Month: March 2018

Enlarge (credit: Technische Universität Wien)

You may be familiar with matryoshka dolls: nested sets of painted figurines that fit within painted figurines. In the case of wooden dolls, the concept is pretty straightforward: hollow out a large bit and fit smaller bits in. You might think that doing the same thing with atoms is kind of tough. Yes, atoms are mostly space, but they are kind of difficult to hollow out. And, convincing another atom to enter the empty space (and make itself smaller) seems an impossible task.

Yet, this is kind of what a group of researchers has done. They created a crowd of very cold atoms; within that crowd, they took a single atom and convinced one of the electrons to orbit at a very large distance. Pairs of atoms kind of fell into the gap between that electron and its nucleus. And there they sat, trapped between an outer shell of a fast-orbiting electron and a hard wall of the inner electrons and nucleus. It's not quite a matryoshka doll—all of the trapped atoms sit together in the gap, not inside each other—but it's an impressive approximation.

So, how did the researchers manage this feat of atomic woodwork? To get a grip on that, we need to introduce three concepts: the Bose Einstein Condensate, which forms the crowd of very cold atoms; a polaron, which is the mechanism that traps the atoms inside the outer shell of the doll; and finally, Rydberg atoms, a way to make an atom very large and very empty.

Enlarge / With some filters and mod work on the in-game sprites, the PC port of Chrono Trigger is already looking a lot better. (credit: Steam)

Update, April 3: In an update posted to the Steam Community today, Square Enix promised a patch coming later this month will "include an option to switch between the current high-resolution graphics and the original graphical style of Chrono Trigger." Done correctly, this patch should save a good deal of effort on the part of the hard-working modders discussed below.

The patch is the first of "a number of patches over the coming months" promised by the publisher, which says it is "working very hard on adjusting, updating and supporting Chrono Trigger on Steam."

Original story: When Square Enix launched a PC version of RPG classic Chrono Trigger on Steam last week, nearly 23 years after the SNES original came out, fans were surprised. That surprise quickly morphed into dismay as fans noticed some ugly HD filtering on classic character sprites and background art, as well as lazy, big-buttoned menus that look like they came from a port of the iPhone version of the game. (TouchArcade is quick to point out the differences that actually make the PC version look worse.) Indie developer Lars Doucet laid out other problems, including inconsistent pixel sizing and misaligned tiles, in a thorough Gamasutra blog post.

Enlarge (credit: Uber)

Uber's fleet of self-driving trucks has begun hauling commercial loads, the company announced on Tuesday. The trucks will operate first in Arizona, a state with famously permissive laws for self-driving technology.

The trucks won't be fully driverless—they'll still have human safety drivers behind the wheel. Still, the announcement represents an important step toward the use of fully autonomous trucks in the trucking business.

Uber's driverless trucks will operate as part of Uber Freight, a freight-hauling app and network that Uber launched last year. Just as the regular Uber app lets passengers book a ride with a few clicks, Uber Freight is an app that connects shippers with truckers who can haul their loads.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | tiero)

A simple policy that could speed up fiber Internet deployment throughout the US is finally on track to become US law. A "Dig Once" measure that requires fiber conduit installation during many federally funded road projects was passed yesterday by the US House of Representatives and is expected to pass the Senate.

US Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) first submitted Dig Once legislation in 2009 and has periodically resubmitted the legislation in the years since, she said during yesterday's floor debate.

The Dig Once policy "mandates the inclusion of broadband conduit—plastic pipes which house fiber-optic communications cable—during the construction of any road receiving federal funding," an announcement from Eshoo said.

(credit: Dan Goodin)

A small yet colorful part of the iTunes Store will be history by year's end. According to an internal Apple email obtained by Metro, Apple will stop taking iTunes LP submissions this month. Apple confirmed the plans to The Verge, signaling the impending end of the paid multimedia album experience on iTunes.

The leaked email reportedly stated: "Apple will no longer accept new submissions of iTunes LPs after March 2018,” and “existing LPs will be deprecated from the store during the remainder of 2018. Customers who have previously purchased an album containing an iTunes LP will still be able to download the additional content using iTunes Match."

According to the Verge's report, customers who purchased LPs will continue to have access to them, and they will be able to download previous and new LP purchases via iTunes. Customers won't see any newly added LPs available to buy in the iTunes Store after this month.