Month: May 2016

Enlarge / The Huawei Watch running Android Wear 2.0. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Yesterday Google put out the first developer previews of Android Wear 2.0, the single biggest update that the software has gotten since it was originally released in 2014—two Google I/Os ago.

The developer preview builds, which only work on two more recent (and expensive) Wear watches and the Android emulator, won’t suddenly convince smartwatch haters that the devices have merit. But Wear 2.0 tweaks Google’s smartwatch platform in some intelligent ways while opening new doors for developers. Here’s what the preview is like running on the Huawei Watch.

New look and feel

The original release of Android Wear existed mostly as a wrist-bound notification delivery system. Notification cards would alert you to their presence by obscuring part of the watch face and hanging out there until you had dismissed them. Wear 2.0 is still notification-focused, but it delivers them in a way that’s less disruptive to your newly useful, complication-equipped watch face.

Enlarge / OWC's Aura drive for newer MacBook Airs and Pros. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

If you're looking for a capacity upgrade for a recent MacBook Pro or Air, you could do worse than OWC's Aura SSDs. The drives come in 480GB and 1TB capacities, and even though they aren't always as fast as original Apple drives, they're fast enough, and they offer capacities beyond what Apple offers on some models.

The major caveat that we discovered in our review of the products is that the drives didn't support Boot Camp, making it impossible to install Windows or other operating systems on the drives. Those disheartened by that news will be happy to know that OWC has just released a Boot Camp Enabler tool for the Aura drives and a few of its other aftermarket Mac SSDs that allows the Boot Camp Assistant tool to work just as it normally does. Once Windows is installed, the enabler tool can be uninstalled without affecting the Windows partition.

OWC will sell you a 480GB drive for $348 and a 1TB drive for $595. An upgrade kit that includes tools and an external USB enclosure for the original Apple drive costs around $50 extra. The drives are compatible with 2013, 2014, and 2015 MacBook Airs and Retina MacBook Pros.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court prepares to hear oral arguments in the case on January 8.

Some teenagers successfully lobby for access to the family car on a Friday night. Others successfully sue governments about not doing enough about greenhouse gas emissions.

Aided by the Conservation Law Foundation and the Mass Energy Consumers Alliance, four teens won a case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Tuesday that will force the state to follow through on its greenhouse gas emissions goals. The state’s 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act pledged to reduce emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, but the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) never created any emissions regulations to make that happen.

The lawsuit argued that the 2008 legislation required the DEP to actually do something, while the state said it interpreted the law to mean it would merely need to define numbers that would be consistent with the goal. The Supreme Judicial Court overturned a lower court’s decision, telling the DEP that it is not free to interpret the law that way.

(credit: Google Earth)

The linear chains of islands running across the Pacific Ocean aren’t improbable coincidences of orderliness—they’re the product of hot towers of mantle rock punching volcanic holes through a tectonic plate sliding overhead. But if you follow the Hawaiian chain back to where the older seamounts no longer rise above the waves, you find a sharp dogleg, as you can see above.

We haven't had a satisfactory explanation for this sudden turn. One idea was that, given a stationary mantle hotspot, the tectonic plate must have changed direction at one point in time. This theory has never been entirely satisfactory, however—not least because the Louisville seamount chain in the South Pacific sports a gentler kink.

We still have a lot to figure out about how mantle hotspot plumes work, but we do know that the Hawaii and Louisville plumes go all the way down to the deepest part of the Earth’s mantle. Plumes like these are rooted near the edges of unusual, lumpy regions of rock at the base of the mantle beneath the Pacific (as well as Africa). These structures are known as large low-shear-velocity provinces—for lack of any reasonable alternative, we’ll grit our teeth and refer to them as LLSVPs.

Concept art for NASA's flyby mission to Europa. (credit: NASA)

Planetary scientists have identified Jupiter's icy moon of Europa as one of their top targets for exploration, believing that its warm interior oceans may well harbor life. A new study published just this week, authored by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, found that conditions in the oceans on Europa may indeed be Earth-like and capable of harboring life.

Despite the wishes of the planetary science community to further investigate Europa, NASA has been wary of mounting such a mission because of the high cost—well above $1 billion. Additionally, planetary science hasn't been a priority in President Obama's NASA budgets, and the space agency has preferred to focus most of its robotic solar system exploration on Mars. The red planet is easier to reach, and NASA says it wants to explore Mars further to enable future human missions.

Congress has been more interested in planetary science, however. And in particular, the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over NASA's budget, John Culberson (R-Texas), has fancied Europa. Even when NASA wasn't asking for Europa funds, the congressman was funneling money to the scientists at the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Between the 2013 and 2016 fiscal years, NASA requested just $45 million in Europa funding, but Congress appropriated $395 million. For fiscal year 2017, NASA requested $49.6 million in Europa funding, but a House appropriations bill released this week by Culberson's committee proposes $260 million for mission planning and development.