Month: April 2016

(credit: Roku)

Roku continues to regularly update its family of streaming devices, and today the company announced a revamped streaming stick. The latest Roku streaming stick will replace the purple dongle the company released back in 2014, and it works largely the same way (albeit with updated internals and a few extra features).

The new Roku streaming stick has dual-band MIMO antenna and an updated quad-core processor, giving it eight times more power than the 2014 version. Even with that improvement, Roku managed to shave off some bulk from the stick so it's now closer to thumb-drive size. Just like the old streaming stick, the new one plugs into your TV via HDMI port to deliver thousands of "channels," or apps that you can watch video through including Netflix, YouTube, and Time Warner Cable. Unlike the Roku 4 set top box the company released late last year, the new streaming stick doesn't support 4K video and only streams content in 1080p.

The stick comes with a remote just like the company's other devices, but that remote doesn't have a headphone jack for private listening. However, a new feature of the stick solves that issue: it streams audio via Wi-Fi to your smartphone, so you can plug your headphones into your phone and listen to the show you're watching. This will come in handy for those who live in hectic households, live with roommates, or just really want to focus on the latest House of Cards season.

The about-face is almost complete. Following earlier statements that Microsoft would "come out with new [Xbox One] hardware capability during a generation," Xbox chief Phil Spencer has said that he's not keen on releasing an upgraded version of the console.

His comments come despite strong rumours pointing to Sony unveiling an upgraded version of the PlayStation 4—currently dubbed PlayStation 4K—this October.

"I'm not a big fan of Xbox One and a half," Spencer told Game Informer. "If we're going to move forward, I want to move forward in big numbers. I don't know anything about any of the [PS4K] rumours that are out there, but I can understand other teams' motivations to do that. For us, our box is doing well. It performs, it's reliable, the servers are doing well. If we're going to go forward with anything, like I said, I want it to be a really substantial change for people—an upgrade."

(credit: Uber)

Last year, Uber was sued by two women who said they were sexually attacked by drivers. On Friday, an Uber lawyer tried to convince a US federal judge to throw out the lawsuit, but she was unconvinced.

"The job being performed has nothing to do with the act," Uber attorney Josh Cohen said, according to a report in Courthouse News. Cohen tried to walk a fine line, saying that Uber is merely a "facilitator of transportation" and not a transportation company.

US District Judge Susan Ilston brought up a 1956 case called Berger v. Southern Pacific, which involved a female passenger who was raped by a porter on a Pullman train car. It was a case brought up by neither the plaintiffs nor the defendants, and at the Friday hearing, both sides didn't even seem to be aware of the case, according to a report from The Recorder.

(credit: NASA)

Up to a certain point, the elements of the periodic table are largely formed in the hearts of stars. But for elements that are heavy enough (heavier than zinc typically), fusing two lighter nuclei just won’t do it. To form those elements, another process is needed: neutron capture.

Neutrons get captured when they collide with an atomic nucleus and get stuck together, creating a heavier nucleus. Neutrons can undergo these collisions at lower energies because they’re electrically neutral so they won’t be repelled, unlike protons. If the resulting nucleus is unstable, however, one of its neutrons can decay into a proton, creating a heavier element.

A lot of heavy elements are formed by neutron capture, but the details of how it happens haven't been well worked out. That's in part because there are two kinds of neutron capture processes: the slow process (s-process) and rapid process (r-process). Each of these accounts for about half of the elements produced by neutron capture in our Universe.