in September, but users can disable them.Startup Telly is a standout example of a company trying to monetize idle TV time. Announced in 2023, Telly TVs have a secondary screen that can show ads when the TV is not in use. Telly TVs are free to purchase in exchange for providing the company with user data, including disclosing your favorite news outlets, film and TV genres, foods, and services, your gender and race, and other information before youre able to order the TV. The free Telly 4K TV has a second screen for showing ads. Credit: Telly The free Telly 4K TV has a second screen for showing ads. Credit: Telly After theyre set up, Telly TVs track user behavior, including what they watch and for how long, what they search for, and where they put their Telly. If users opt out of tracking, Telly charges them for the TV.Glance is another company demonstrating the strong interest advertisers have in TV screensavers. Glance is known for custom lock screens for phones that show things like news and weather. In December, it announced Glance TV, which essentially brings the same capability to TVs with Glance TV embedded into their OS. In addition to offering a different idle screen, Glance TV delivers targeted advertising and shoppable content to TVs when they go idle. Glance TV only delivers content from Glance's partners and doesnt gather information from the web, Digital Trends previously reported.Currently, Airtel Xstream streaming boxes and sticks, which use Android TV OS and are available in India, are the only devices supporting Glance TV.Bad ad choices make cheap TVs a harder sellBuying a budget TV means accepting some tradeoffs. Those tradeoffs have historically been around things like image quality and feature sets. But companies like Vizio are also asking customers to accept questionable advertising decisions as they look to create new paths to ad revenue.Numerous factors are pushing TV OS operators deeper into advertising. Brands are struggling to grow profits as people buy new TVs less frequently. As the TV market gets more competitive, hardware is also selling for cheaper, with some companies selling TVs at a loss with hopes of making up for it with ad sales. Theres concern that these market realities could detract from real TV innovation. And as the Secretary Noem ad reportedly shown to Vizio TV owners has highlighted, another concern is the lack of care around which ads are being shown to TV ownersespecially when all they want is simple ambient background noise.Today, people can disable ambient mode settings that show ads. But with some TV brands showing poor judgement around where they sell and place ads, we wouldnt bank on companies maintaining these boundaries forever. If the industry cant find a way to balance corporate needs with appropriate advertising, people might turn off not only their TVs more often, but also unplug from those brands completely.Scharon HardingSenior Technology ReporterScharon HardingSenior Technology Reporter Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She's been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Toms Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK. 23 Comments

Dogleg Four private astronauts launch on first human mission to fly over the poles "I call it the last frontier of unexplored territory in low-Earth orbit." Stephen Clark Apr 1, 2025 12:23 pm | 4 With thunderstorms just offshore, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket streaks into the sky over Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin the all-private Fram2 mission. Credit: SpaceX With thunderstorms just offshore, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket streaks into the sky over Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin the all-private Fram2 mission. Credit: SpaceX Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreFour adventurers suited up and embarked on a first-of-a-kind trip to space Monday night, becoming the first humans to fly in polar orbit aboard a SpaceX crew capsule chartered by a Chinese-born cryptocurrency billionaire.The private astronauts rocketed into orbit atop a Falcon 9 booster from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:46 pm EDT Monday (01:46 UTC Tuesday). Instead of heading to the northeast in pursuit of the International Space Station, the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft departed Launch Complex 39A and arced to the southeast, then turned south on a flight path hugging Florida's east coast.The unusual trajectory aligned the Falcon 9 with a perfectly polar orbit at an inclination of 90 degrees to the equator, bringing the four-person crew directly over the North or South Pole every 45 minutes.Chun Wang, born in China and now a citizen of Malta, paid SpaceX an undisclosed sum for the opportunity to fly to space and bring three hand-picked crewmates along with him. SpaceX likely charged between $100 million and $200 million for the flight. Chun made his fortune as a crypto pioneer, co-founding F2Pool, once the world's largest bitcoin mining company. He named his mission Fram2 in honor of the Norwegian exploration ship Fram used for polar expeditions at the turn of the 20th century.No one saw Earth's poles from space in the more than 400 human spaceflight missions preceding Fram2. The closest any crew mission has gotten to the poles was the Soviet Union's Vostok 6 mission in 1963, when Valentina Tereshkova's spacecraft reached a latitude of 65.1 degrees.Something newChun didn't want to pay for a mission to repeat the well-trodden path to the International Space Station, or fly in a higher-altitude orbit as SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission did last year with billionaire commander Jared Isaacman and three crewmates. He wanted to try something new."Jared spent a lot of effort trying to fly as high as possible because he has a pilot background," Chun said in response to a question from Ars. "But here on this mission, we have a group of polar explorers. We will do this from an explorer's perspective. I dont want to repeat the same mission profile again and again. I have less interest in flying to ISS because every previous mission flies to the ISS again, again and again."Chun was inspired by Isaacman's first foray into orbit on the Inspiration4 mission in 2021. That was the first fully commercial human spaceflight to low-Earth orbit without any significant government involvement. Isaacman is President Trump's nominee to become the next NASA administrator."So, if we do not challenge Jared, if we do not repeat the previous mission, where else we can go given our current hardware we have in 2025? What Dragon can do is to fly into low-Earth orbit, and there is a big bunch of area in low-Earth orbit that hasnt been explored." Eric Philips, Rabea Rogge, Chun Wang, and Jannicke Mikkelsen make up the Fram2 crew. Credit: SpaceX Chun is a prolific traveler, logging each flight in great detail with his social media posts. Less than an hour before liftoff Monday night, he posted on X: "36th flight of 2025: SpaceX Fram2 from LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, via the South Pole and the North Pole, to Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles or Oceanside. Crew Dragon C207 'Resilience.' This is my 1,000th flight of all time."The Fram2 mission will last between three-and-a-half and five-and-a-half days, ending with a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California.Chun takes the role of mission commander for Fram2. Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian filmmaker and cinematographer, is the vehicle commander. During launch, she monitored the progress of the ascent on the Dragon spacecraft's touchscreen displays. The vehicle's pilot is Rabea Rogge, a robotics researcher from Germany. Mission specialist Eric Philips of Australia rounds out the crew. He is a veteran polar explorer and guide who has completed dozens of ski expeditions to the North and South Poles.All four crew members share an interest in adventure and polar exploration. Mikkelsen lives on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago inside the Arctic Circle. Before going to space, she worked on feature films, David Attenborough nature documentaries, and an immersive 3D concert experience with Queen, among other projects.Now, she's in command of the Dragon spacecraft as it loops some 267 miles (430 kilometers) over the poles, traveling at nearly 5 miles per second. "I call it the last frontier of unexplored territory in low-Earth orbit," Mikkelsen said.The firsts of Fram2Fram2 is breaking new ground in other areas, too. It's the first human spaceflight mission to low-Earth orbit without a trained pilot onboard, and the first crewed spaceflight without an American, Russian, or Chinese astronaut.Later this week, Fram2 will become SpaceX's first Crew Dragon mission to splash down off the West Coast. SpaceX announced last year it would relocate its fleet of recovery ships from Florida to California, allowing Dragon capsules to return to the Pacific.This move will resolve concerns about Dragon's unpressurized trunk section reentering the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner. All Crew Dragon flights to dateFram2 is SpaceX's 17th crew missionjettisoned the disposable trunk in orbit before reentry and splashdown off the coast of Florida.The trunk lacks a propulsion system, so atmospheric drag pulls it out of orbit several weeks or months later. The reentry of the trunk is unpredictable, and a few missions have scattered debris over land. With the switch to the West Coast, SpaceX will keep the trunk attached to the Dragon capsule until just before reentry, when it will cast away the trunk to fall into the remote Pacific Ocean.Chun and his crewmates hope to view Antarctica and the North Pole through Dragon's windows. With ideal viewing conditions, astronauts on the ISS occasionally capture images showing the edges of Greenland and Antarctica at oblique angles. Satellites flying over the poles routinely observe the poles, but Fram2 will offer Dragon's four-person crew the human experience. The Fram2 mission lifted off from Launch Complex 39A in Florida. Credit: SpaceX "Fram2 isnt just about going to space, its about pushing boundaries and sharing knowledge," Chun said.Mikkelsen will use her expertise to shoot immersive, 3D imagery from Dragon. She got an assist on camera settings from NASA astronaut Don Pettit, a master of spaceflight photography who currently resides on the ISS."I'm looking forward to being the first human in history to be able to point my camera at the North Pole and South Pole from space," Mikkelsen said. "There will be a lot of specific moments, specifically focusing on the aurora. This is also a mission where people on the ground on planet Earth can attend, and we've reached out to 2.2 million auroral citizen scientists. Anyone can join, where you go outside and if there is aurora where you live, you note where you live, and you register on the SolarMaX mission website, and you will take a photo of the aurora at the same time as we in Fram2 fly over the aurora."Mikkelsen built mockups of the Dragon spacecraft to practice her shooting method. Now in space, Mikkelsen has a finite time period to complete her photography."Being a cinematographer in space is not easy," she said. "It is not like filming on planet Earth, and it's quite comparable to being a cinematographer in the North Pole region, where it is exceptionally hazardous to work. Battery life is extremely hard to maintain when you work in the cold in the polar regions, and we actually have a limit for how much battery power we can safely bring with us in Dragon."The Fram2 astronauts carry with them 22 experiments from eight countries, primarily addressing physiological and psychological questions like the brain's response to the space environment, astronaut cognition and crew cohesion, and measure the crew's radiation exposure. On balance, a trajectory like Fram2's path over the poles will subject the astronauts to higher radiation levels than the International Space Station."These... experiments really deal with two questions, I would say," said Rogge, a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "One is, 'How does the human adapt to extreme environments? In our case, its space. But we have a lot of studies that are looking at comparing space to other extreme environments. That could be the polar environments, which we are very familiar with. That could be even COVID as an extreme isolation environment, right? The goal is to learn how we can best operate."And the second question really is also about accessibility because right now, I think the stereotype of an astronaut is that you have to be this super-human, medically perfect," Rogge said. "But we should really flip this question and be like, 'OK, how do we design for living and working in space for everyone?"In this vein, Fram2's crew will test a "portable gym" for exercise inside Dragon. The space station has large exercise devices that won't fit inside the limited volume of Dragon. Fram2 carries a Starlink laser terminal to link up with SpaceX's broadband network and provide high-speed Internet to the crew.The mission will also grow mushrooms in space for the first time. "Theyre not the ones youre thinking," Philips quipped.Fram2 is SpaceX's third all-private crew missions, following Isaacman's two commercial flights in 2021 and 2024. Isaacman is an experienced pilot of high-performance aircraft, and in some ways, fits the mold of a professional NASA astronaut.With Fram2, SpaceX is flying a crew of space enthusiasts and polar explorers who are used to working in extreme environments. But none came to SpaceX with proficiencies in human spaceflight."From a crew training perspective, we've really started to refine how do we train four folks that have no traditional background in spaceflight to get ready for a mission," said Jon Edwards, SpaceX's vice president of Falcon and Dragon programs. "We figured out, how do we train these extraordinary individuals to hop in a capsule, get flung at 17,500 miles per hour under 1 million pounds of propellant, and be calm about it."Being calm about it.From her station in the commander's seat of the Dragon spacecraft named ResilienceMikkelsen rattled off the standard radio callouts, noting milestones throughout Fram2's climb into space. If all goes according to plan, the entire flight will be automated from liftoff through splashdown."Dragon is an autonomous vehicle, and we need to understand how she talks to us," Mikkelsen said before the launch. "Resilience, to me, she is a female, and she is going to have her own personality, and we are learning how to navigate the systems. We are learning how to set her up to best way possible operate autonomously, and we know that we have Mission Control with us at all times." A polar view from SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft shortly after launching on the Fram2 mission. Credit: SpaceX Chun pitched his idea for a polar orbit mission to SpaceX a few weeks after he traveled to South Texas to witness the first test flight of the company's enormous Starship rocket, intended to be the eventual replacement for Falcon 9 and Dragon. SpaceX announced the Fram2 mission last August, when the crew was already well into training.SpaceX fitted the Dragon spacecraft with a cupola window, the same one that flew on the Inspiration4 mission in 2021, to provide the astronauts more expansive views than they would get through the capsule's smaller porthole windows.From space, Rogge hopes to spot some of the research stations that dot the frozen landscape of Antarctica. But the crew won't get a clear view of the South Pole itself, the home of a National Science Foundation research station. Fram2 was supposed to launch before the end of last year, when it would have soared over Antarctica when the Sun was highest in the sky and casting long shadows across the icepack.Now, a couple of weeks after the autumnal equinox in the southern hemisphere, the Sun has set on the South Pole until September."We're on the dark side of the equinox. We don't really have that opportunity," Philips said. "I did actually apply to the National Science Foundation to see if they could light the station up with everything that they've got, so that we could have the opportunity to see it, but that wasn't granted."But there are plenty more sights to see. "We're orbiting over the North and South Poles. The Earth is slowly rotating underneath us, (so) we will fly over every part of Earth."Stephen ClarkSpace ReporterStephen ClarkSpace Reporter Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the worlds space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. 4 Comments

clamming up DeepMind is holding back release of AI research to give Google an edge A tougher vetting process and more bureaucracy make it harder to publish. Melissa Heikkil and Stephen Morris, Financial Times Apr 1, 2025 9:28 am | 9 Credit: Jacob Porczyki/Nurphoto Credit: Jacob Porczyki/Nurphoto Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreGoogles artificial intelligence arm DeepMind has been holding back the release of its world-renowned research, as it seeks to retain a competitive edge in the race to dominate the burgeoning AI industry.The group, led by Nobel Prize-winner Sir Demis Hassabis, has introduced a tougher vetting process and more bureaucracy that made it harder to publish studies about its work on AI, according to seven current and former research scientists at Google DeepMind.Three former researchers said the group was most reluctant to share papers that reveal innovations that could be exploited by competitors, or cast Googles own Gemini AI model in a negative light compared with others.The changes represent a significant shift for DeepMind, which has long prided itself on its reputation for releasing groundbreaking papers and as a home for the best scientists building AI.Meanwhile, huge breakthroughs by Google researcherssuch as its 2017 transformers paper that provided the architecture behind large language modelsplayed a central role in creating todays boom in generative AI.Since then, DeepMind has become a central part of its parent companys drive to cash in on the cutting-edge technology, as investors expressed concern that the Big Tech group had ceded its early lead to the likes of ChatGPT maker OpenAI.I cannot imagine us putting out the transformer papers for general use now, said one current researcher.Among the changes in the companys publication policies is a six-month embargo before strategic papers related to generative AI are released. Researchers also often need to convince several staff members of the merits of publication, said two people with knowledge of the matter.A person close to DeepMind said the changes were to benefit researchers who had become frustrated spending time on work that would not be approved for strategic or competitive reasons. They added that the company still publishes hundreds of papers each year and is among the largest contributors to major AI conferences.Concern that Google was falling behind in the AI race contributed to the merger of London-based DeepMind and California-based Brain AI units in 2023. Since then, it has been faster to roll out a wide array of AI-infused products.The company has shifted to one that cares more about product and less about getting research results out for the general public good, said one former DeepMind research scientist. Its not what I signed up for.DeepMind said it had always been committed to advancing AI research and we are instituting updates to our policies that preserve the ability for our teams to publish and contribute to the broader research ecosystem.While the company had a publication review process in place before DeepMinds merger with Brain, the system has become more bureaucratic, according to those with knowledge of the changes.Former staffers suggested the new processes had stifled the release of commercially sensitive research to avoid the leaking of potential innovations. One said publishing papers on generative AI was almost impossible.In one incident, DeepMind stopped the publication of research that showed Googles Gemini language model is not as capable or is less safe than rivals, especially OpenAIs GPT-4, according to one current employee.However, the employee added it had also blocked a paper that revealed vulnerabilities in OpenAIs ChatGPT, over concerns the release seemed like a hostile tit-for-tat.A person close to DeepMind said it did not block papers that discuss security vulnerabilities, adding that it routinely publishes such work under a responsible disclosure policy, in which researchers must give companies the chance to fix any flaws before making them public.But the clampdown has unsettled some staffers, where success has long been measured through appearing in top-tier scientific journals. People with knowledge of the matter said the new review processes had contributed to some departures.If you cant publish, its a career killer if youre a researcher, said a former researcher.Some ex-staff added that projects focused on improving its Gemini suite of AI-infused products were increasingly prioritized in the internal battle for access to data sets and computing power.In the past few years, Google has produced a range of AI-powered products that have impressed the markets. This includes improving its AI-generated summaries that appear above search results, to unveiling an Astra AI agent that can answer real-time queries across video, audio, and text.The companys share price has increased by as much as a third over the past year, though those gains pared back in recent weeks as concern over US tariffs hit tech stocks.In recent years, Hassabis has balanced the desire of Googles leaders to commercialize its breakthroughs with his life mission of trying to make artificial general intelligenceAI systems with abilities that can match or surpass humans.Anything that gets in the way of that he will remove, said one current employee. He tells people this is a company, not a university campus; if you want to work at a place like that, then leave.Additional reporting by George Hammond. 2025 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.Melissa Heikkil and Stephen Morris, Financial TimesMelissa Heikkil and Stephen Morris, Financial Times 9 Comments

surfing the infoscape MCP: The new USB-C for AI thats bringing fierce rivals together Model context protocol standardizes how AI uses data sources, supported by OpenAI and Anthropic. Benj Edwards Apr 1, 2025 7:30 am | 11 Credit: NanoStockk Credit: NanoStockk Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWhat does it take to get OpenAI and Anthropictwo competitors in the AI assistant marketto get along? Despite a fundamental difference in direction that led Anthropic's founders to quit OpenAI in 2020 and later create the Claude AI assistant, a shared technical hurdle has now brought them together: How to easily connect their AI models to external data sources.The solution comes from Anthropic, which developed and released an open specification called Model Context Protocol (MCP) in November 2024. MCP establishes a royalty-free protocol that allows AI models to connect with outside data sources and services without requiring unique integrations for each service."Think of MCP as a USB-C port for AI applications," wrote Anthropic in MCP's documentation. The analogy is imperfect, but it represents the idea that, similar to how USB-C unified various cables and ports (with admittedly a debatable level of success), MCP aims to standardize how AI models connect to the infoscape around them.So far, MCP has also garnered interest from multiple tech companies in a rare show of cross-platform collaboration. For example, Microsoft has integrated MCP into its Azure OpenAI service, and as we mentioned above, Anthropic competitor OpenAI is on board. Last week, OpenAI acknowledged MCP in its Agents API documentation, with vocal support from the boss upstairs."People love MCP and we are excited to add support across our products," wrote OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X last Wednesday.MCP has also rapidly begun to gain community support in recent months. For example, just browsing this list of over 300 open source servers shared on GitHub reveals growing interest in standardizing AI-to-tool connections. The collection spans diverse domains, including database connectors like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and vector databases; development tools that integrate with Git repositories and code editors; file system access for various storage platforms; knowledge retrieval systems for documents and websites; and specialized tools for finance, health care, and creative applications.Other notable examples include servers that connect AI models to home automation systems, real-time weather data, e-commerce platforms, and music streaming services. Some implementations allow AI assistants to interact with gaming engines, 3D modeling software, and IoT devices.What is context anyway?To fully appreciate why a universal AI standard for external data sources is useful, you'll need to understand what "context" means in the AI field.With current AI model architecture, what an AI model "knows" about the world is baked into its neural network in a largely unchangeable form, placed there by either an initial procedure called "pre-training," which calculates statistical relationships between vast quantities of input data ("training data"like books, articles, and images) and feeds it into the network as numerical values called "weights." Later, a process called "fine-tuning" might adjust those weights to alter behavior (such as through reinforcement learning like RLHF) or provide examples of new concepts.Typically, the training phase is very expensive computationally and happens either only once in the case of a base model, or infrequently with periodic model updates and fine-tunings. That means AI models only have internal neural network representations of events prior to a "cutoff date" when the training dataset was finalized.After that, the AI model is run in a kind of read-only mode called "inference," where users feed inputs into the neural network to produce outputs, which are called "predictions." They're called predictions because the systems are tuned to predict the most likely next token (a chunk of data, such as portions of a word) in a user-provided sequence.In the AI field, context is the user-provided sequenceall the data fed into an AI model that guides the model to produce a response output. This context includes the user's input (the "prompt"), the running conversation history (in the case of chatbots), and any external information sources pulled into the conversation, including a "system prompt" that defines model behavior and "memory" systems that recall portions of past conversations. The limit on the amount of context a model can ingest at once is often called a "context window," "context length, " or "context limit," depending on personal preference.While the prompt provides important information for the model to operate upon, accessing external information sources has traditionally been cumbersome. Before MCP, AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude could access external data (a process often called retrieval augmented generation, or RAG), but doing so required custom integrations for each serviceplugins, APIs, and proprietary connectors that didn't work across different AI models. Each new data source demanded unique code, creating maintenance challenges and compatibility issues.MCP addresses these problems by providing a standardized method or set of rules (a "protocol") that allows any supporting AI model framework to connect with external tools and information sources.How does MCP work?To make the connections behind the scenes between AI models and data sources, MCP uses a client-server model. An AI model (or its host application) acts as an MCP client that connects to one or more MCP servers. Each server provides access to a specific resource or capability, such as a database, search engine, or file system. When the AI needs information beyond its training data, it sends a request to the appropriate server, which performs the action and returns the result.To illustrate how the client-server model works in practice, consider a customer support chatbot using MCP that could check shipping details in real time from a company database. "What's the status of order #12345?" would trigger the AI to query an order database MCP server, which would look up the information and pass it back to the model. The model could then incorporate that data into its response: "Your order shipped on March 30 and should arrive April 2."Beyond specific use cases like customer support, the potential scope is very broad. Early developers have already built MCP servers for services likeGoogle Drive, Slack, GitHub, and Postgres databases. This means AI assistants could potentially search documents in a company Drive, review recent Slack messages, examine code in a repository, or analyze data in a databaseall through a standard interface.From a technical implementation perspective, Anthropic designed the standard for flexibility by running in two main modes: Some MCP servers operate locally on the same machine as the client (communicating via standard input-output streams), while others run remotely and stream responses over HTTP. In both cases, the model works with a list of available tools and calls them as needed.A work in progressDespite the growing ecosystem around MCP, the protocol remains an early-stage project. The limited announcements of support from major companies are promising first steps, but MCP's future as an industry standard may depend on broader acceptance, although the number of MCP servers seems to be growing at a rapid pace.Regardless of its ultimate adoption rate, MCP may have some interesting second-order effects. For example, MCP also has the potential to reduce vendor lock-in. Because the protocol is model-agnostic, a company could switch from one AI provider to another while keeping the same tools and data connections intact.MCP may also allow a shift toward smaller and more efficient AI systems that can interact more fluidly with external resources without the need for customized fine-tuning. Also, rather than building increasingly massive models with all knowledge baked in, companies may instead be able to use smaller models with large context windows.For now, the future of MCP is wide open. Anthropic maintains MCP as an open source initiative on GitHub, where interested developers can either contribute to the code or find specifications about how it works. Anthropic has also provided extensive documentation about how to connect Claude to various services. OpenAI maintains its own API documentation for MCP on its website.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. 11 Comments

A rock and a hard place Tuesday Telescope: A close-up of the magical camera at the end of a robotic arm Wait, the Daily Telescope is back? Sort of. Eric Berger Apr 1, 2025 8:00 am | 5 Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWelcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough lighta little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. Well let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, well take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.We're back! A long-time reader and subscriber recently mentioned in the Ars Forums that they "kind of" missed the Daily Telescope posts that I used to write in 2023 and 2024. Although I would have preferred that everyone desperately missed the Daily Telescope, I appreciate the sentiment. I really do.I initially stopped writing these posts about a year ago because it just became too much to commit to writing one thing every day. I mean, I could have done it. But doing so on the daily crossed over the line from enjoyable to drudgery, and one of the best things about working for Ars is that it tends very much toward the enjoyable side. Anyway, writing one of these posts on a weekly basis feels more sustainable. I guess we'll find out!Today's image comes to you all the way from Mars. One of the most powerful tools on NASA's Perseverance rover is the WATSON camera attached to the end of the rover's robotic arm. In the fine tradition of tortured acronyms at the space agency, WATSON stands for Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering. And because of course it is, WATSON is located on the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument. Seriously, NASA must stand for Not Another Screwball Acronym.This photograph shows the WATSON camera taking a close-up image of a rock on Mars (here's the rock, by the way). The raw image from NASA was processed by Kevin M. Gill, who runs an exceptional Bluesky account and has a great Flickr page worth checking out. The detail is excellent.Speaking of Perseverance, the rover has now been operating on the surface of Mars for more than four years. It's a reminder that although things may seem pretty messed up here on Earth, there's some rad stuff going on elsewhere in the Solar System.Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. GillDo you want to submit a photo for the Daily Telescope?Reach out and say hello.Eric BergerSenior Space EditorEric BergerSenior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 5 Comments

WAGON! WAGON! WAGON! The 2025 BMW M5 Touring review: Way more power, way too much weight BMW has been making M5s for 40 years, but the latest one has lost its way somewhat. Bradley Iger Mar 31, 2025 1:04 pm | 26 At long last, BMW has brought the M5 Touring to the US. But does the latest M5 match up to the previous iterations? Credit: Bradley Iger At long last, BMW has brought the M5 Touring to the US. But does the latest M5 match up to the previous iterations? Credit: Bradley Iger Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWhen BMW introduced the original M5 to the European motoring public in 1984, the automaker effectively established a new vehicle segment. By combining the practical and understatedly rakish E28 5-Series with the motorsport-derived six-cylinder engine from the M1 supercar, the automaker had created a do-it-all performance machine, a vehicle that could serve as a tasteful and luxurious sedan one moment and a charismatic sports car the next.Its a concept that has guided the development of not only subsequent generations of the M5 but also all of the other sports sedans that have dared to go toe to toe with it over the past forty years. For decades, its been the benchmark by which all big, fast four-doors have been judged, but after spending a week with the all-new $125,275 G99-generation M5 Touring, I cant help but wonder if that era is coming to a close.A range of factors have contributed to this seismic shift. While other automakers have been chasing the M5s ghost around the Nrburgring, BMW has purposely started to reposition its M Division vehicles as the pinnacle representation of the brand rather than the pinnacle representation of BMW performance. Its a move that has yielded models like the XM, a vehicle that certainly has plenty of firepower under the hood but ultimately prioritizes style over substance. The iconic sport sedan badge returns with a burly hybrid powertrain and an array of high-tech hardware designed to mask its substantial heft, but the end result has me longing for the past. Bradley Iger The iconic sport sedan badge returns with a burly hybrid powertrain and an array of high-tech hardware designed to mask its substantial heft, but the end result has me longing for the past. Bradley Iger Practical but heavy. Bradley Iger Practical but heavy. Bradley Iger The iconic sport sedan badge returns with a burly hybrid powertrain and an array of high-tech hardware designed to mask its substantial heft, but the end result has me longing for the past. Bradley Iger Practical but heavy. Bradley Iger And as BMW contends with customers undying thirst for more, it must also contend with an array of European regulations aimed at quelling everything from emissions to road noise. From an engineering standpoint, this creates a significant challenge: How do you make your new sports sedan more capable and engaging than the last one while still adhering to the rule of law? For BMW, the answer appears to come in the form of a vast array of technologies aimed at convincing you that the experience is more thrilling than it actually is.I dont mean to imply that the new M5 is a bad car, or even bad at executing the mission of an M5. In some respects, theres cause for celebration: For the first time in the M5s history, the Touring model has made its way stateside to do battle with the RS 6 Avant, Audis high-performance wagon. Opting for the longroof not only scores you an arguably more stylish M5; it also expands its cargo capacity to a crossover-like 57.6 cubic feet (1,631 L) with the rear seats down.But the pursuit of more seems to have been a core priority during the development of the new M5, and more doesnt always equate to a better automobile. Credit: Bradley Iger For example, theres quite a bit more power on tap than in the outgoing M5. Under the hood is a 4.4 L twin-turbocharged V8 that dishes out 577 hp (430 kW) and 553 lb-ft (750 Nm) of torque, and for the first time in an M5, its paired up with a permanently excited synchronous electric motor thats integrated into the eight-speed transmission.The electric motor can deliver up to 194 hp (145 kW) and 207 lb-ft (280 Nm) on its own, and with a 14.8 kWh battery pack onboard, it can provide roughly 25 miles (40 km) of all-electric range. All in, the M Hybrid powertrain delivers a grand total of 717 hp (535 kW) and 738 lb-ft (1,000 Nm) of torque to all four wheels.But while gains of 100 hp (75 kW) and 185 lb-ft (250 Nm) over the outgoing M5 Competition are substantial, they come at a significant cost to the M5s curb weight. Now tipping the scales at an almost unbelievable 5,400 lbs (2,449 kg), the latest M5 weighs roughly a thousand pounds more than the outgoing model and is actually heavier than its all-electric counterpart, the i5. That equates to an M5 with a power-to-weight ratio thats worse than its predecessors, along with an official 060 mph time that, at a still furiously quick 3.4 seconds, is two-tenths slower.The hybrid system isnt entirely to blame for the additional heft, though. The latest M5 has also grown in proportion by more than four inches (101 mm) in length and two and a half inches (63 mm) in width. With flared fenders, huge air intakes, and a hunkered-down stance, it gives the M5 significant visual presence on the road, but behind the wheel, it sometimes feels more like youre driving a low-slung SUV than a svelte sports sedan. Credit: Bradley Iger M5-specific front seats, unique lighting treatments, and a flat-bottomed steering wheel with chunky paddle shifters and a pair of bright red M buttons bring a sense of occasion to the cabin, but its the 14.9-inch touchscreen infotainment display that will capture the majority of drivers attention. As weve seen in other recent BMW models, were left with only a small collection of capacitive buttons, a rotary knob, and (mercifully) a volume dial on the center console.Basic functions like adjusting the fan speed of the air conditioning system require taking your attention off of the road to call up the comfort settings on the display, and if you dare to venture further down the rabbit hole to adjust something else, youll find an app drawer-style menu filled with ambiguously named icons that rarely get you where you want to go the first time out.Do I change the damper stiffness by pressing the M Mode button on the center console, or is it in the Drivetrain and chassis submenu under Driving Settings? The answer is neither. (In fact, you should use iDrives excellent voice commands so you can keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the roadEd.)With adjustments for throttle response, brake regeneration, steering weight, brake pedal responsiveness, transmission behavior, all-wheel drive system modes, simulated engine noise volume, and other performance-related features, you can create literally hundreds of different combinations of vehicle settings, but thankfully, the aforementioned M1 and M2 buttons on the steering wheel provide an easy way to call up one of your two favorite presets on the fly. The bigger concern, though, is how all of these augmentations and enhancements seem to conspire to hide the shortcomings of BMWs design decisions but arent successful in doing so. This will be the last generation of BMW iDrive to use a rotary controller, and we'll miss it. Bradley Iger This will be the last generation of BMW iDrive to use a rotary controller, and we'll miss it. Bradley Iger CarPlay is present and correct. And not at an additional upcharge. Bradley Iger CarPlay is present and correct. And not at an additional upcharge. Bradley Iger This will be the last generation of BMW iDrive to use a rotary controller, and we'll miss it. Bradley Iger CarPlay is present and correct. And not at an additional upcharge. Bradley Iger Chassis upgrades are a prerequisite for an M car, and with an M-tuned adaptative suspension, additional structural bracing, massive brake discs with six-piston calipers up front, four-wheel steering, and torque vectoring all on board as standard, the M5 certainly isnt short on them. Given that, its reasonable to expect that an M model will have a firmer ride quality than its garden-variety counterpart.But the vehicle has an additional measure of harshness as compared to previous M5 models, even under normal driving situations with the dampers set to their most relaxed mode, which I theorize is related to the suspension tuning needed to keep body motions controlled and maintain a sport-oriented feel despite the weight involved.Dont get me wrong, this is still a grand tourer of the highest order. Triple-digit speeds can be accessed with a brief stab of the throttle, and thanks to the improved ergonomics of the latest 5-Series and the model-specific sport seats that are both comfortable and supportive, the M5 will still devour highway miles with the best of them. At times when both the electric motor and the V8 are working together, the hybridized powertrain also delivers the kind of instant-on throttle response thats typically reserved for EVs.The realities of physics become harder to ignore when the going gets twisty, though. BMW engineers deserve significant praise for making a vehicle that weighs the better part of three tons handle the way this M5 does, but the car still feels burdened by the additional heft.Even when the array of settings youve chosen indicate that youre ready to roll out of pit lane at Laguna Seca, the steering remains devoid of feedback, mid-corner bumps often result in multiple suspension oscillations before the car fully regains its composure, and the pads that are equipped with optional carbon ceramic brakes get hot enough to smell after just a few minutes of hustling through the canyons. And despite the fact that the M5s various enhancements and augmentations assure you that this spirited drive is going swimmingly, the M2youre chasing down your favorite backroad continues to fade into the distance. Bradley Iger Bradley Iger Bradley Iger Bradley Iger Bradley Iger Bradley Iger Bradley Iger Bradley Iger The M5 seats are easier to get in and out of than the carbon buckets in the M5 CS we tested. Bradley Iger The M5 seats are easier to get in and out of than the carbon buckets in the M5 CS we tested. Bradley Iger The M5's back seats. Bradley Iger The M5's back seats. Bradley Iger The M5 seats are easier to get in and out of than the carbon buckets in the M5 CS we tested. Bradley Iger The M5's back seats. Bradley Iger One could argue that these compromises are unavoidable in the pursuit of more, and in this rapidly evolving automotive landscape, progress can be quantified in a number of different ways. But if youre the kind of enthusiast who values the driving experience over the figures on the spec sheet, you might actually find yourself wishing for less. 26 Comments

Tweets "warrant further discussion" Even Trump may not be able to save Elon Musk from his old tweets Court win for investors may sway SECs probe of Elon Musks Twitter purchase. Ashley Belanger Mar 31, 2025 2:52 pm | 8 This video grab taken from a video posted on the Twitter account of billionaire Tesla chief Elon Musk on October 26, 2022 shows himself carrying a sink as he enters the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, following his takeover. Credit: Photo by -/Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images This video grab taken from a video posted on the Twitter account of billionaire Tesla chief Elon Musk on October 26, 2022 shows himself carrying a sink as he enters the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, following his takeover. Credit: Photo by -/Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreBack in December, Elon Musk accused the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of launching a purely politically motivated probe into his Twitter purchase. In a letter from his lawyer, Alex Spiro, Musk alleged that the SEC gave him 48 hours to accept a settlement or face fraud charges. Musk refused to pay the fine, demanding to know "who directed these actions," suspecting either former SEC Chair Gary Gensler or Joe Biden's White House.Once the SEC lawsuit was filed in January, Musk's condemnation of the settlement was echoed in his claims that the SEC was "totally broken." These comments seemed to further his feud with the agency following a contentious 2018 Tesla settlement over Musk's tweets that resulted in the Supreme Court declining to hear Musk's arguments against his tweets being monitored by the SEC.But after Donald Trump issued a February executive order declaring sweeping powers over independent agenciesincluding the SEC, which was accused of launching politically motivated investigationsit appeared that Musk might instead have been setting up the narrative to possibly get the probe squashed.And while that still appears to be a possibility, it now seems that a persistent lawsuit raised by Twitter investors that's linked to the SEC probe may end up being the hurdle that possibly blocks Musk's efforts to evade the SEC's investigation. And once again, it's perhaps Musk's tweets that may force the billionaire to potentially end up paying fines to settle chargesrecently deemed plausibly showing intent to deceive.On Friday, US District Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr., gave Twitter investors a big win by mostly denying Musk's motion to dismiss. The judge agreed that it seemed plausible that Musk and other defendants concocted a scheme to spend "over $2.6 billion to secretly purchase over 70 million shares" at an artificially lower price. Plaintiffs had argued the scheme saved Musk "over $200 million" while allegedly harming investors whose shares could have sold at higher prices during the time the supposed scheme was in action.At the core of the lawsuit is a claim that Musk "deliberately" or "recklessly" delayed filing notices that would have alerted investors about his plans to take over Twitter before he purchased a large stake in the company. Part of the alleged deceptions included tweets where Musk appears to mislead the public about his intentions to buy Twitter.Two of those tweets, Carter wrote, "warrant further discussion." In one, Musk responds to a user urging him to "just buy Twitter" and "change the bird logo to a doge" icon representing the cryptocurrency Dogecoin. That tweet can be reasonably read as "a statement meant to misdirect the public to think that buying Twitter was just a fantasy," Carter concluded, since Musk perhaps conveniently left out "critical information that he already owned nearly 10 percent of the company."In the other tweet, Musk responded to a user asking if he would consider building his own social media platform, writing, "Am giving serious thought to this." This can be read "as an affirmative representation that Musk had no interest in Twitter, but was rather building out a rival platform," Carter wrote.Musk had hoped to convince the court that these tweets were simply "teasing" and that his allegedly deceptive SEC filings were a "mistake." But Carter suggested that Twitter investors' allegations that the tweets were posted to "deceive the public about, or distract the public from looking further into" the secret trading scheme is "at least as compelling" as Musk's claims of "nonfraudulent intent."And "more compelling" than Musk's claims he made a "mistake," Carter wrote, were investors' claims that Musk and other defendants intentionally delayed filing forms confirming Musk's intent to buy Twitter in order to acquire millions of shares at a lower price. Investors met their burden that the delay sent a "false pricing signal to the market," leading Carter to conclude "that the facts surrounding the trading strategy evince a deceptive act in furtherance of a scheme to defraud."A loss in the investors' and SEC's suits could force Musk to disgorge any ill-gotten gains from the alleged scheme, estimated at $150 million, as well as potential civil penalties.The SEC and Musk's X (formerly Twitter) did not respond to Ars' request to comment. Investors' lawyers declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.SEC purge may slow down probesUnder the Biden administration, the SEC alleged that "Musks violation resulted in substantial economic harm to investors selling Twitter common stock." For the lead plaintiffs in the investors' suit, the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System, the scheme allegedly robbed retirees of gains used to sustain their quality of life at a particularly vulnerable time.Musk has continued to argue that his alleged $200 million in savings from the scheme was minimal compared to his $44 billion purchase price. But the alleged gains represent about two-thirds of the $290 million price the billionaire paid to support Trump's election, which won Musk a senior advisor position in the Trump administration, CNBC reported. So it's seemingly not an insignificant amount of money in the grand scheme.Likely bending to Musk's influence, one of Trump's earliest moves after taking office, CNBC reported, was reversing a 15-year-old policy allowing the SEC director of enforcement to launch probes like the one Musk is currently battling. It allowed the Tesla probe, for example, to be launched just seven days after Musk's allegedly problematic tweets, the SEC boasted in a 2020 press release.Now, after Trump's rule change, investigations must be approved by a vote of SEC commissioners. That will likely slow down probes that the SEC had previously promised years ago would only speed up over time in order to more swiftly protect investors.SEC expected to reduce corporate finesFor Musk, the SEC has long been a thorn in his side. At least two top officials (1, 2) cited the Tesla settlement as a career highlight, with the agency seeming especially proud of thinking "creatively about appropriate remedies," the 2020 press release said. Monitoring Musk's tweets, the SEC said, blocked "potential harm to investors" and put control over Musk's tweets into the SEC's hands.The SEC's enforcement division has drastically fewer resources at its disposal to pursue such creative remedies now. But even while Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is currently overhauling the SEC, and Trump is threatening to tamp down on any investigations deemed politically motivated, the investors' suit perhaps shows how hard it will be for courts and officials to ignore the potential power of Musk's tweets deemed misleading to manipulate markets. With the lawsuits linked, it will be interesting to see how officials navigate the politics.During the prior administration, an SEC lawyer had accused Musk of using delay tactics and supposed gamesmanship that must cease for the case to proceed with urgency. And the current SEC, packed with officials seemingly ready to loosen regulation of tech companies, doesn't seem to think the case against Musk can be dropped, even as experts note that it's not the most egregious case of alleged fraud ever filed. Last week Reuters revealed that the SEC held a closed-door vote to decide if the lawsuit should even be filed, with four out of five commissioners agreeing to move forward with the probe.The sole stand-out, acting head of the SEC Mark Uyeda, could perhaps still hold sway over the probe, though. Following the vote, he apparently took the unusual step of asking enforcement staffreportedly the hardest hit by DOGE cuts and buyoutsto sign pledges denying that the investigation had political motivations, Reuters reported. (Significant cuts in the enforcement and office of general counsel divisions are also expected to delay investigations and constrain litigation.)Under Uyeda, legal experts expect the SEC to reduce fines for infringing activity that companies have long protested as burdening the US economy after the prior regime's fines reached record highs. And incoming SEC Chair Paul Atkins has already praised DOGE's cuts, promising to cooperate with Musk's team and potentially personally warming to Trump's advisor.That could mean that Musk's rejection of the settlement last December, at the very least, may have spared him a higher fine, which was perhaps yet another effective delay tactic in an SEC lawsuit fixated on delay tactics.Ashley BelangerSenior Policy ReporterAshley BelangerSenior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 8 Comments

Vapes are so hot right now Lithium-ion battery waste fires are increasing, and vapes are a big part of it Tiny batteries and "disposable" e-cigs remain big risks for waste handlers. Kevin Purdy Mar 31, 2025 3:23 pm | 50 Fire Rover's automated suppression system soaks the area around a lithium-ion battery fire on a crowded tipping floor at a recycling and waste facility. Credit: Fire Rover/YouTube Fire Rover's automated suppression system soaks the area around a lithium-ion battery fire on a crowded tipping floor at a recycling and waste facility. Credit: Fire Rover/YouTube Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn more2024 was "a year of growth," according to fire-suppression company Fire Rover, but that's not an entirely good thing.The company, which offers fire detection and suppression systems based on thermal and optical imaging, smoke analytics, and human verification, releases annual reports on waste and recycling facility fires in the US and Canada to select industry and media. In 2024, Fire Rover, based on its fire identifications, saw 2,910 incidents, a 60 percent increase from the 1,809 in 2023, and more than double the 1,409 fires confirmed in 2022.Publicly reported fire incidents at waste and recycling facilities also hit 398, a new high since Fire Rover began compiling its report eight years ago, when that number was closer to 275.Lots of things could cause fires in the waste stream, long before lithium-ion batteries became common: "Fireworks, pool chemicals, hot (barbecue) briquettes," writes Ryan Fogelman, CEO of Fire Rover, in an email to Ars. But lithium-ion batteries pose a growing problem, as the number of devices with batteries increases, consumer education and disposal choices remain limited, and batteries remain a very easy-to-miss, troublesome occupant of the waste stream.All batteries that make it into waste streams are potentially hazardous, as they have so many ways of being set off: puncturing, vibration, overheating, short-circuiting, crushing, internal cell failure, overcharging, or inherent manufacturing flaws, among others. Fire Rover's report notes that the media often portrays batteries as "spontaneously" catching fire. In reality, the very nature of waste handling makes it almost impossible to ensure that no battery will face hazards in handling, the report notes. Tiny batteries can be packed into the most disposable of itemseven paper marketing materials handed out at conferences.Fogelman estimates, based on his experience and some assumptions, that about half of the fires he's tracking originate with batteries. Roughly $2.5 billion of loss to facilities and infrastructure came from fires last year, divided between traditional hazards and batteries, he writes.Ars previously covered a likely lithium-ion caused fire in a suburban Chicago truck that spread to the truck's compressed natural gas (CNG) tanks, causing an explosion that injured firefighters and damaged nearby homes. Fire Rover also adds a February 2025 fire in a Camden, New Jersey, scrapyard, caused by a battery "wrongly delivered to EMR and undetectably concealed within scrap metal," according to the company, requiring more than 15 fire companies' response and damaging the site and putting nearby residents out of their homes.The vape effectBatteries as a whole are a growing concern, but there's a reason Fire Rover's report has an image of an exploding electronic vape pen on its cover, with the superimposed message "We are at war 2024." Fogelman sees a notable shift in publicly reported fire datanot from Fire Rover's own detection, but from news and other reports and sourcesfrom the 20162021 period to 20222024. Something is causing this shift, and Fogelman's most likely culprit is e-cigarettes, vapes, and other battery-powered nicotine devices.But that safe, evenly distributed vape disposal network does not exist. As previously noted, you can make a rather powerful e-bike from the vapes left behind at a festival in the UK. In the US, the EPA directs people to bring their e-cigarettes to household hazardous waste (HHW) sites or pick-up events, which are "typically" free."Not only are their batteries being improperly discarded in waste and recycling bins, but the vape industry has done the bare minimum to invest in the technology needed to address the 1.2 billion vapes entering our waste and recycling streams annually," the report states.Kevin PurdySenior Technology ReporterKevin PurdySenior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 50 Comments

The stories we almost missed this month Research roundup: 2,400-year-old clay puppets; this is your brain on Klingon Also: testing the efficacy of WWI "dazzle" camouflage; how the male blue-lined octopus survives deadly mating ritual. Jennifer Ouellette Mar 31, 2025 3:49 pm | 12 Credit: J. Przedwojewska-Szymaska/PASI Credit: J. Przedwojewska-Szymaska/PASI Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreIt's a regrettable reality that there is never time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection of such stories. March's list includes fascinating papers on such topics as how the brain responds to speaking Klingon (or Dothraki, or Navi), the discovery of creepy preclassic Salvadoran puppets, the effectiveness of "dazzle camouflage," and how male blue-lined octopuses manage not to be cannibalized by their chosen mates.Wind Caves rocks fluoresce under black light Several fluorescence measurements of a zebra calcite in Wind Cave were taken using portable spectrometers. Credit: Joshua Sebree South Dakota's Wind Cave gets its name from the flow of air moving continually through its many passages and equalizing the atmospheric pressure between the air inside and outsidealmost like the cave is "breathing." Its rock and mineral formations also boast a unique chemistry that fluoresces when exposed to black light, according to talks presented at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego. That fluorescence could shed light on how life can thrive in extreme environments, including that of Jupiter's moon, Europa.University of Northern Iowa astrobiologist Joshua Sebree and several students have been mapping new areas of Wind Cave (as well as other caves in the US), recording the passages, rock formations, minerals, and lifeforms they encounter in the process. They noticed that under UV light, certain parts of Wind Cave took on otherworldly hues, thanks to different concentrations of organic and inorganic fossilized chemical compounds. Those areas seem to indicate where water once flowed, carrying minerals into the cave from the surface 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, according to their analysis of the fluorescent spectra. Sebree et al. found that Wind Cave was likely carved out by waters rich in manganese, producing zebra stripes that glow pink under UV light, revealing the calcites that grew within as a result of those waters.The physics of swing-top beer bottles Three frames of a high-speed recording after popping a homebrewed bottle of beer. Credit: Max Koch So-called kitchen science is all the rage these days, with champagne, wine, and beer being particularly favorite subjects for experimentation. German physicist Max Koch of the University of Goettingen is as passionate about home brewing as he is about fluid dynamics. So naturally, Koch became fascinated by the distinctive "pop and slosh" sounds produced whenever he opened one of his home-brewed swing-top beer bottles. His experiments used a high-speed camera to capture the acoustics and underlying physics, augmented by audio recording and computer simulations.Rather than producing a single shockwave, Koch and his co-authors discovered that the unique sound occurs because popping the lid produces a vibrating standing wave, thanks to condensation within the bottleneck, according to a paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids. They were surprised to find that the frequency of the pop was significantly lower than the resonance produced by blowing across the open bottle top, which they attributed to the sudden expansion of the carbon dioxide and a strong cooling effect that reduces sound speed. The sloshing is due to the bottle's motion, and it's possible that the lid hitting the glass after popping could produce more bubbles and hence gushing.Physics of Fluids, 2025. DOI: 10.1063/5.0248739 (About DOIs).How effective was WWI dazzle paint? A painting by Norman Wilkinson of a moonlit convoy wearing the dazzle camouflage he invented, 1918. Credit: Public domain During World War I, ships were often painted with complex geometric shapes in contrasting and intersecting colors, dubbed "dazzle camouflage" and usually attributed to British marine artist Norman Wilkinson. The objective was to confuse enemy U-boat captains trying to determine the speed and direction of those ships, and a 1919 study seemed to support that hypothesis. Aston University researchers have revisited that original study and concluded that the horizon effectin which ships viewed from a distance seem to be traveling along the horizonis a more effective means of confusing enemy combatants, according to a paper published in the journal i-Perception.The author of the 1919 study was an MIT marine engineering student named Leo Blodgett, who painted model ships in those geometric patterns and observed them with a model periscope in a mechanical test theater to see if he could determine whether an observer's perception of the direction of travel was markedly different from the actual direction. He concluded that this was indeed the case and therefore dazzle paint was effective.But according to the Aston scientists, Blodgett's experiment did not have a solid control condition to warrant such a conclusion. So they revisited his 105-year-old data and ran their own version of Blodgett's experiment, comparing results from his photographs showing the original dazzle camouflage with versions that had the camouflage patterns edited out. The results: the dazzle camouflage did work via a twist on perspective, but it was a small effect. The horizon effect had a much stronger confounding effect.i-Perception, 2025. DOI: 10.1177/20416695241312316 (About DOIs).Early Salvadoran clay puppets These Bolinas figures were found in a Salvadoran pyramid. Credit: J. Przedwojewska-Szymaska/PASI Archaeologists excavating the San Isidro pyramid in El Salvador have discovered five carved clay figurines dating back to around 400 BCE that may have been controlled with string like modern marionettes. Such "Bolinas" figures have also been found at a Mayan burial site in Guatemala, suggesting the two areas may have shared culture and civilization, according to a paper published in the journal Antiquity.Three of the puppets were about a foot tall, with the other two measuring about 18 centimeters. The larger ones had adjustable heads connected to their bodies via matching sockets. The carved faces feature tongues, tattoos, and facial expressions that shift depending on the viewing angle: fearful when viewed from below and grinning from above, for example. The authors suggest that these puppets weren't used as toys, but as "clay actors" in ritualistic funeral performances. "The universal impetus for creating scaled-down humanoid figures appears to be mimeticthat is, imbuing these handheld objects with deeper meanings that are readily decoded by the intended audience," they concluded, although the shared cultural "code" for interpreting those meanings has been lost.Antiquity, 2025. DOI:10.15184/aqy.2025.37 (About DOIs).This is your brain on Esperanto and Klingon Worf, son of Mogh, is surprised by new fMRI study. Credit: Paramount+ J.R.R. Tolkien invented two Elvish languages (Quenya and Sindarin) when writing The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Star Trek has Klingon, the Avatar films have Na'vi, and Game of Thrones boasts two constructed languages, or conlangs: Dothraki and High Valyrian. There are even hardcore fans who have diligently become proficient in those invented languages. And apparently conlangs activate the same parts of the brain as their native tongues, according to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.MIT neuroscientist Evelina Fedorenko previously spearheaded studies on how the brain responds to stimuli that share certain language featuresmusic, gestures, facial expressions, and computer programming languages like Python. None seemed to engage the language-processing areas of the brain. Curious about what makes natural language unique, Fedorenko et al. turned to conlangs. They organized a weekend conference featuring conlang creators as speakers and invited people fluent in Esperanto, Klingon, Na'vi, Dothraki, and High Valyrian to participate. They scanned 44 conlang speakers with fMRI as they listened to sentences in both their chosen conlang and their native tongue, performing nonlinguistic tasks as a control.The results: The same language regions lit up regardless of whether they were speaking in their chosen conlang or native natural language. This helped the group determine that language responses appear to be driven in part by how they convey meaning about the interior and exterior worldobjects, properties of objects, events, etc. Python, by contrast, is highly symbolic and abstract, disconnected from the everyday "real" world we experience. The group next plans to study how the brain responds to a different conlang called Lojban, created in the 1990s, to learn more about which language features activate the brain's language centers.PNAS, 2025. DOI:10.1073/pnas.2313473122 (About DOIs).Venom as a protective strategy for male octopuses Male blue-lined octopuses inject females with venom during sex to avoid being eaten. Credit: Wen-Sung Chung/University of Queensland Sexual cannibalismin which a female of the species consumes the male after copulatingis a very real thing in nature, seen in insect species like mantises and spiders, certain crustaceans and gastropods, and even certain species of octopus. Case in point: the blue-lined octopus (Hapalochlaena fasciata), a tiny creature found in shallow waters whose venom can be quite deadly, especially to humans. The females of the species might be the size of golf balls, but they are nonetheless significantly larger than the males and have a tendency to eat their mates.Fortunately, the males have developed an effective defense strategy, according to a paper published in the journal Current Biology: They inject their chosen females with tetrodotoxin (a venom also produced by pufferfish) just before mating, temporarily paralyzing the females so the males can avoid being eaten. Scientists at the University of Queensland studied the behavior of mating blue-lined octopuses in the lab and noticed that males would bite the females near the aorta as the mating ritual commenced, flooding their systems with the venom.This immobilized the females for the duration of the mating sessions (which lasted between 40 and 75 minutes); they largely stopped breathing, turned pale, and did not respond to visual stimuli during that time. The males actually increased their respiration rate as they used a specialized mating arm to deposit their sperm into the females' oviducts to fertilize the eggs. The effects of the venom eventually wore off sufficiently for the females to push the males away without suffering any permanent effects. The authors suggest that female blue-lined octopuses may have evolved a tolerance to tetrodotoxin, ensuring they survive to lay their eggs and propagate the species.Current Biology, 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.027 (About DOIs).Rubber hand illusion alleviates pain A rubber hand is perceived as part of your own body when you can't see your own. Credit: Damian Gorczany One of the many strange things to come out of 21st-century neuroscience is the so-called rubber hand illusion, in which a subjects hand is hidden and replaced by a rubber hand in the position where the real hand would be. When both the real and fake hands are stroked simultaneously, subjects respond as if the rubber hand were part of their body. Threaten the rubber hand by attempting to stab it with a dagger, for instance, and the participants exhibit an involuntary startle or fear response. Its the combination of visual and tactile feedback that does it, and it only takes a few seconds for the illusion to kick in. And it's not a purely psychological effect; there have been measurable physiological responses as well.Scientists in Bochum, Germany, have now shown that the rubber hand illusion can also alleviate pain, according to a paper published in the journal Pain Reports. They recruited 34 right-handed subjects, evaluated their individual pain thresholds, then placed the subjects' left hands behind a screen. A left rubber hand was placed in front of the subjects, which could be lit from below with red light. Then heat was applied at different temperatures to the hidden hand, while red light increased on the visible rubber hand. Subjects were asked to rate their pain in response.The results: subjects' perception of pain decreased noticeably when the rubber hand illusion was used, compared to control conditions. The authors don't yet know what the underlying mechanism might be but suggest it could be related to visual analgesia, in which pain is considered less intense if someone can see the part of the body that is being hurt.Pain Reports, 2025. DOI: 10.1097/PR9.0000000000001252 (About DOIs).Jennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 12 Comments