Author name: Mike M.

after-a-few-years-of-embracing-thickness,-apple-reportedly-plans-thinner-devices

After a few years of embracing thickness, Apple reportedly plans thinner devices

Apple, apple watch, IPhone, MacBook Pro, Tech / /

return to form —

Thinness is good, as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of other things.

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Apple bragged about the thinness of the M4 iPad Pro; it's apparently a template for the company's designs going forward.

Enlarge / Apple bragged about the thinness of the M4 iPad Pro; it’s apparently a template for the company’s designs going forward.

Apple

Though Apple has a reputation for prioritizing thinness in its hardware designs, the company has actually spent the last few years learning to embrace a little extra size and/or weight in its hardware. The Apple Silicon MacBook Pro designs are both thicker and heavier than the Intel-era MacBook Pros they replaced. The MacBook Air gave up its distinctive taper. Even the iPhone 15 Pro was a shade thicker than its predecessor.

But Apple is apparently planning to return to emphasizing thinness in its devices, according to reporting from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (in a piece that is otherwise mostly about Apple’s phased rollout of the AI-powered features it announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference last week).

Gurman’s sources say that Apple is planning “a significantly skinnier iPhone in time for the iPhone 17 line in 2025,” which presumably means that we can expect the iPhone 16 to continue in the same vein as current iPhone 15 models. The Apple Watch and MacBook Pro are also apparently on the list of devices Apple is trying to make thinner.

Apple previewed this strategy with the introduction of the M4 iPad Pro a couple of months ago, which looked a lot like the previous-generation iPad Pro design but was a few hundredths of an inch thinner and (especially for the 13-inch model) noticeably lighter than before. Gurman says the new iPad Pro is “the beginning of a new class of Apple devices that should be the thinnest and lightest products in their categories across the whole tech industry.”

Thin-first design isn’t an inherently good or bad thing, but the issue in Apple’s case is that it has occasionally come at the expense of other more desirable features. A thinner device has less room for cooling hardware like fans and heatsinks, less room for batteries, and less room to fit ports.

The late-2010s-era MacBook Pro and Air redesigns were probably the nadir of this thin-first design, switching to all-Thunderbolt ports and a stiff-feeling butterfly switch keyboard design that also ended up being so breakage-prone that it spawned a long-running Apple repair program and a class-action lawsuit that the company settled. The 2020 and 2021 MacBooks reversed course on both decisions, reverting to a more traditional scissor-switch keyboard and restoring larger ports like MagSafe and HDMI.

Hopefully, Apple has learned the lessons of the last decade or so and is planning not to give up features people like just so it can craft thinner hardware. The new iPad Pros are a reason for optimism—they don’t really give up anything relative to older iPad models while still improving performance and screen quality. But iPad hardware is inherently more minimalist than the Mac and is less space-constrained than an iPhone or an Apple Watch. Here’s hoping Apple has figured out how to make a thinner, lighter Mac without giving up ports or keyboard quality or a thinner, lighter iPhone or Apple Watch without hurting battery life.

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tdk-claims-insane-energy-density-in-solid-state-battery-breakthrough

TDK claims insane energy density in solid-state battery breakthrough

batteries, solid state batteries, syndication, TDK, Tech / /

All charged up —

Apple supplier says new tech has 100 times the capacity of its current batteries.

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man wearing headphones

Enlarge / TDK says its new ceramic materials for batteries will improve the performance of small consumer electronics devices such as smartwatches and wireless headphones

Japan’s TDK is claiming a breakthrough in materials used in its small solid-state batteries, with the Apple supplier predicting significant performance increases for devices from wireless headphones to smartwatches.

The new material provides an energy density—the amount that can be squeezed into a given space—of 1,000 watt-hours per liter, which is about 100 times greater than TDK’s current battery in mass production. Since TDK introduced it in 2020, competitors have moved forward, developing small solid-state batteries that offer 50 Wh/l, while rechargeable coin batteries using traditional liquid electrolytes offer about 400 Wh/l, according to the group.

“We believe that our newly developed material for solid-state batteries can make a significant contribution to the energy transformation of society. We will continue the development towards early commercialisation,” said TDK’s chief executive Noboru Saito.

The batteries set to be produced will be made of an all-ceramic material, with oxide-based solid electrolyte and lithium alloy anodes. The high capability of the battery to store electrical charge, TDK said, would allow for smaller device sizes and longer operating times, while the oxide offered a high degree of stability and thus safety. The battery technology is designed to be used in smaller-sized cells, replacing existing coin-shaped batteries found in watches and other small electronics.

The breakthrough is the latest step forward for a technology industry experts think can revolutionize energy storage, but which faces significant obstacles on the path to mass production, particularly at larger battery sizes.

Solid-state batteries are safer, lighter and potentially cheaper and offer longer performance and faster charging than current batteries relying on liquid electrolytes. Breakthroughs in consumer electronics have filtered through to electric vehicles, although the dominant battery chemistries for the two categories now differ substantially.

The ceramic material used by TDK means that larger-sized batteries would be more fragile, meaning the technical challenge of making batteries for cars or even smartphones will not be surmounted in the foreseeable future, according to the company.

Kevin Shang, senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, a data and analytics firm, said that “unfavorable mechanical properties,” as well as the difficulty and cost of mass production, are challenges for moving the application of solid-state oxide-based batteries into smartphones.

Industry experts believe the most significant use case for solid-state batteries could be in electric cars by enabling greater driving range. Japanese companies are in the vanguard of a push to commercialize the technology: Toyota is aiming for as early as 2027, Nissan the year after and Honda by the end of the decade.

Car manufacturers are focused on developing sulfide-based electrolytes for long-range electric vehicles, an alternative kind of material to the oxide-based material that TDK has developed.

However, there is still skepticism about how quickly the much-hyped technology can be realized, particularly the larger batteries needed for electric vehicles.

Robin Zeng, founder and chief executive of CATL, the world’s biggest electric vehicle battery manufacturer, told the Financial Times in March that solid-state batteries did not work well enough, lacked durability and still had safety problems. Zeng’s CATL originated as a spin-off from Amperex Technology, or ATL, which is a subsidiary of TDK and is the world’s leading producer of lithium-ion batteries.

TDK, which was founded in 1935 and became a household name as a top cassette tape brand in the 1960s and 1970s, has lengthy experience in battery materials and technology.

It has 50 to 60 percent global market share in the small-capacity batteries that power smartphones and is targeting leadership in the medium-capacity market, which includes energy storage devices and larger electronics such as drones.

The group plans to start shipping samples of its new battery prototype to clients from next year and hopes to be able to move into mass production after that.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

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huge-telehealth-fraud-indictment-may-wreak-havoc-for-adderall-users,-cdc-warns

Huge telehealth fraud indictment may wreak havoc for Adderall users, CDC warns

adderall, ADHD, CDC, department of justice, Done Global, fentanyl, fraud, health, illicit drugs, overdose, prescription drug, Science, stimulants, telehealth / /

Tragic —

The consequences are dangerous, possibly even deadly, for patients across the US.

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Ten milligram tablets of the hyperactivity drug, Adderall, made by Shire Plc, is shown in a Cambridge, Massachusetts pharmacy Thursday, January 19, 2006.

Enlarge / Ten milligram tablets of the hyperactivity drug, Adderall, made by Shire Plc, is shown in a Cambridge, Massachusetts pharmacy Thursday, January 19, 2006.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday warned that a federal indictment of an allegedly fraudulent telehealth company may lead to a massive, nationwide disruption in access to ADHD medications—namely Adderall, but also other stimulants—and could possibly increase the risk of injuries and overdoses.

“A disruption involving this large telehealth company could impact as many as 30,000 to 50,000 patients ages 18 years and older across all 50 US states,” the CDC wrote in its health alert.

The CDC warning came on the heels of an announcement from the Justice Department Thursday that federal agents had arrested two people in connection with an alleged scheme to illegally distribute Adderall and other stimulants through a subscription-based online telehealth company called Done Global.  The company’s CEO and founder, Ruthia He, was arrested in Los Angeles, and its clinical president, David Brody, was arrested in San Rafael, California.

“As alleged, these defendants exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to develop and carry out a $100 million scheme to defraud taxpayers and provide easy access to Adderall and other stimulants for no legitimate medical purpose,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Those seeking to profit from addiction by illegally distributing controlled substances over the Internet should know that they cannot hide their crimes and that the Justice Department will hold them accountable.”

Deadly consequences

According to the Justice Department, Done Global generated $100 million in revenue by arranging for the prescription of over 40 million pills of Adderall and other stimulants, which are addictive medications used to treat ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). Done Global allegedly eased access to the drugs by limiting the information available to prescribers, instructing prescribers to prescribe Adderall and other stimulants even if the patient didn’t qualify, and mandating that the prescribing appointments last no longer than 30 minutes. The company also discouraged prescriber follow-up appointments and added an “auto-refill” feature.

Prosecutors further allege that He and Brody continued with their scheme after becoming aware that patients had overdosed and died.

The CDC cautioned that the disruption from lost access to Done Global prescriptions comes amid a long-standing, nationwide shortage of Adderall and other stimulant medications. For patients with ADHD, the disruption could be harmful. “Untreated ADHD is associated with adverse outcomes, including social and emotional impairment, increased risk of drug or alcohol use disorder, unintentional injuries, such as motor vehicle crashes, and suicide,” the CDC warns. Further, a loss of access could drive some to seek illicit sources of the drugs, which could turn deadly.

“Patients whose care or access to prescription stimulant medications is disrupted, and who seek medication outside of the regulated healthcare system, might significantly increase their risk of overdose due to the prevalence of counterfeit pills in the illegal drug market that could contain unexpected substances, including fentanyl,” the CDC said. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.

The Drug Enforcement Administration recently reported that seven out of every 10 pills seized from the illegal drug market contain a potentially lethal dose of illegally made fentanyl, the CDC noted.

This post was updated to clarify that the DEA’s data indicated that 70 percent of illicit pills seized contained “potentially” lethal doses, which was not included in the CDC’s warning.

Huge telehealth fraud indictment may wreak havoc for Adderall users, CDC warns Read More »

to-kill-the-competition,-bacteria-throw-pieces-of-dead-viruses-at-them

To kill the competition, bacteria throw pieces of dead viruses at them

bacteria, Biology, evolution, phages, Science / /

Murderous —

A network of mutual murder ensures that diverse populations of bacteria survive.

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A green, lawn like background with an orange item consisting of legs, a narrow shaft, and a polygonal head.

Enlarge / This is an intact phage. A tailocin looks like one of these with its head cut off.

Long before humans became interested in killing bacteria, viruses were on the job. Viruses that attack bacteria, termed “phages” (short for bacteriophage), were first identified by their ability to create bare patches on the surface of culture plates that were otherwise covered by a lawn of bacteria. After playing critical roles in the early development of molecular biology, a number of phages have been developed as potential therapies to be used when antibiotic resistance limits the effectiveness of traditional medicines.

But we’re relative latecomers in terms of turning phages into tools. Researchers have described a number of cases where bacteria have maintained pieces of disabled viruses in their genomes and converted them into weapons that can be used to kill other bacteria that might otherwise compete for resources. I only just became aware of that weaponization, thanks to a new study showing that this process has helped maintain diverse bacterial populations for centuries.

Evolving a killer

The new work started when researchers were studying the population of bacteria associated with a plant growing wild in Germany. The population included diverse members of the genus Pseudomonas, which can include plant pathogens. Normally, when bacteria infect a new victim, a single strain expands dramatically as it successfully exploits its host. In this case, though, the Pseudomonas population contained a variety of different strains that appeared to maintain a stable competition.

To learn more, the researchers obtained over 1,500 individual genomes from the bacterial population. Over 99 percent of those genomes contained pieces of virus, with the average bacterial strain having two separate chunks of virus lurking in their genomes. All of these had missing parts compared to a functional virus, suggesting they were the product of a virus that had inserted in the past but had since picked up damage that disabled them.

On its own, that’s not shocking. Lots of genomes (including our own) have plenty of disabled viruses in them. But bacteria tend to eliminate extraneous DNA from their genomes fairly quickly. In this case, one particular viral sequence appeared to date back to the common ancestor of many of the strains since all of them had the virus inserted at the same location of the genome, and all instances of this particular virus had been disabled by losing the same set of genes. The researchers termed this sequence VC2.

Many phages have a stereotypical structure: a large “head” that contains their genetic material, perched on top of a stalk that ends in a set of “legs” that help latch on to their bacterial victims. Once the legs make contact, a stalk contracts, an action that helps transfer the virus’ genome into the bacterial cell. In VC2’s case, all copies of it lacked the genes for producing the head section, as well as all the genes needed for processing its genome during infection.

This made the researchers suspect VC2 was something called a “tailocin.” These are former phages that have been domesticated by bacteria so they can be used to harm the bacteria’s potential competition. Bacteria with a tailocin can produce partial phages that consist only of the legs and stalk. These tailocins can still find and latch on to other bacteria, but when the stalk contracts, there’s no genome to inject. Instead, this just opens a hole in the membrane of their victim, partially eliminating the boundary of the cell and allowing some of its contents to leak out, leading to its death.

An evolutionary free-for-all

To confirm that the VC2 sequence encodes a tailocin, the researchers grew some bacteria that contained the sequence, purified proteins from it, and used electron microscopy to confirm that they contained headless phages. Exposing other bacteria to the tailocin, they found that while the strain that produced it was immune, many other strains growing in the same environment were killed by it. When the team deleted the genes that encode key parts of the tailocin, the killing went away.

The researchers hypothesize that the system is used to kill off potential competition but that many strains have evolved resistance to the tailocin.

When the researchers did a genetic screen to identify resistant mutants, they found that resistance was provided by mutations that interfered with the production of complex sugar molecules that are found on proteins that end up on the exterior of cells. At the same time, most of the genetic differences among the VC2 genes occur in the proteins that encode the legs, which latch on to these sugars.

So it appears that every bacterial strain is both an aggressor and a victim, and there’s an evolutionary arms race that leads to a complex collection of pairwise interactions among the strains—think of a rock/paper/scissors game with dozens of options. And the arms race has a history. Using old samples, the researchers show that many of the variations in these genes have been around for at least 200 years.

Evolutionary competitions are often viewed as a simple one-against-one fight, probably because it’s an easy way to think about them. But the reality is that most are more akin to a chaotic bar room brawl—one where it’s rare for any faction to obtain a permanent advantage.

Science, 2024. DOI: 10.1126/science.ado0713  (About DOIs).

To kill the competition, bacteria throw pieces of dead viruses at them Read More »

how-the-“nutbush”-became-australia’s-unofficial-national-dance

How the “Nutbush” became Australia’s unofficial national dance

cultural studies, dance, fads, human culture, line dancing, Nutbush, Science, Tina Turner / /

“A church house, gin house” —

Most Australians learned the “daggy” line dance in primary school starting in the mid-1970s

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Embassy employees, men and women, in a bee-shaped line formation doing the Nutbush

Enlarge / US Embassy Australia employees learning to do the Nutbush to honor the late Tina Turner in 2023.

The whole world mourned the passing of music legend Tina Turner last year, perhaps none more so than Australians, who have always had a special fondness for her. That’s not just because of her star turn as Aunty Entity in 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome or her stint as the face of Australia’s rugby league.

Australians of all ages have also been performing a line dance called the “Nutbush” at weddings and social events to Turner’s hit single (with then-husband Ike Turner) “Nutbush City Limits.” Turner herself never performed the dance, but when she died, there was a flood of viral TikTok videos of people performing the Nutbush in her honor—including members of the US Embassy in Canberra, who had clearly just learned it for the occasion. Dancers at the 2023 Mundi Mundi Bash in a remote corner of New South Wales set a world record with 6,594 dancers performing the Nutbush at the same time.

The exact origin of the dance remains unknown, but researchers at the University of South Australia think they understand how the Nutbush became so ubiquitous in Australia, according to a paper published in the journal Continuum. “What we seem to know is that there was a committee in the New South Wales education department that devised the idea of the Nutbush,” co-author Jon Stratton told the Guardian. “Whether they devised the dance itself, we don’t really know. But what’s interesting is that nobody has come forward.”

“Nutbush City Limits” was released in 1973. However, the authors note that the song peaked at 87 on the Australian charts and didn’t appear at all throughout 1974—only to start charting again from March to May 1975 and again from June–October 1976, peaking at No. 14. (It charted once again last year when Turner died.) They suggest that “Nutbush City Limits” was a great “dance floor filler,” especially in the 1970s disco era, so people were purchasing the single over a longer period of time.

But another likely explanation was the spread and development of the dance now known as the Nutbush during this same time period, initially as an educational activity in Australian primary schools. An homage of sorts to Turner’s hometown (Nutbush, Tennessee), the song features a hard 4/4 stomp beat laid over a funk rhythm, making it ideal for a line dance. There are anecdotal reports of people doing the Nutbush to different tunes, like Starship’s “We Built This City” (1985), which also features a 4/4 beat.

Knee, knee, kick, kick

Dancing has been incorporated into education since the 1920s. “Line dances work very well in classrooms because the teacher can stand at the front and give instructions to the lines,” said Stratton. “The idea must have been to provide students with an enjoyable way of exercising and learning coordination. Whoever designed the Nutbush succeeded beyond any success they could have hoped for. What makes it special is that it’s moved out of schools to become the dance of choice at many Australian social events.”

It’s unique to Australia, but the Nutbush shares some similarities with the Madison—minus the calls—another popular line dance that emerged in the 1950s thanks to teen dance shows like American Bandstand and The Buddy Deane Show. (The latter inspired the 1988 John Waters film Hairspray.) In fact, in a 2016 Reddit thread, P.J. Fletcher suggested in 2016 that the Nutbush was actually a bastardized version of the Madison with misremembered steps and drew a faulty diagram of those steps. Fletcher traced its origin to 1978 when the New South Wales Department of Education launched primary school teacher retraining initiatives, initially for a Sydney school district and spreading to other regions from there.

Let’s do the Nutbush again.

Stratton and his co-author, Panizza Allmark, dismiss this theory. For one thing, they discovered that the Nutbush was already being taught at a technical school in Victoria in 1978, so the dance was already well-established by then, at least in Victoria. They suggest the dance originated in 1975 in New South Wales and spread from there. Also, the Madison is difficult to perform to 4/4 songs like “Nutbush City Limits” since it is based on a six-beat pattern. Thus, “One possibility is that somebody in the school system in Sydney developed the Nutbush because they found that school students had too much difficulty learning the Madison to make it either enjoyable or worthwhile,” the authors wrote.

“Unlike formal dancing where you needed a partner, the Nutbush didn’t involve holding hands or touching anyone of the opposite sex,” said Allmark, who danced the Nutbush herself as a primary school student in Perth in the early 1980s. “In primary school, when learning folk dancing, there was great awkwardness in having to dance with a partner of the opposite sex but with the Nutbush, you didn’t need ‘to take a partner by the hand.’ You could enjoy the dance moves and be part of a communal experience without all the sweaty handholding.”

Regardless of how the fad took hold, hearing the song’s opening bars and the lines “A church house, gin house” will likely keep bringing Aussies enthusiastically to the dance floor for years to come.

Continuum, 2024. DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2024.2331796  (About DOIs).

Ike and Tina Turner perform “Nutbush City Limits” in 1973.

How the “Nutbush” became Australia’s unofficial national dance Read More »

securing-identities:-the-foundation-of-zero-trust

Securing Identities: The Foundation of Zero Trust

Securing / /

Welcome back to our zero trust blog series! In our previous post, we took a deep dive into data security, exploring the importance of data classification, encryption, and access controls in a zero trust model. Today, we’re shifting our focus to another critical component of zero trust: identity and access management (IAM).

In a zero trust world, identity is the new perimeter. With the dissolution of traditional network boundaries and the proliferation of cloud services and remote work, securing identities has become more important than ever. In this post, we’ll explore the role of IAM in a zero trust model, discuss common challenges, and share best practices for implementing strong authentication and authorization controls.

The Zero Trust Approach to Identity and Access Management

In a traditional perimeter-based security model, access is often granted based on a user’s location or network affiliation. Once a user is inside the network, they typically have broad access to resources and applications.

Zero trust turns this model on its head. By assuming that no user, device, or network should be inherently trusted, zero trust requires organizations to take a more granular, risk-based approach to IAM. This involves:

  1. Strong authentication: Verifying the identity of users and devices through multiple factors, such as passwords, biometrics, and security tokens.
  2. Least privilege access: Granting users the minimum level of access necessary to perform their job functions and revoking access when it’s no longer needed.
  3. Continuous monitoring: Constantly monitoring user behavior and access patterns to detect and respond to potential threats in real-time.
  4. Adaptive policies: Implementing dynamic access policies that adapt to changing risk factors, such as location, device health, and user behavior.

By applying these principles, organizations can create a more secure, resilient identity and access management posture that minimizes the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

Common Challenges in Zero Trust Identity and Access Management

Implementing a zero trust approach to IAM is not without its challenges. Some common hurdles organizations face include:

  1. Complexity: Managing identities and access across a diverse range of applications, systems, and devices can be complex and time-consuming, particularly in hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
  2. User experience: Balancing security with usability is a delicate task. Overly restrictive access controls and cumbersome authentication processes can hinder productivity and frustrate users.
  3. Legacy systems: Many organizations have legacy systems and applications that were not designed with zero trust principles in mind, making it difficult to integrate them into a modern IAM framework.
  4. Skill gaps: Implementing and managing a zero trust IAM solution requires specialized skills and knowledge, which can be difficult to find and retain in a competitive job market.

To overcome these challenges, organizations must invest in the right tools, processes, and talent, and take a phased approach to zero trust IAM implementation.

Best Practices for Zero Trust Identity and Access Management

Implementing a zero trust approach to IAM requires a comprehensive, multi-layered strategy. Here are some best practices to consider:

  1. Implement strong authentication: Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible, combining factors such as passwords, biometrics, and security tokens. Consider using passwordless authentication methods, such as FIDO2, for enhanced security and usability.
  2. Enforce least privilege access: Implement granular, role-based access controls (RBAC) based on the principle of least privilege. Regularly review and update access permissions to ensure users only have access to the resources they need to perform their job functions.
  3. Monitor and log user activity: Implement robust monitoring and logging mechanisms to track user activity and detect potential threats. Use security information and event management (SIEM) tools to correlate and analyze log data for anomalous behavior.
  4. Use adaptive access policies: Implement dynamic access policies that adapt to changing risk factors, such as location, device health, and user behavior. Use tools like Microsoft Conditional Access or Okta Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication to enforce these policies.
  5. Secure privileged access: Implement strict controls around privileged access, such as admin accounts and service accounts. Use privileged access management (PAM) tools to monitor and control privileged access and implement just-in-time (JIT) access provisioning.
  6. Educate and train users: Provide regular security awareness training to help users understand their role in protecting the organization’s assets and data. Teach best practices for password management, phishing detection, and secure remote work.

By implementing these best practices and continuously refining your IAM posture, you can better protect your organization’s identities and data and build a strong foundation for your zero trust architecture.

Conclusion

In a zero trust world, identity is the new perimeter. By treating identities as the primary control point and applying strong authentication, least privilege access, and continuous monitoring, organizations can minimize the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

However, achieving effective IAM in a zero trust model requires a commitment to overcoming complexity, balancing security and usability, and investing in the right tools and talent. It also requires a cultural shift, with every user taking responsibility for protecting the organization’s assets and data.

As you continue your zero trust journey, make IAM a top priority. Invest in the tools, processes, and training necessary to secure your identities, and regularly assess and refine your IAM posture to keep pace with evolving threats and business needs.

In the next post, we’ll explore the role of network segmentation in a zero trust model and share best practices for implementing micro-segmentation and software-defined perimeters.

Until then, stay vigilant and keep your identities secure!

Additional Resources:

Securing Identities: The Foundation of Zero Trust Read More »

gaming-historians-preserve-what’s-likely-nintendo’s-first-us-commercial

Gaming historians preserve what’s likely Nintendo’s first US commercial

ad, Game & Watch, gaming, history, mego, Nintendo / /

A Mega Mego find —

Mego’s “Time Out” spot pitched Nintendo’s Game & Watch handhelds under a different name.

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Enlarge / “So slim you can play it anywhere.”

Gamers of a certain age may remember Nintendo’s Game & Watch line, which predated the cartridge-based Game Boy by offering simple, single-serving LCD games that can fetch a pretty penny at auction today. But even most ancient gamers probably don’t remember Mego’s “Time Out” line, which took the internal of Nintendo’s early Game & Watch titles and rebranded them for an American audience that hadn’t yet heard of the Japanese game maker.

Now, the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has helped preserve the original film of an early Mego Time Out commercial, marking the recovered, digitized video as “what we believe is the first commercial for a Nintendo product in the United States.” The 30-second TV spot—which is now available in a high-quality digital transfer for the first time—provides a fascinating glimpse into how marketers positioned some of Nintendo’s earliest games to a public that still needed to be sold on the very idea of portable gaming.

Imagine an “electronic sport”

A 1980 Mego catalog sells Nintendo's Game & Watch games under the toy company's

Enlarge / A 1980 Mego catalog sells Nintendo’s Game & Watch games under the toy company’s “Time Out” branding.

Founded in the 1950s, Mego made a name for itself in the 1970s with licensed movie action figures and early robotic toys like the 2-XL (a childhood favorite of your humble author). In 1980, though, Mego branched out to partner with a brand-new, pre-Donkey Kong Nintendo of America to release rebranded versions of four early Game & Watch titles: Ball (which became Mego’s “Toss-Up”), Vermin (“Exterminator”), Fire (“Fireman Fireman”), and Flagman (“Flag Man”).

While Mego would go out of business by 1983 (long before a 2018 brand revival), in 1980, the company had the pleasure and responsibility of introducing America to Nintendo games for the first time, even if they were being sold under the Mego name. And while home systems like the Atari VCS and Intellivision were already popular with the American public at the time, Mego had to sell the then-new idea of simple black-and-white games you could play away from the living room TV (Milton Bradley Microvision notwithstanding).

The 1980 Mego spot that introduced Nintendo games to the US, now preserved in high-resolution.

That’s where a TV spot from Durona Productions came in. If you were watching TV in the early ’80s, you might have heard an announcer doing a bad Howard Cosell impression selling the Time Out line as “the new electronic sport,” suitable as a pastime for athletes who have been injured jogging or playing tennis or basketball.

The ad also had to introduce even extremely basic gaming functions like “an easy game and a hard game,” high score tracking, and the ability to “tell time” (as Douglas Adams noted, humans were “so amazingly primitive that they still [thought] digital watches [were] a pretty neat idea”). And the ad made a point of highlighting that the game is “so slim you can play it anywhere,” complete with a close-up of the unit fitting in the back pocket of a rollerskater’s tight shorts.

Preserved for all time

This early Nintendo ad wasn’t exactly “lost media” before now; you could find fuzzy, video-taped versions online, including variations that talk up the pocket-sized games as sports “where size and strength won’t help.” But the Video Game History Foundation has now digitized and archived a much higher quality version of the ad, courtesy of an original film reel discovered in an online auction by game collector (and former game journalist) Chris Kohler. Kohler acquired the rare 16 mm film and provided it to VGHF, which in turn reached out to film restoration experts at Movette Film Transfer to help color-correct the faded, 40-plus-year-old print and encode it in full 2K resolution for the first time.

This important historical preservation work is as good an excuse as any to remember a time when toy companies were still figuring out how to convince the public that Nintendo’s newfangled portable games were something that could fit into their everyday life. As VGHF’s Phil Salvador writes, “it feels laser-targeted to the on-the-go yuppie generation of the ’80s with disposable income to spend on electronic toys. There’s shades of how Nintendo would focus on young, trendy, mobile demographics in their more recent marketing campaigns… but we’ve never seen an ad where someone plays Switch in the hospital.”

Gaming historians preserve what’s likely Nintendo’s first US commercial Read More »

scotus-rejects-challenge-to-abortion-pill-for-lack-of-standing

SCOTUS rejects challenge to abortion pill for lack of standing

Abortion, mifepristone, miscarriage, reproductive health, Science, SCOTUS, Supreme Court / /

“Near miss” —

The anti-abortion defendants are not injured by the FDA’s actions on mifepristone.

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Mifepristone (Mifeprex) and misoprostol, the two drugs used in a medication abortion, are seen at the Women's Reproductive Clinic, which provides legal medication abortion services, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on June 17, 2022.

Enlarge / Mifepristone (Mifeprex) and misoprostol, the two drugs used in a medication abortion, are seen at the Women’s Reproductive Clinic, which provides legal medication abortion services, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on June 17, 2022.

The US Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a case that threatened to remove or at least restrict access to mifepristone, a pill approved by the Food and Drug Administration for medication abortions and used in miscarriage care. The drug has been used for decades, racking up a remarkably good safety record in that time. It is currently used in the majority of abortions in the US.

The high court found that the anti-abortion medical groups that legally challenged the FDA’s decision to approve the drug in 2000 and then ease usage restrictions in 2016 and 2021 simply lacked standing to challenge any of those decisions. That is, the groups failed to demonstrate that they were harmed by the FDA’s decision and therefore had no grounds to legally challenge the government agency’s actions. The ruling tracks closely with comments and questions the justices raised during oral arguments in March.

“Plaintiffs are pro-life, oppose elective abortion, and have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to mifepristone being prescribed and used by others,” the Supreme Court noted in its opinion, which included the emphasis on “by others.” The court summarized that the groups offered “complicated causation theories to connect FDA’s actions to the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries in fact,” and the court found that “none of these theories suffices” to prove harm.

Weak arguments

The anti-abortion medical groups, led by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, argued that the FDA’s relaxation of mifepristone regulations could cause “downstream conscience injuries” to doctors who are forced to treat patients who may suffer (rare) complications from the drug. But the court noted that there are already strong federal conscience laws in place that protect doctors who refuse to participate in abortion care. Further, the doctors failed to provide any examples of being forced to provide care against their conscience.

The plaintiffs further claimed “downstream economic injuries” by way of having to divert resources from other patients and services. But the court flatly knocked down this argument, too, noting that the argument is “too speculative, lacks support in the record, and is otherwise too attenuated to establish standing.” Further, the organizations claimed that the FDA’s actions “caused” them to conduct studies and “forced” them to engage in advocacy and outreach efforts. “But an organization that has not suffered a concrete injury caused by a defendant’s action cannot spend its way into standing simply by expending money to gather information and advocate against the defendant’s action,” the Supreme Court ruled.

In a response to the ruling, reproductive health rights group National Institute for Reproductive Health blasted the lower courts’ actions that brought the case to the Supreme Court and described it as a warning. “This case should never have made it to the Supreme Court in the first place,” Haydee Morales, interim president of NIRH, said in a statement. “Anti-abortion operatives brought this case with one goal in mind—to ban medication abortion and they failed. This case was a near miss for the science and medicine community and it won’t be the last attack.”

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Roku owners face the grimmest indignity yet: Stuck-on motion smoothing

frame rate, memc, motion smoothing, Roku, Tech, Tom Cruise, video interpolation / /

Buttery and weird —

Software updates strike again, leaving interpolated frames in unwanted places.

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Couple yelling at each other, as if in a soap opera, on a Roku TV, with a grotesque smoothing effect applied to both people.

Enlarge / Motion smoothing was making images uncanny and weird long before AI got here.

Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | Roku

Roku TV owners have been introduced to a number of annoyances recently through the software update pipeline. There was an arbitration-demanding terms of service that locked your TV until you agreed (or mailed a letter). There is the upcoming introduction of ads to the home screen. But the latest irritation hits some Roku owners right in the eyes.

Reports on Roku’s community forums and on Reddit find owners of TCL HDTVs, on which Roku is a built-in OS, experiencing “motion smoothing” without having turned it on after updating to Roku OS 13. Some people are reporting that their TV never offered “Action Smoothing” before, but it is now displaying the results with no way to turn it off. Neither the TV’s general settings, nor the specific settings available while content is playing, offer a way to turn it off, according to some users.

“Action smoothing” is Roku’s name for video interpolation, or motion smoothing. The heart of motion smoothing is Motion Estimation Motion Compensation (MEMC). Fast-moving video, such as live sports or intense action scenes, can have a “juddery” feeling when shown on TVs at a lower frame rate. Motion smoothing uses MEMC hardware and algorithms to artificially boost the frame rate of a video signal by creating its best guess of what a frame between two existing frames would look like and then inserting it to boost the frame rate.

When it works, a signal looks more fluid and, as the name implies, smooth. When it is left on and a more traditional signal at 24 or 30 frames per second is processed, it works somewhat too well. Shows and films look awkwardly realistic, essentially lacking the motion blur and softer movement to which we’re accustomed. Everything looks like a soap opera or like you’re watching a behind-the-scenes smartphone video of your show. It’s so persistent an issue, and often buried in a TV’s settings, that Tom Cruise did a whole PSA about it back in 2018.

Ars has contacted Roku for comment and will update this post with a response. When affected Roku TVs regain their ability to keep motion smoothing at bay, the setting is typically located in the “Expert Settings” area of the TV or by enabling “Movie” mode from the quick settings.

Roku owners face the grimmest indignity yet: Stuck-on motion smoothing Read More »

starlink-user-terminal-now-costs-just-$300-in-28-states,-$500-in-rest-of-us

Starlink user terminal now costs just $300 in 28 states, $500 in rest of US

Policy, starlink, Tech / /

Starlink price cut —

The $600 standard price was replaced with regional pricing of $500 or $300.

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A rectangular satellite dish sitting on the ground outdoors.

Enlarge / The standard Starlink satellite dish.

Starlink

You can now buy a Starlink satellite dish for $299 (plus shipping and tax) in 28 US states due to a discount for areas where SpaceX’s broadband network has excess capacity.

Starlink had raised its upfront hardware cost from $499 to $599 in March 2022 but cut the standard price back down to $499 this week. In the 28 states where the network has what SpaceX deems excess capacity, a $200 discount is being applied to bring the price down to $299. It’s unclear how long the deal will last, though we can assume the number of states eligible for $299 pricing will fall if a lot of people sign up.

“In the United States, new orders in certain regions are eligible for a one-time savings in areas where Starlink has abundant network availability,” a support page posted yesterday said. “$200 will be removed from your Starlink kit price when ordering on Starlink.com and if activated after purchasing from a retailer, a $200 credit will be applied. The savings are only available for Residential Standard service in these designated regional savings areas.”

The 28 states in the “regional savings areas” are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming.

There’s one more significant price difference that applies based on location. Since early 2023, Starlink has charged $120 a month for service in areas with limited capacity and $90 a month in areas with excess capacity. So if you’re in an excess-capacity area, you can buy a $299 dish and get $90 monthly service.

Whether you pay $499 or $299 upfront, you’ll get a Wi-Fi router and the new version of Starlink’s standard residential user terminal. There is a drawback compared to the older version of the Starlink dish, which is now called “Starlink Actuated” and doesn’t seem to be available for residential orders on Starlink.com anymore.

The current standard satellite dish doesn’t have the old version’s ability to re-position itself. The new version must be positioned manually, but the Starlink app can help you find the best position.

“The ‘actuated’ part of Standard Actuated refers to the electric motors inside the antenna housing,” says an in-depth comparison of the models written by Starlink user Noah Clarke. “The motors, which are connected to the mast, can rotate and tilt the Standard Actuated dish, enabling it to self-align to the Starlink satellites. In contrast, the Standard dish has done away with the built-in mast and motors. The Standard dish must be manually rotated during the initial installation, with the help of the Starlink app.”

Starlink offers mounting hardware as optional accessories during the checkout process. There’s a pivot mount for $74, a wall mount for $67, a pipe adapter for $38, and a 45-meter cable for $115. The optional cable is three times longer than the one that comes with the standard terminal.

Starlink user terminal now costs just $300 in 28 states, $500 in rest of US Read More »

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Google’s abuse of Fitbit continues with web app shutdown

Google, Tech / /

Welcome to the Google lifestyle —

Users say the app, which is now the only Fitbit interface, lacks matching features.

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Google’s abuse of Fitbit continues with web app shutdown

Fitbit

Google’s continued abuse of the Fitbit brand is continuing with the shutdown of the web dashboard. Fitbit.com used to be both a storefront and a way for users to get a big-screen UI to sift through reams of fitness data. The store closed up shop in April, and now the web dashboard is dying in July.

In a post on the “Fitbit Community” forums, the company said: “Next month, we’re consolidating the Fitbit.com dashboard into the Fitbit app. The web browser will no longer offer access to the Fitbit.com dashboard after July 8, 2024.” That’s it. There’s no replacement or new fitness thing Google is more interested in; web functionality is just being removed. Google, we’ll remind you, used to be a web company. Now it’s a phone app or nothing. Google did the same thing to its Google Fit product in 2019, killing off the more powerful website in favor of an app focus.

Dumping the web app leaves a few holes in Fitbit’s ecosystem. The Fitbit app doesn’t support big screens like tablet devices, so this is removing the only large-format interface for data. Fitbit’s competitors all have big-screen interfaces. Garmin has a very similar website, and the Apple Watch has an iPad health app. This isn’t an improvement. To make matters worse, the app does not have the features of the web dashboard, with many of the livid comments in the forums on Reddit calling out the app’s deficiencies in graphing, achievement statistics, calorie counting, and logs.

The web dashboard.

The web dashboard.

Fitbit

Google bought Fitbit back in 2021 and has spent most of its time shutting down Fitbit features and making the products worse. Migrations to Google Accounts started in 2022. The Google Assistant was removed from Fitbit’s 2022 product line, the Sense 2 and Versa 4, when support existed on the previous models. Social features—a key part of fitness motivation for many—were killed off in 2023. Google has mostly focused on making Fitbit an app for the Pixel Watch.

Google’s abuse of Fitbit continues with web app shutdown Read More »

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Ancient Maya DNA shows male kids were sacrificed in pairs at Chichén Itzá

Science / /

Tossed into the sacred sinkhole —

Twins play an auspicious role in Maya mythology, most notably in the Popol Vuh.

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Detail from the reconstructed stone tzompantli, or skull rack, at Chichén Itzá.

Enlarge / Detail from the reconstructed stone tzompantli, or skull rack, at Chichén Itzá, evidence of ritual human sacrifice.

Christina Warinner

Inhabitants of the ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá are well-known for their practice of ritual human sacrifice. The most prevalent notion in the popular imagination is that of young Maya women being flung alive into sink holes as offerings to the gods. Details about the cultural context for these sacrifices remain fuzzy, so scientists conduced genetic analysis on ancient remains of some of the sacrificial victims to learn more. That analysis confirmed the prevalence of male sacrifices, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature, often of related children (ages 6 to 12) from the same household—including two pairs of identical twins.

Chichén Itzá (“at the mouth of the well of the Itzá”) is located in Mexico’s eastern Yucatán. It was one of the largest of the Maya cities, quite possibly one of the mythical capital cities (Tollans) that are frequently mentioned in Mesoamerican literature. It’s known for its incredible monumental architecture, such as the Temple of Kukulcán (“El Castillo”), a step pyramid honoring a feathered serpent deity. Around the spring and fall equinoxes, there is a distinctive light-and-shadow effect that creates the illusion of a serpent slithering down the staircase. There is also a well-known acoustical effect: clap your hands at the base of the staircases and you’ll get an echo that sounds eerily like a bird’s chirp—perhaps mimicking the quetzal, a brightly colored exotic bird native to the region and prized for its long, resplendent tail feathers.

The Great Ball Court (one of 13 at the site) is essentially a whispering gallery: even though it is 545 feet long and 225 feet wide, a whisper at one end can be heard clearly at the other. The court features slanted benches with sculpted panels depicting aspects of Maya ball games—which were not just athletic events but also religious ones that often involved ritual sacrifices of players by decapitation.

“Evidence of ritual killing is extensive throughout the site of Chichén Itzá and includes both the physical remains of sacrificed individuals as well as representations in monumental art,” the authors of the new Nature paper wrote. Decapitation was just one method of sacrifice favored by the Maya over various historical periods. The Maya were equally fond of cutting out the still-beating hearts of victims, accessing the organ either from below the diaphragm or through the sternum. There were also rituals that involved binding victims to a stake and shooting arrows at a white target painted on the heart.

The site features underground rivers with natural sinkholes, called cenotes, providing water to the local inhabitants. One of those is known as the Cenote Sagrado (“Sacred Cenote”), or the Well of Sacrifice, some 200 feet (60 meters) wide and surrounded by sheer cliffs. As its name implies, the Maya would regularly sacrifice valuable objects and the occasional human by tossing them into the sinkhole to appease the Maya rain god, Chaac. (If the 89-foot (27-meter) fall didn’t kill them, drowning would.)

We know this from the writings of Friar Diego de Landa, among others, who wrote in 1566 of the Maya custom of throwing men alive into the sinkhole during droughts, as well as other prized objects. Dredging the Sacred Cenote with a bucket-and-pulley system in the early 1900s yielded artifacts made of gold and jade, as well as pottery, incense, and human remains. There were also archaeological excavations in the 1960s that yielded even more such objects, including flint, shell, rubber, cloth, and wood preserved in the water.

El Castillo, also known as the Temple of Kukulcan, is among the largest structures at Chichén Itzá, and its architecture reflects its far-flung political connections.

Enlarge / El Castillo, also known as the Temple of Kukulcan, is among the largest structures at Chichén Itzá, and its architecture reflects its far-flung political connections.

Johannes Krause

Archaeologists also uncovered a full-scale stone representation of a massive tzompantli (skull rack) and a subterranean chamber near the Sacred Cenote, likely a repurposed water cistern (chultún) that had been enlarged to connect to a small cave. The Maya viewed both cenotes and chultúns as connections to the underworld, and this particular chultún housed the remains of over 100 children.

Rodrigo Barquera, an immunogeneticist and postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and his fellow Nature co-authors conducted their in-depth genetic analysis on 64 child remains recovered from the chultún, along with stable isotope analysis of bone collagen and nitrogen and radiocarbon dating. They compared the genetic data to the genomes from blood samples taken from 68 present-day Maya residents of a nearby town (Tixcacaltuyub).

Most of the children had been sacrificed between 800 to 1000 CE, per the radiocarbon and nitrogen dating. Barquera et al. were surprised to find that all of the remains sampled were male and from the local Maya populations. Nearly one-quarter of those were closely related to at least one other child interred in the chultún, and the related children had similar diets, so were likely raised in the same household. The most surprising discovery: two sets of identical male twins. All this suggests that the Maya selected pairs of male children for sacrificial rituals associated with the chultún.

Ancient Maya DNA shows male kids were sacrificed in pairs at Chichén Itzá Read More »