Month: August 2017

Enlarge / An archaeological sample with traces of bone-on-bone contact. (credit: Heli Maijanen)

Painful, stiff, and grating knees may not just be a sign of aging—they may also be a sign of the times.

Degenerative knee arthritis, or knee osteoarthritis (OA), seems to be on the rise. Since the early part of the 20^th century, its prevalence has doubled in Americans, according to a new study in PNAS. Researchers estimate that at least 19 percent of all US adults over the age of 45 now suffer from the condition, and it’s a leading cause of chronic pain. But, it’s unclear why. The most obvious suspects—longer lifespans and heftier bodies—don’t fully explain the aching jump in joint problems, researchers report.

But one thing that does seem clear is that our frames haven’t kept pace with our lifestyles. “From an evolutionary perspective, knee OA thus fits the criteria of a “mismatch disease” that is more prevalent or severe because our bodies are inadequately or imperfectly adapted to modern environments,” the researchers behind the study conclude.

Enlarge / An artist's rendering of the EchoStar 24/ Jupiter 3 satellite, planned for launch in 2021. The satellite will provide 100 Mbps residential Internet service to the Western Hemisphere. (credit: EchoStar)

In March, Hughes Network Systems launched an upgrade of its satellite-based Internet service, HughesNet, that transformed it into the first residential satellite-based Internet service to meet the Federal Communications Commission's definition of "broadband." Now, the company is planning for its next major leap in bandwidth—a 100 Mbps-capable network based on a new satellite to be launched in 2021.

HughesNet Gen5, which by June was serving more than 100,000 Internet service customers, provides 25 megabit-per-second (Mbps) download speeds and 3 Mbps upload speeds via the EchoStar 18/Jupiter 1 and EchoStar 19/Jupiter 2 satellites. HughesNet has a 60-percent share of satellite-based residential Internet service in the US and targets the service at rural residential customers underserved by terrestrial cable and telecommunications providers.

Hughes executives announced last week that the company had signed a contract with Space Systems Loral to build the next EchoStar/Jupiter satellite. Designated as EchoStar XXIV/JUPITER 3, the Ultra High Density Satellite (UHDS) will provide residential Internet as well as commercial data services, including in-flight Internet and cellular network "backhaul" for remote cellular towers. EchoStar 24, when added to the existing fleet of satellites, will more than double Hughes' available Ka-band satellite service across both North and South America. The satellite will have 500 gigabits per second of throughput.

(credit: Getty Images)

If you're an Amazon Prime member, you get orders pretty quickly. Some areas offer one-hour delivery, and some Amazon Fresh customers can get groceries even quicker. Now Amazon wants to shorten your wait time even more with Amazon Instant Pickup locations, which are localized spaces where you can pick up "daily essentials" within minutes of ordering them on Amazon's website.

In essence, Instant Pickup locations are convenience stores that don't have aisles—and barely have employees. Prime and Prime Student members can order items from Amazon Instant Pickup on their mobile devices, choosing from products including drinks, snacks, phone chargers, personal care items, and more. It wouldn't be an Amazon service without integration of Amazon's products, so members can also order Echo speakers, Fire TVs, and Fire and Kindle devices on Instant Pickup. Once the order is placed, employees at the nearest Instant Pickup location gather the items and place them in a self-service locker. Members can then go to that locker, open it with a personalized bar code, and retrieve their items within minutes of placing the order.

While customers presumably won't interact with the Amazon employees at pickup locations, they still require people to gather and place orders into lockers. According to a report from Reuters, Amazon considered fully automating Instant Pickup locations but didn't go through with it for the launch. Currently there are five Instant Pickup spots in cities across the US: Los Angeles; Atlanta; Berkeley, Calif.; Columbus, Ohio; and College Park, Md. Amazon hopes to open more Instant Pickup locations in the future.

Enlarge / A new logo for an old brand name. (credit: Blizzard)

Remember last year when Blizzard announced it would be "transitioning away" from the 20-year-old Battle.net moniker for its online service in favor of "Blizzard Tech." You'd be forgiven for forgetting because both Blizzard and Activision were still using the Battle.net name heavily this May when they announced Destiny 2's move to the service. This despite the fact that the rebranded "Blizzard Launcher" was months old at that point, even though no one was really calling it that.

Apparently, Blizzard recognized the confusion and is now reverting back to the Battle.net branding it never fully abandoned. In a blog post yesterday the company explains its online service will now be called "Blizzard Battle.net" going forward:

When we announced that we’d be transitioning away from the Battle.net name for our online-gaming service, we suspected that the shift would be challenging. We understood that Battle.net stood for something special—it represents years of shared history and enjoyment, community and friendship, for all of us and our players.

Battle.net is the central nervous system for Blizzard games and the connective tissue that has brought Blizzard players together since 1996. The technology was never going away, but after giving the branding change further consideration and also hearing your feedback, we’re in agreement that the name should stay as well. Take it from the developer formerly known as Silicon & Synapse, and Chaos Studios, names are important, too.

This might not seem like a big deal; as Blizzard says, the underlying technology powering these games hasn't changed at all. But as Blizzard also acknowledges, "names are important, too," and abandoning one with the history and awareness of Battle.net without a focused and heavily promoted replacement didn't really work out.