Sunday, August 16, 2020
Redmi 9 Prime to Go on Sale in India Today via Amazon, Mi.com
US military says its members stream on Twitch to become "relatable to a new generation", but the recruitment tactic is under criticism from gamers and lawmakers (Shannon Liao/CNN)
US military says its members stream on Twitch to become “relatable to a new generation”, but the recruitment tactic is under criticism from gamers and lawmakers — New York (CNN)The United States military needs to attract Gen Z, the oldest of whom are now in their late teens and early 20s …
Urban India's reverse migration from mobile to desktop
Banks issued 1.6 crore new debit cards during peak lockdown
CGPSC State Service Recruitment 2020 – Apply Online for Mains Exam
Could a Dragon spacecraft fly humans to the Moon? It’s complicated
Enlarge / Crew Dragon splashes down into the ocean on August 2. (credit: Bill Inglalls/NASA)
On a recent Sunday afternoon, a black-and-white spacecraft raced through the atmosphere, ionizing molecules, and creating a plasma inferno. Amidst this fireball, two astronauts sheltered within the small haven of Dragonship Endeavour, as its carbon-based heat shield crisped and flaked away.
After a few torrid minutes, Endeavour shed most of its orbital velocity. Falling into the lower atmosphere, its parachutes deployed in a careful sequence, and the spacecraft floated down from blue skies into blue seas. Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were safe. They were home. For the first time in 4.5 decades, astronauts returned from space and splashed down into the ocean, like the Apollo-era heroes who walked across the Moon.
The landing came as NASA, at the direction of Vice President Mike Pence, is working urgently to return humans to the Moon by 2024. This is a herculean task for the agency’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine, who is balancing politics, funding, and technical hurdles to push NASA and its contractors forward.
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As schools adopt remote learning or hybrid reopening models, US students face a laptop shortage, particularly of low-cost Chromebooks popular at K-8 schools (Dan Primack/Axios)
As schools adopt remote learning or hybrid reopening models, US students face a laptop shortage, particularly of low-cost Chromebooks popular at K-8 schools — American students are facing a shortage of laptops, particularly low-cost Chromebooks popular in K-8 schools …
Netflix’s Project Power, the most fun you won’t have at the movies this summer
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Jamie Foxx plays The Major (who's name we eventually learn is Art), a veteran trying to hunt down the creators of the Power pills. [credit: SKIP BOLEN/NETFLIX © 2020 ]
Remember movie theaters? Those things were fun—even in the dead heat of summer, you could snag a $10 ticket for two hours of air conditioning, varying degrees of thrills, and the option to overspend on popcorn and M&Ms. Perhaps even better, this situation encouraged out-of-your-comfort-zone choice. Only so many different films can play on a theater's limited number of screens at once, so instead of being paralyzed by endless selection screen scrolling, you and your cohort simply aimed for what sounded best and maybe enjoyed something you wouldn't have tried otherwise.
Project Power, available this weekend on Netflix, stars Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dominique Fishback. It screams "summer action movie, available for a few weekends in July." But in 2020, such things remain fantasies of the past. That's a shame for many, many reasons, but one of the tinier downsides of the film industry's current reality is that Project Power is a good time many people will simply never see, maybe never even know exists.
An archetype project
In a broad sense, Project Power tells a classic tale of those in power conducting experiments on the rest of us. A seedy scientific startup called Teleios has created a drug that gives humans superpowers (the drug's plainly called Power). The drug sits firmly in the development stage, though. Users don't know what power they'll develop—the list of classics includes chameleon-like camouflage, super strength, regeneration abilities, etc.—but not all of 'em end up benefitting users.
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An extended interview with Subnautica director Charlie Cleveland
Sure, you could watch some film on Netflix this weekend... or you can learn all you ever wanted to about the great Subnautica. Directed by Sean Dacanay, edited by Jeremy Smolik.
Around Ars, we always knew Subnautica was special. The gaming world has been littered with different spins on a survival game—from Minecraft to Don't Starve et al.—but reviewer Steven Strom put his finger on the key difference when reviewing the game back in February 2018:
Unlike the other survival games I've tried, [Subnautica] has a beginning, middle, and ending. There's a purpose to the player's time spent stranded on Planet 4546B. By giving an end to the means, survival doesn't just feel like satisfaction for its own sake—for my own self-aggrandizement.
Naturally, when we had the chance to get director Charlie Cleveland in a room last year to walk us through this modern classic's backstory (err, War Story), we dove in deepsea helmet-first. Cleveland walked us through his initial inspiration (a game that wasn't built around guns and combat), what made the game's mysteries so effective (being engaged is more important than being engaged in combat), and how he settled on placing this alien world below rather than above ground.
But really, for game with the depth of Subnautica, 20 minutes ain't nearly enough. So we've finally made our entire 90-plus minute conversation with Cleveland available for your enjoyment. If you love Subnautica or are even just curious about it, this cut has much, much more detail than our initial War Story. Be sure to stick around till the interview's final third in particular if you're interested in seeing some early versions of the game.
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Planet X? Why not a tiny black hole instead?
Planet X has a long and storied history of non-existence. For about 130 years, astronomers have debated the existence of an additional planet or planets to explain discrepancies in the orbits of the known planets (mainly Neptune and Uranus). Later, the list of discrepancies was expanded to cover trans-Neptunian objects. But none of the Planet X candidates discovered, including Pluto, have the mass or location to explain observations.
Primordial black holes have now been proposed as the latest planet X (or planet 9, since Pluto was demoted).
Orbital weirdness
Planet X’s origin starts with the discovery of Neptune. Neptune was not found by accident: observations of oddities in the orbit of Uranus were used to calculate the location of Neptune, and it was subsequently found.
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India announces National Digital Health Mission for digitizing citizens' health records; enrollment in the initiative will be voluntary (TheQuint)
India announces National Digital Health Mission for digitizing citizens' health records; enrollment in the initiative will be voluntary — Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the government's National Digital Health Mission on 15 August. So what is it?
ISIS allegedly ran a COVID-19 PPE scam site
Enlarge / Uh, you didn't buy your mask at FaceMaskCenter.com, right? (credit: Kilito Chan / Getty Images)
The COVID-19 pandemic, and millions of people desperate for scarce protective equipment like masks and Tyvek suits, has presented a bonanza for scammers. Now, according to the US Department of Justice, it seems that even ISIS has gotten in on the game.
In a series of civil and criminal complaints and forfeiture notices released this week, the Justice Department has revealed that it seized hundreds of bitcoin and ethereum accounts, millions of dollars, and four websites from known Islamic extremist groups that were using those accounts and funds to support terrorist operations. Prosecutors say the forfeited crypto assets from the groups, which include ISIS, the al-Qassam Brigades, and al Qaeda, represent "the government’s largest-ever seizure of cryptocurrency in the terrorism context." The cryptocurrency haul alone totals more than $1 million according to Chainalysis, a blockchain-focused firm whose tools were used in the investigation.
Among the jihadist fundraising efforts the DOJ has nixed, however, one stands out as particularly brazen. Court documents [PDF] detail how an ISIS agent allegedly ran a scam website for COVID-19 personal protective equipment, or PPE, known as FaceMaskCenter.com.
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Parliamentary panel on IT to look into Facebook's content takedown concerns
'Fortnite' app removal threatens social lifeline for young gamers
The India story after 25 years of internet and how it has transformed our lives
Sources: the US State Department ordered embassies to push back against foreign influence campaigns, as officials worry anti-US views are taking root worldwide (New York Times)
New York Times : Sources: the US State Department ordered embassies to push back against foreign influence campaigns, as officials worry ...
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The first project we remember working on together was drawing scenes from the picture books that our mom brought with her when she immigrate...
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Sohee Kim / Bloomberg : South Korean authorities are investigating a data leak at e-commerce giant Coupang that exposed ~33.7M accounts; ...
