Month: November 2015

(credit: BBC)

A British toddler recently had his right eye sliced in half by a neighbor’s drone, which resulted in the removal of his eyeball. He will eventually be fitted with a prosthetic.

According to BBC Watchdog, Oscar Webb was just 16 months old at the time of the accident. He was out playing in front of his home in Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire when a neighbor’s drone hit him in the face. Pilot Simon Evans, a next-door neighbor of the Webb family, flew the drone in front of his house, where it clipped a tree and "spun out of control" for a moment before colliding with the young boy. (The BBC described Evans as an "experienced" drone operator.)

"It was up for about 60 seconds," Evans said. "As I brought it back down to land, it just clipped the tree and span round. The next thing I know I've just heard my friend shriek and say, 'Oh God no' and I turned around and just saw blood and his baby on the floor crying."

Enlarge / A shot of the PS4's main processor, courtesy of a teardown from Wired. (credit: Wired)

In terms of raw power, console hardware doesn't really change over time; the PS4 you buy today will essentially have the same pixel-pushing components as one you buy in 2020. But through software updates, the current generation of game consoles is managing to give developers access to more of that raw hardware power as time goes on.

Sony's PlayStation 4 is the latest beneficiary of this trend. The system's eight-core CPU used to devote two entire cores to managing the underlying operating system, leaving just six available for developers to use for games. So it was a bit surprising when the release notes for a recent version of FMOD Studio's middleware platform noted that the API had "added FMOD_THREAD_CORE6 to allow access to the newly unlocked 7th core."

Digital Foundry confirmed with its development sources that Sony has indeed unlocked a seventh CPU core for direct access by developers. Those same sources suggest that the core may still be partly used for system-related tasks at points, so it's not exactly a one-sixth improvement in available CPU time. Still, every little bit helps when trying to process complex scenes or bits of game logic.

The Metal Gear Solid series has always carried a strong undertone about the threat of nuclear proliferation. Metal Gear Solid V is taking that message to a new level by integrating an in-game metagame that will unlock a new story cutscene once all players have disarmed their in-game nuclear arsenals.

Nuclear weapons are a powerful force in MGSV's Forward Operating Base side-game, which lets players build up a personal army and arsenal that can be used to invade and plunder fellow players online. The nuclear bombs act as deterrents to invasion from other players, unless the invading force also has a nuclear weapon or has achieved Hero status through tireless do-gooding.

The nature of that in-game arms race led to tens of thousands of in-game nukes being deployed across the game's servers as of November 1, according to Konami's official count. But players also have reason to try to reverse that trend. As Konami recently officially announced, a "secret nuclear disarmament event" will be triggered for all players only when "All nuclear weapons on the regional server corresponding to your console or platform must have been dismantled. In other words, the amount of nukes on your platform's server must be equal to 0."

This illustration shows Earth surrounded by filaments of dark matter called "hairs." (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

There are few fields like theoretical astrophysics, where public perception so radically departs from reality. Society generally considers its practitioners—scientists like Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne—to be among the most brilliant people in the world. They are the great sages to whom we turn with the universe’s deepest questions. Yet in reality, astrophysicists are mired in ignorance.

When a theoretical astrophysicist looks up at the nighttime sky, he or she will see the stars shining overhead. But what concerns the physicist is not what he or she sees but rather what is unseen. Based upon different kinds of observations, such as how galaxies rotate and how they are flying apart from one another, scientists know that 95 percent of the of the universe is made of up stuff we cannot see. Of the universe's mass, physicists say 27 percent is dark matter, and 68 percent is dark energy. And researchers have no idea what this stuff is or where to find it.

Yet a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has now provided a clue about where dark matter—and lots of it—might be found. In a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal, Gary Prézeau has proposed that Earth and other planets and stars in the Milky Way galaxy are surrounded by theoretical filaments of dark matter called "hairs.” By finding the roots of these hairs, he reports, physicists could uncover a trove of dark matter.

(credit: Bugatti)

One of the biggest thrillers being written in the car industry right now is what Volkswagen is doing to recover from its cheating diesel scandal. Estimates of the cost to VW Group vary widely, but most agree that $10 billion is probably on the low end. That's a lot of cash, even for one of the world's largest auto manufacturers, and questions abound over which projects, new cars, or even brands might find themselves in for the corporate axe. The latest plot twist will take many by surprise: VW-owned Bugatti will indeed build a replacement for the Veyron.

In October we learned that the new Phaeton—a technological flagship sedan that no one bought—would survive as an electric vehicle. R&D spending would be cut, too; VW was spending around $12.6 billion a year on research, more than any of its competitors. The Bugatti Chiron was thought to be a goner for sure. VW Group is thought to have lost almost $5 million on every Veyron it sold, and continuing to build ornate rocketships for plutocrats could seem at odds with a sober corporate rehabilitation strategy. But more than 100 orders were already on the books, and the car will debut in 2016, the company announced today.

How does one top a Veyron? According to Bugatti boss Wolfgang Dürheimer, "the Chiron will set new standards in every respect. We will continue to produce the world’s most powerful, fastest, most luxurious and most exclusive production super sports car. This is the claim of Bugatti and our customers." The new car will still use a turbocharged 8L W16 engine and all-wheel drive, but power is rumored to be up 50 percent at almost 1500hp (1100kW). Expect a mighty price tag, too.