Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 630
May 8, 2021
Astronomers chart invisible ocean of dark matter swirling outside the Milky Way, ,
A mysterious wake of stars, stirred up by a small galaxy that is set to collide with the Milky Way, could be about to unlock the mysteries of dark matter.
The trail of stars, located outside the star-flecked spiral arms of the Milky Way’s central disk in a region called the galactic halo, is being carried along in the cosmic slipstream of a dwarf galaxy in orbit around the Milky Way, according to a new sky map created by astronomers.
The galaxy, called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), is orbiting some 130,000 light-years away from Earth and stirring up the wake of cosmic material behind it. At first glance, the LMC’s trail appears to consist solely of stars, but the researchers know that the stars are just along for the ride. They are suspended inside a far larger, completely invisible presence.
Related: Spaced out! 101 astronomy images that will blow your mind
Astronomers are interested in this ripple in space because they think it could be made up of dark matter — the mysterious non-luminous substance making up the vast majority of matter in the universe. Predictions say that dark matter, invisible and interacting with the matter we can see only through gravity, should be everywhere in the galactic halo.
“We think this wake is made up of dark matter, and it drags stars along with it, which is how we can detect it,” study co-author Nicolas Garavito-Camargo, a University Arizona doctoral student, said in a statement.
Dark matter’s gravitational influence can be observed throughout the universe: It is our galaxy’s vital scaffolding, glueing stars and planets to it so they don’t fly off as the galaxy spins. Yet, what exactly dark matter is, or how it behaves, remains one of astronomy’s greatest mysteries. The researchers are hoping that by studying the wake, they will be able to study the dark matter they believe makes up the vast majority of it.
If the wake’s stars are like leaves floating on a dark matter pond, the way that the leaves are disturbed by a boat (in this case, the LMC) can tell us a lot about the pond itself.
“You can imagine that the wake behind a boat will be different if the boat is sailing through water or through honey,” said lead author Charlie Conroy, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University. “In this case, the properties of the wake are determined by which dark matter theory we apply.”
The group has used their new map and the position of the wake to confirm a theoretical model, created by another group of researchers, about just how dark matter should be distributed across the galactic halo; they are now running tests to see which of the theories about dark matter best fits the wake’s shape and location.
RELATED CONTENT
—The 11 biggest unanswered questions about dark matter
—11 fascinating facts about our Milky Way galaxy
—The 12 strangest objects in the universe
The map, made with data from NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) telescopes, also provides some vital insights into our home galaxy’s violent future. As the LMC orbits the Milky Way, the gravitational tug from the dark matter in the Milky Way’s galactic halo is slowing it down, sending the LMC into smaller and smaller orbits. The LMC will continue to be reeled closer to the Milky Way until, in about 2 billion years, the two will collide.
The merging of two galaxies is a surprisingly common event throughout the universe. The Milky Way likely merged with a small galaxy 8 billion years ago, and galaxy mergers are a key reason for the growth of all large galaxies.
“This robbing of a smaller galaxy’s energy is not only why the LMC is merging with the Milky Way, but also why all galaxy mergers happen,” study co-author Rohan Naidu, said a graduate student at Harvard University. “The wake in our map is a really neat confirmation that our basic picture for how galaxies merge is on point.”
The researchers published their findings April 21 in the journal Nature.
Originally published on Live Science.
The post Astronomers chart invisible ocean of dark matter swirling outside the Milky Way, , appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
World’s 1st multinode quantum network is a breakthrough for the quantum internet, ,
Scientists have gotten one step closer to a quantum internet by creating the world’s first multinode quantum network.
Researchers at the QuTech research center in the Netherlands created the system, which is made up of three quantum nodes entangled by the spooky laws of quantum mechanics that govern subatomic particles. It is the first time that more than two quantum bits, or “qubits,” that do the calculations in quantum computing have been linked together as “nodes,” or network endpoints.
Researchers expect the first quantum networks to unlock a wealth of computing applications that can’t be performed by existing classical devices — such as faster computation and improved cryptography.
Related: 12 stunning quantum physics experiments
“It will allow us to connect quantum computers for more computing power, create unhackable networks and connect atomic clocks and telescopes together with unprecedented levels of coordination,” Matteo Pompili, a member of the QuTech research team that created the network at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, told Live Science. “There are also loads of applications that we can’t really foresee. One could be to create an algorithm that will run elections in a secure way, for instance.”
In much the same way that the traditional computer bit is the basic unit of digital information, the qubit is the basic unit of quantum information. Like the bit, the qubit can be either a 1 or a 0, which represent two possible positions in a two-state system.
But that’s just about where the similarities end. Thanks to the bizarre laws of the quantum world, the qubit can exist in a superposition of both the 1 and 0 states until the moment it is measured, when it will randomly collapse into either a 1 or a 0. This strange behavior is the key to the power of quantum computing, as it allows a qubit to perform multiple calculations simultaneously.
Related: The 18 biggest unsolved mysteries in physics
The biggest challenge in linking those qubits together into a quantum network is in establishing and maintaining a process called entanglement, or what Albert Einstein dubbed “spooky action at a distance.” This is when two qubits become coupled, linking their properties so that any change in one particle will cause a change in the other, even if they are separated by vast distances.
You can entangle quantum nodes in a lot of ways, but one common method works by first entangling the stationary qubits (which form the network’s nodes) with photons, or light particles, before firing the photons at each other. When they meet, the two photons also become entangled, thereby entangling the qubits. This binds the two stationary nodes that are separated by a distance. Any change made to one is reflected by an instantaneous change to the other.
“Spooky action at a distance” lets scientists change the state of a particle by altering the state of its distant entangled partner, effectively teleporting information across big gaps. But maintaining a state of entanglement is a tough task, especially as the entangled system is always at risk of interacting with the outside world and being destroyed by a process called decoherence.
This means, first, that the quantum nodes have to be kept at extremely cold temperatures inside devices called cryostats to minimize the chances that the qubits will interfere with something outside the system. Second, the photons used in the entanglement can’t travel very long distances before they are absorbed or scattered, — destroying the signal being sent between two nodes.
“The problem is, unlike classical networks, you cannot amplify quantum signals. If you try to copy the qubit, you destroy the original copy,” Pompili said, referring to physics’ “no-cloning theorem,” which states that it is impossible to create an identical copy of an unknown quantum state. “This really limits the distances we can send quantum signals to the tens of hundreds of kilometers. If you want to set up quantum communication with someone on the other side of the world, you’ll need relay nodes in between.”
To solve the problem, the team created a network with three nodes, in which photons essentially “pass” the entanglement from a qubit at one of the outer nodes to one at the middle node. The middle node has two qubits — one to acquire an entangled state and one to store it. Once the entanglement between one outer node and the middle node is stored, the middle node entangles the other outer node with its spare qubit. With all of this done, the middle node entangles its two qubits, causing the qubits of the outer nodes to become entangled.
But designing this weird quantum mechanical spin on the classic “river crossing puzzle” was the least of the researchers’ troubles — weird, for sure, but not too tricky an idea. To make the entangled photons and beam them to the nodes in the right way, the researchers had to use a complex system of mirrors and laser light. The really tough part was the technological challenge of reducing pesky noise in the system, as well as making sure all of the lasers used to produce the photons were perfectly synchronized.
“We’re talking about having three to four lasers for every node, so you start to have 10 lasers and three cryostats that all need to work at the same time, along with all of the electronics and the synchronization,” Pompili said.
The three-node system is particularly useful as the memory qubit allows researchers to establish entanglement across the network node by node, rather than the more demanding requirement of doing it all at once. As soon as this is done, information can be beamed across the network.
Some of the researchers’ next steps with their new network will be to attempt this information beaming, along with improving essential components of the network’s computing abilities so that they can work like regular computer networks do. All of these things will set the scale that the new quantum network could reach.
RELATED CONTENT
— The 18 biggest unsolved mysteries in physics
— The world’s most beautiful equations
— The 9 most massive numbers in existence
They also want to see if their system will allow them to establish entanglement between Delft and The Hague, two Dutch cities that are roughly 6 miles (10 kilometers) apart.
“Right now, all of our nodes are within 10 to 20 meters [32 to 66 feet] of each other,” Pompili said. “If you want something useful, you need to go to kilometers. This is going to be the first time that we’re going to make a link between long distances.”
The researchers published their findings April 16 in the journal Science.
Originally published on Live Science.
The post World’s 1st multinode quantum network is a breakthrough for the quantum internet, , appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
May 7, 2021
TiVo’s first Android TV dongle also appears to be its last, Sean Hollister
Last May, TiVo attempted to muscle in on Roku and Amazon with an HDMI streaming dongle of its own — the $70 TiVo Stream 4K, which traded in the company’s traditional live TV + DVR functionality for the likes of Sling TV, Netflix, HBO and YouTube. It now appears that attempt was so unsuccessful, the company’s planning to abandon its Android TV dongle efforts entirely.
Xperi Holdings CEO Jon Kirchner explained in an earnings call (via Zatz Not Funny) that it no longer feels it can compete using Android TV — the company likes to think its differentiator is a content guide that surfaces and lets you search for shows and movies across a variety of apps, but now that Google’s already baked something like that into
The post TiVo’s first Android TV dongle also appears to be its last, Sean Hollister appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
TiVo’s first Android TV dongle also appears to be its last,
Last May, TiVo attempted to muscle in on Roku and Amazon with an HDMI streaming dongle of its own — the $70 TiVo Stream 4K, which traded in the company’s traditional live TV + DVR functionality for the likes of Sling TV, Netflix, HBO and YouTube. It now appears that attempt was so unsuccessful, the company’s planning to abandon its Android TV dongle efforts entirely.
Xperi Holdings CEO Jon Kirchner explained in an earnings call (via Zatz Not Funny) that it no longer feels it can compete using Android TV — the company likes to think its differentiator is a content guide that surfaces and lets you search for shows and movies across a variety of apps, but now that Google’s already baked something like that into and sells it for just $50, TiVo doesn’t see much of a future there.
Here’s Kirchner, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha:
Sure, so originally as we approached the combination, we have done a lot of planning around kind of a three phase approach, starting with the Stream 4K product, which is a dongle that attaches to TVs, moving into an embedded application, where we’ll be let’s say the preferred user interface choice on a broader platform but originally around the notion that it would live on top of Android TV.
And then thirdly, going all the way into a much deeper embedded solution, embedded OS where we’re a bigger provider, where we’re really the sole primary interface for the broader content search and discovery and engagement. What has changed is last fall, Google came out and said that they intend to go beyond their core OS level offering and really get into the UX business, and in so doing it eclipses one’s ability to I think reasonably be an alternative that might otherwise live on their lower level platform.
Instead, says Kirchner, he wants to embed TiVo smarts directly in TVs — a strategy that’s worked pretty dang well for Roku, and where Amazon has been competing with Fire TV Edition sets for a few years, too.
Here’s the thing, though: while the Stream 4K was well-reviewed, it wasn’t the user interface that reviewers liked. Some of its most glowing reviews called it cluttered or confusing compared to the competition, and most concluded that it was just fine compared to slicker offerings from Roku and Amazon at or under that price. TiVo dropped the starting price of the Stream 4K to $50 at launch, and reduced it to $39 in December after Google’s $50 Chromecast had arrived.
The post TiVo’s first Android TV dongle also appears to be its last, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
Apple is using Itch.io’s ‘offensive and sexualized’ games as a cudgel against Epic, Adi Robertson
Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeShortly before the Epic v. Apple trial, Epic Games made an interesting announcement: it would offer the indie game storefront Itch.io as an app on its own Epic Games Store. The Fortnite publisher was going to trial with the aim of making Apple offer competing app stores on its iPhone and iPad, so the move showed that Epic was willing to open up its own store in the same way.
On the fifth day of court, however, Apple tried to turn Itch.io into a liability — by telling Epic Games Store general manager Steven Allison about “so-called adult games” that were “so offensive we cannot speak about them here.”
Itch.io is one of relatively few non-game apps on the Epic Games Store, along with software like the Brave browser. It’s also, as we’ve…
The post Apple is using Itch.io’s ‘offensive and sexualized’ games as a cudgel against Epic, Adi Robertson appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
Apple is using Itch.io’s ‘offensive and sexualized’ games as a cudgel against Epic,
Shortly before the Epic v. Apple trial, Epic Games made an interesting announcement: it would offer the indie game storefront Itch.io as an app on its own Epic Games Store. The Fortnite publisher was going to trial with the aim of making Apple offer competing app stores on its iPhone and iPad, so the move showed that Epic was willing to open up its own store in the same way.
On the fifth day of court, however, Apple tried to turn Itch.io into a liability — by telling Epic Games Store general manager Steven Allison about “so-called adult games” that were “so offensive we cannot speak about them here.”
Itch.io is one of relatively few non-game apps on the Epic Games Store, along with software like the Brave browser. It’s also, as we’ve previously described it at The Verge, “small and weird.” (Granted, it’s not quite as small as Epic seems to think; CEO Tim Sweeney said it had “at least hundreds” of games, while the real number is upwards of 200,000.) Epic hasn’t reviewed all these games, and Apple noted that its standards are different from the Epic Games Store’s. The list includes, per Apple’s attorney, a game called Sisterly Lust that includes “a list of fetishes which include many words that are not appropriate for us to speak in federal courts.”
Apple is notoriously wary of sexual or even debatably offensive content in its App Store. Until mid-2016, it told game developers that “if you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app.” Epic is suing for the right to sideload alternative app stores like the Epic Games Store onto iOS. Today, Apple essentially warned Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers that this would mean forcing Apple to indirectly allow a sexualized visual novel about incest (I’d call it a game, but Epic v. Apple witnesses have offered several conflicting definitions of that) onto the iPhone.
That’s probably not great for Epic. Judge Rogers seemed to take the concern seriously, asking Allison to explain whether Apple was correct. Allison demurred, although he later pushed back on Apple’s veiled suggestion that Epic kick Itch.io off the Epic Games Store. “Itch.io is an incredible community for developers that we support fully,” Allison said, “they have an open platform, and therefore have different moderation standards than the Epic Games Store.”
guys, Apple’s lawyers just called. They said we need to turn off ALL the games
Games Are Now ILLEGAL
— itch.io (@itchio)
But regardless of what happens in court, Itch.io is an independent entity with little direct stake in the trial, and its users are largely indie game designers who are often skeptical of both Epic and Apple. (It’s got a lot of content that’s not safe for work, but it’s also by far the easiest place to publish experimental interactive media. It’s where I post my own small text-based games, and there’s a thriving indie tabletop role-playing game community, among other genres.) Some people were upset at Apple going after a platform that’s particularly favored by queer developers offering depictions of sexuality you won’t find in big-budget games. Others simply found it very, very funny.
Soon after the exchange, Itch.io’s Twitter feed jokingly claimed that Apple’s lawyers called and said to “turn off ALL the games,” then said Itch.io was renaming its “sensitive content” filter to “Unspeakable Games.” As I write this, one Itch.io user has announced a game jam called the “Unspeakable Jam” that will run until June 12th; all entries must follow Apple executive Trystan Kosmynka’s instruction that “games have a beginning and end; there’s challenges in place.”
In the interest of offering the clearest possible context for this exchange, I went back and transcribed the entire portion of testimony involving Itch.io’s unspeakable games, just to make sure it was as over-the-top as I remembered. Reader, it was.
Apple attorney: On April 22nd of this year, Epic Games Store added the Itch.io app to its store.
Steve Allison, Epic Games: Yes.
Attorney: You’re aware of that.
Allison: I am.
Attorney: And you’re aware that Itch.io is a third-party app store.
Allison: I am.
Attorney: And the court has also heard that Itch.io was added without reviewing all the games. You’re aware of that.
Allison: Yes.
Attorney: And are you aware, sir, that Itch.io includes so-called adult games, such as a game called Sisterly Lust?
Allison: I am not.
Attorney: You may not be aware then, but the description of that game includes a list of fetishes which include many words that are not appropriate for us to speak in federal courts. Are you aware of that?
Allison: I am not.
Attorney: And the list goes on. There are many games on Itch.io, I won’t even read the names out loud, but they are both offensive and sexualized. You are not aware of that?
Allison: Itch.io is an app store that is not the Epic Games Store. Itch is distributing Itch.io games. Epic is only distributing the App Store Itch.io.
Attorney: And Itch.io is now available as an app on the Epic Games Store, correct?
Allison: Yes.
Attorney: And those apps on Itch.io have not gone through any review process whatsoever. Correct?
Allison: They are subject to whatever process Itch.io puts in front of their devices.
Attorney: Right. So Epic Games, you’re sure, is on the hook for whatever process Itch.io puts in place to review these games that are so offensive we cannot speak about them here, correct?
Allison: I disagree with that statement.
Judge Rogers: So can you or can you not access those apps through your app store?
Allison: You cannot access those apps through the Epic Games Store, no. You can access those apps through their application, which that is what we are downloading: Itch.io, which is an app store. [Users] have their own account with them, and you use their store and are subject to their end user agreement.
Judge Rogers: So if I have a phone and your app store was on that phone, that other store could be downloaded which has all of this offensive material.
Allison: Not on your phone. The app could be downloaded onto your PC and you could access their app on your PC.
Judge Rogers: But that’s what you want to do on a phone too. That’s what I understand.
Allison: I don’t know that we would want to do that with Itch.io [on a phone].
Judge Rogers: But you’re doing it now, so I could access it on my PC, right?
Allison: Yes.
Judge Rogers: And this lawsuit’s about your ability to do it on your phone, right?
Allison: Yes.
Attorney: And just so we’re clear, sir, you can go to Epic Games Store, click Itch.io, and download the offensive games. Are you aware of that?
Allison: You can go to the Epic Game Store launcher, and you can launch Itch.io, which takes you out of the Epic Games Store and launches their application. You are then subject to their user agreement and you are in the Itch.io ecosystem.
Attorney: And you said to the court just a second ago that you wouldn’t want to do that with Itch.io, you wouldn’t want to put Itch.io on the phone.
Allison: I don’t know that we would or we wouldn’t. I don’t even know that it’s available as a mobile application.
Attorney: Because the reason that you said that to the court is because you’re recognizing that this is offensive and sexualized conduct that can be accessed.
Allison: I disagree with that statement.
(After digressions into some other topics, Apple’s attorney returned to the question.)
Attorney: Now that you know there are offensive and sexualized apps on Itch.io, as the head of the Epic Games Store, do you plan to do anything about that?
Allison: I don’t have an answer for you. I will dig in when we get back. But I don’t have an answer for you. I’m not sure. These apps were on Itch.io, not the Epic Games Store.
Attorney: Epic has been been advertising putting these apps in the store. Mr. Sweeney put up a tweet about Itch.io, and now you seem to be distancing yourself from Itch.io because you realized there are apps in there that you have not reviewed and cannot stand by.
Allison: I disagree with what you’re saying. Itch.io is an incredible community for developers that we support fully, they have an open platform, and therefore have different moderation standards than the Epic Games Store.
Attorney: I was just wondering, sir, if you support fully the offensive and sexualized content that is available there when people go to the Epic Games Store and download Itch.io.
Allison: I don’t support sexualized content of any sort.
The post Apple is using Itch.io’s ‘offensive and sexualized’ games as a cudgel against Epic, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
In Epic v Apple, everybody is losing at the game of defining games, Elizabeth Lopatto
Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeIs Roblox a game or not?
The post In Epic v Apple, everybody is losing at the game of defining games, Elizabeth Lopatto appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
In Epic v Apple, everybody is losing at the game of defining games,
Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeIf you have ever wanted to see a bunch of mumbly nerds struggle to define what constitutes a “game,” well, is Epic v. Apple the trial for you!
What is the difference between an “app” and a “game?” This sounds like a stoner question but instead occupied a fair amount of the morning in Epic v. Apple. Roblox, explained Apple’s marketing manager Trystan Kosmynka, was an app. See, games have a beginning, an end, and challenges. “There’s experiences within Roblox that we did not look at as a game,” Kosmynka said. We did establish that Minecraft is a game, though, so that’s nice for Microsoft.
A screenshot of Roblox on the Apple App Store, as of May 7 at 8PM ETJudge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not understand this distinction and neither did I. But here’s the problem for Apple: if Roblox is a game, then it’s fairly easy for Epic to compare Fortnite to it. Also, looking up Roblox in the App Store after Kosmynka testified, it is categorized as a “game.”
Roblox is free, with in-app purchases. Since apparently no one can define what a game is, I can’t tell whether it’s fair to say that Roblox is a platform with games on it, but it sure looks that way when I log on. Scrolling through, there are a number of small squares where I can join a game, and each appears to have different rules. (The app calls these “worlds.”)
And when Kosmynka doesn’t get the category on Roblox right, well. That’s an own goal.
Anyway, Kosmynka noticeably shrank when Epic’s Lauren Moskowitz began asking questions on the redirect. Were Snapchat’s bunny ear filters games? What about TikTok challenges? (The manner in which this question was asked convinced me that I was possibly the only person in the room on TikTok.) Things got worse for Kosmynka during a speed-run of questions. Had he used Fortnite? Yes. Had he attended a concert there? No. “Fortnite is a virtual world where you build a character, correct?”
“I wouldn’t refer to Fortnite as a world. I’ve always looked at Fortnite as a game,” Kosmynka replied. Had he done Battle Royale? Yes. Party Royale? No. Creative mode? No. He knew that Fortnite held concerts but didn’t know it streamed movies. In the context of “What is a game,” it made Kosmynka sound like he didn’t know what he was talking about. It was a tense, and rather devastating, line of questioning.
At one point, Judge Gonzalez Rogers said she didn’t understand why Minecraft was a game and Roblox was not. (Again, per the App Store: Roblox is absolutely a game.) She asked Kosmynka for an industry definition for a game. Turns out, there isn’t one — although, my colleague Adi Robertson notes, game developers and academics will happily talk you under the table about magic circles, meaningful choices, and the works of Johan Huizinga if you ask.
Later, Matthew Weissinger, VP of marketing at Epic Games, explained that Fortnite is a metaverse. “It’s one of the remarkable things about Fortnite, we’re building this thing called the metaverse, a social place,” he murmured softly. (All of the men we heard from today would benefit greatly from elocution lessons.) “One of the ways I’ve tried to explain it is, think about all of us in lockdown, and how we try to stay socially connected. Some of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had were logging into Zoom and we had our friends and parents and we celebrate grandpa’s birthday.”
We also discover that Roblox has a “battle royale” mode, just like Fortnite. Honestly the question to me now is not Is Roblox a game but Is Roblox a metaverse.
Throughout this line of questioning, it seemed like Epic was attempting to establish that Apple is inconsistent — and passing the buck. Kosmynka testified that developers get to pick what category they belong to, not Apple, making his Roblox digression even weirder. The Roblox thing made Apple look slipshod, and the further testimony about the App Store review didn’t help.
The process behind App Store review is unbelievably boring unless you are a developer who is trying to pass review. We went through it in exhaustive detail. Apple gets 100,000 app store submissions per week, Kosmynka testified. But only 500 people actually do the “human review” — a lot of the rest of the work is automated. It’s impossible to judge how good an automated process is by listening to someone describe it in abstract in the courtroom. Kosmynka seemed confident when he was being questioned by Apple’s attorney, but when Epic got a crack at him, his voice got softer and softer.
We heard about apps Apple had mistakenly allowed on the store: ones that carried malicious ad fraud code, apps that copycatted Headspace, a “school shooting game,” a game of shooting cannons at protestors, several inappropriate apps (the funniest of which was “Ganja Farm: Weed Empire”) and more. In emails, Kosmynka said, “We are making critical errors.” In reference to the school-shooting game, Kosmynka said he was “dumbfounded at how this could be missed.” These specifics were more damning than the abstract walk-through of the app review process.
At one point, Judge Gonzalez Rogers wondered if anyone was doing better than Apple at app store moderation. Kosmynka punted on this answer. “One of the problems with limiting competition is that you don’t get innovation,” said Judge Gonzalez Rogers. “One of my concerns is that if you aren’t letting parties compete on these topics, things won’t improve.” She then asked if Apple hired third party reviewers. It does not.
There is an implicit contrast here — the Epic Games Store. Steve Allison, VP and General Manager of the Epic Game Store, testified that there have been no known instances of malware or pirated content on the Epic Game Store, though there has been some fraud. It was hard not to notice the contrast.
Apple’s lawyer, who did not introduce herself, took us through an excruciating narration of the Epic Games website as part of her intensely chaotic cross-examination of Allison. I understand that a lot of things need to be narrated for the court record, but this was silly. We determined that there were a lot of games in the Epic Games Store. We also determined that there were 25 games in the “top 20” games section, which felt kind of bitchy. The first non-game app, Spotify, came to the store in December 2020. Fine, but this didn’t seem to make Epic look bad? Or at least, not the way she’d been hoping.
She lingered on the store-within-a-store on Epic Game Store: Itch.io,a store for indie games that Epic added to its store in April. You can download itch.io’s store from Epic. “Are you aware that itch.io includes so-called adult games such as a game called “Sisterly Lust?” Apple’s lawyer asked. Some of the games on itch.io are “so offensive we cannot speak about them here,” she sniffed. This was a more successful line of argument — it essentially explained why Apple didn’t want stores within its own store.
Of course, the big contrast between the Apple App Store and the Epic Game Store was economic. The 30/70 split that Epic finds so objectionable began with retail — you used to have to buy games at Wal-Mart or GameStop or something, when they were physically packaged, Allison said quietly. As retailers moved away from PC games in favor of console games, Valve created Steam, which mimicked the 30/70 split from traditional retail — but it was viewed as an improvement among developers, since they didn’t have to pay for discs and packaging and so on.
That is, until Minecraft self-published, in Allison’s telling. Then someone taking 30 percent looked steep. In 2018, Epic launched the Epic Games Store, which took only a 12 percent cut. (In order to assuage developers who might fear losing revenue from Steam when they took exclusive deals with Epic, Epic agreed to pay them a minimum guarantee.)
Significantly, developers don’t have to use the Epic in-app payment system — they can use their own, meaning that Epic can theoretically get no money on in-app purchases. Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of Magic the Gathering Arena, and Ubisoft, with multiple titles, use their own payment systems.
Still, I find myself returning to the question that began the day: What is a game? It’s shocking to me that so many people who specialize in apps and games can’t really answer this question. But I guess in some sense, you could imagine the trial is one — it’s got a beginning, a middle, and an end. Lots of money at stake. A winner and a loser. Plus, when the verdict is appealed — as it almost inevitably will be — we’ll get a sequel. Sure, Epic played well today, but you need more than one good turn to win.
The post In Epic v Apple, everybody is losing at the game of defining games, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity lands at new airfield after 5th flight, ,
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is now exploring a new airfield on the Red Planet.
Ingenuity made its fifth Martian flight today (May 7), lifting off from the floor of Jezero Crater at 3:26 p.m. EDT (1926 GMT). The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) chopper climbed to an altitude of 16.5 feet (5 meters) and cruised south for 423 feet (129 m), following the same path it took last week on flight number four, NASA officials said.
But unlike that April 30 jaunt and the three others that preceded it, today’s trip was one-way. After reaching its destination, Ingenuity climbed to 33 feet (10 m) — twice as high in the Martian sky as it had ever gotten — snapped some photos and then landed in a new place, wrapping up a 108-second flight and embarking on a new journey of exploration.
Video: See the view on Mars from Ingenuity helicopter’s fourth flight
“We bid adieu to our first Martian home, Wright Brothers Field, with grateful thanks for the support it provided to the historic first flights of a planetary rotorcraft,” Bob Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, said in a statement today.
“No matter where we go from here, we will always carry with us a reminder of how much those two bicycle builders from Dayton meant to us during our pursuit of the first flight on another world,” Balaram said.
See more
Ingenuity landed with NASA’s Perseverance rover inside the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero on Feb. 18. The solar-powered rotorcraft deployed from the rover’s belly on April 3, beginning a flight campaign designed to demonstrate that aerial exploration is possible on Mars.
That campaign was supposed to end after 30 days and a maximum of five flights. But Ingenuity performed so well, and remains so healthy, that NASA recently extended its mission.
“Our helicopter is even more robust than we had hoped,” Josh Ravich, Ingenuity mechanical engineering lead at JPL, wrote in a blog post yesterday (May 6).
“The power system that we fretted over for years is providing more than enough energy to keep our heaters going at night and to fly during the day,” Ravich added. “The off-the-shelf components for our guidance and navigation systems are also doing great, as is our rotor system. You name it, and it’s doing just fine or better.”
Today’s flight helps transition the little chopper into a new phase, during which Ingenuity will showcase the ability of rotorcraft to serve as scouts for Mars rovers. The new airfield lies along Perseverance’s planned traverse, so the helicopter’s in-flight photos could help the rover team choose the most efficient route and, perhaps, identify interesting rock targets to investigate.
Keeping the two robots in relatively close proximity is also a logistical necessity. Ingenuity, whose body is about the size of a tissue box, cannot talk directly to its handlers on Earth; communications to and from the chopper must go through Perseverance.
In addition to serving as a relay station, the rover has been documenting Ingenuity’s historic flights, capturing video and, on flight number four, audio of the rotorcraft in action. But Perseverance will soon begin focusing in earnest on its own science mission, which involves hunting for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting and caching dozens of samples for future return to Earth.
“The plan forward is to fly Ingenuity in a manner that does not reduce the pace of Perseverance science operations,” Balaram said in today’s postflight statement.
“We may get a couple more flights in over the next few weeks, and then the agency will evaluate how we’re doing,” he added. “We have already been able to gather all the flight performance data that we originally came here to collect. Now, this new operations demo gives us an opportunity to further expand our knowledge of flying machines on other planets.”
Mike Wall is the author of “ Out There ” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
The post NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity lands at new airfield after 5th flight, , appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
LiveLeak, the internet’s font of gore and violence, has shut down, James Vincent
Video site LiveLeak, best known for hosting gruesome footage that mainstream rivals wouldn’t touch, has shut down after fifteen years in operation. In its place is “ItemFix,” a site that bans users from uploading media containing “excessive violence or gory content.”
In a blog post, LiveLeak founder Hayden Hewitt did not give an explicit reason for the site’s closure, saying only that: “The world has changed a lot over these last few years, the Internet alongside it, and we as people.” In a video posted on his YouTube channel Trigger Warning, Hewitt offered no further details, but said that maintaining LiveLeak had become a struggle, and that he and his team “just didn’t have it in us to carry on fighting.”
“Everything’s different now,…
The post LiveLeak, the internet’s font of gore and violence, has shut down, James Vincent appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
