Month: June 2018

Enlarge / It looks so friendly! (credit: Nuro)

Most coverage of autonomous vehicles has focused on cars with human passengers in them. But there's also a big opportunity to use autonomous vehicles to transform the retail sector. And one promising company in that emerging industry is Nuro, a startup founded by two early members of the Google self-driving car team.

Now Nuro is announcing its first commercial partnership: with Kroger, one of the nation's leading grocery chains. Starting this fall, Kroger plans to start delivering groceries to customers using Nuro's autonomous vehicles.

Initially, the partnership will only be active in a single market—the companies haven't yet said which city that will be. But Nuro's goal is to eventually provide service across Kroger's entire retail footprint.

Enlarge / About 50 percent of total Switch playtime comes from docked, TV-connected play, Nintendo says.

Since the Switch was first unveiled in late 2016, it's been pitched as a "best of both worlds" way to enjoy portable and TV-connected gaming in a single console unit. Nintendo now tells Ars Technica that users are taking advantage of both of those play modes in roughly equal measure.

In a recent interview with Ars, Nintendo Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing Doug Bowser (yes, really) said the play time split between docked and undocked play on the Switch is "about even—about 50 percent in the dock and 50 percent away from the dock." That latter includes both tabletop play and fully handheld play; Bowser said the company doesn't currently monitor which "undocked" mode a player is using at any given time.

While overall play time for docked and undocked play is relatively balanced, the usage rates can vary by individual game, Bowser said. Titles like Just Dance are played mostly in docked mode, while games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are more equally balanced.

Enlarge (credit: Gaudzinski-Windheuser et al. 2018)

A team of archaeologists analyzed injuries to the skeletons of two deer and then attacked dear pelvises with sensor-equipped wooden spears to replicate the wounds. The result is a rare insight into how Neanderthal hunters made a living: thrusting short wooden spears at their prey, probably in well-coordinated group ambushes.

How did Neanderthals hunt?

Animal bones at several Neanderthal sites bear the telltale marks of butchery, but there’s little evidence of how, exactly, Neanderthals brought down their prey.

“We have hardly any evidence for weaponry before 40,000 years ago. The only obvious evidence so far—and even here not all archaeologists agree—are wooden spears or lances known from three sites only. Considering that hominins probably started hunting as early as 1.8 Mio years ago, evidence is meager,” Johannes Gutenberg–University Mainz archaeologist Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser told Ars Technica.

Jeff Dunn

Amazon on Thursday announced a software update for its Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets that introduces “Show Mode,” a new setting that makes the two slates function similarly to the company’s Echo Show smart speaker.

Amazon says the update will start rolling out to the current-generation Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets on July 2. The mode won’t be available on older Fire tablets or the less expensive Fire 7 tablet.