Month: May 2016

Today at the Upfronts, where networks tease shows coming next season, CBS offered a shiny glimpse of the worlds where its new <i>Star Trek</i> series will take us in January 2017. All we see here is the new logo for the show—the first new <i>Trek</i> series in over a decade—and a few VFX shots of cool planets. It almost has the feel of the Doctor Who credits sequence, with its kinetic ride through spacetime.

So what do we know about this series? Basically, nothing. This trailer does confirm that we'll have "new crews," which was something many had suspected but had not yet been confirmed. So don't expect the Seven of Nine spinoff we were all hoping for. One of the items that's omitted in that list of new things is "ships," so it's possible we'll be getting another Enterprise crew from a previously unexplored time period. Though this trailer is kind of weaksauce, you have to be somewhat forgiving, since the show hasn't even started shooting yet.

The good news is that Nicholas Meyer (who wrote and directed Wrath of Khan) is in the writing room, and smartypants Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) is the showrunner. The bad news is that the show's pilot will air on CBS, but all subsequent episodes will only be available on CBS streaming.

SAN FRANCISCO—An economist hired by Oracle was sworn in and took the stand in federal court today, opining that Google's use of Java APIs in Android shouldn't be considered "fair use."

The testimony by Adam Jaffe wrapped up day eight of the Oracle v. Google trial, a legal dispute that began in 2010 when Oracle sued Google's use of the 37 Java APIs, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems. In 2012, a judge ruled that APIs can't be copyrighted at all, but an appeals court disagreed. Now Oracle may seek up to $9 billion in damages.

If Google hadn't copied the 37 Java APIs in question, Android "very likely would not have been as successful," Jaffe opined. He also believed that Java was "poised to enjoy continued success" in the mobile space, a point also made earlier today by former Sun licensing executives.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—Lawyers for Oracle Corporation summoned a hostile witness to the stand today here in federal court, revealing what they surely hope will be a "smoking gun" e-mail in their copyright infringement case against Google.

One big problem: the writer of that e-mail, Stefano Mazzocchi, didn't work for Google at the time. Mazzocchi is one of three people who created the Apache Harmony program, which Google leaned on heavily when it created its Android mobile operating system.

The case began in 2010, when Oracle, which acquired Java when it purchased Sun Microsystems, sued Google for using Java APIs in Android. In 2012, a judge ruled that APIs can't be copyrighted at all, but an appeals court disagreed. At the jury trial now underway, Oracle may seek up to $9 billion in damages, while Google is arguing that its use of the 37 APIs constitutes "fair use."

Nintendo's most recent fiscal-year disclosure made headlines for announcing a release window for the new "Nintendo NX" console and yet another Zelda game delay, but it also included news of serious corporate restructuring. The short version: Nintendo will soon involve a supervisory committee in making top-level executive decisions.

The company has begun rolling out more details about how that restructuring will work, and in doing so, Nintendo's Japanese arm has tipped its hand about possible new business plans. A Tuesday announcement included the company's amended articles of incorporation, expected to be approved by shareholders this June, and it included three new entries in its "business engagement" list: restaurants, medical and health devices, and "computer software."

Longtime Nintendo followers will recognize the second of those three entries, as Nintendo has publicly announced, then recanted, both a heart rate monitor (the Wii Vitality Sensor) and a sleep-tracking system. Meanwhile, a Nintendo-themed restaurant seems like a simple-enough expansion for a company that already operates physical businesses such as the Nintendo Store—though, clearly, we'd love to see an official Nintendo diner—and a pun-filled menu. (Kirby cream puffs, Sausage "Link"s, Moo Moo Meadows burgers, and on and on...)

It's no secret that we're fans of using the racetrack to improve road car technology here at Ars. It's also no secret that we believe the discipline of endurance racing (Le Mans and the like) to have far more relevance to making our road cars better than Formula 1. But it would be incorrect to say that no such tech transfer happens within the ultra-specialized world of F1. And a perfect example of that is a clever engine development being used by Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari that's pushing the envelope of energy efficiency. It's called turbulent jet ignition (TJI), and not only does it do wonders for fuel efficiency, it also results in a cleaner exhaust.

As you probably know, gasoline engines combust fuel with air within each cylinder, and that combustion moves the pistons—and therefore the crankshaft, powering the car. But most of the energy released during combustion is wasted as heat. In fact, the average road car engine wastes between 70 to 75 percent, meaning its thermal efficiency is around 25 to 30 percent. That comes down to the way that the fuel combusts after it's injected into the cylinder, which normally happens around the center of the cylinder by the spark plug (the bit that ignites the mixture). If you can control ignition so that it happens more homogeneously throughout the cylinder, with more air per given amount of fuel (i.e. a leaner burn), less energy is wasted as heat and more of it is converted to work.

But this process can be improved. Take Toyota's latest generation of Prius hybrids, for example. These cars use what's known as an Atkinson-cycle (most engines work via the Otto-cycle). The current Prius engine is supposed to have a thermal efficiency of 40 percent, which is quite an achievement. But there are other options, too, like a technology that's already used in some road cars called direct injection. Rather than traditional fuel injection, which squirts fuel into the engine upstream of the cylinder in the intake port (the bit that the air gets sucked through on its way from the outside of the car into the engine), direct injection uses a high-pressure system to add the fuel into the cylinder itself. This makes it possible to more accurately control the fuel-air mix, whether that's to achieve a stoichiometric air-fuel ratio (14.7:1) or even an ultra-lean mix (useful when cruising with the engine under a light load).