Month: August 2018

We appreciate your business. Ya-hoo! (credit: Nintendo)

The folks over at Switch blog Switcher decided to quantify how much that "Switch tax" costs while building their own database of Switch games. Their analysis found that, of 471 games being sold on both Steam and Switch, the downloadable Switch versions cost just over 10 percent more on average.

That average obscures a wide range of price discrepancies, of course, including some that end up in the Switch's favor. In fact, a majority of titles listed on both platforms (55.8 percent) sell for the exact same price on both, and an additional 8.9 percent are cheaper on Nintendo's eShop.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Spencer Platt)

Verizon Wireless today said it has temporarily stopped throttling the data of firefighters and other first responders on the West Coast and in Hawaii and will soon introduce a new unlimited plan "with no caps" and with priority access for first responders.

"As of yesterday, we removed all speed cap restrictions for first responders on the West Coast and in Hawaii to support current firefighting and Hurricane Lane efforts," Verizon's announcement today said. "Further, in the event of another disaster, Verizon will lift restrictions on public safety customers, providing full network access."

Next week, Verizon said it will provide full details on "a new plan that will feature unlimited data, with no caps on mobile solutions and automatically includes priority access."

Enlarge / Yeah, I wouldn't drink that either. (credit: Getty | JBryson)

The maker of wide-ranging “water-based homeopathic medicines” has recalled 32 products marketed to children and infants due to microbial contamination, according to an announcement posted on the Food and Drug Administration’s website this week.

The announcement does not provide any specifics about the contamination or potential risks. However, the North Carolina-based manufacturer behind the recall, King Bio, issued a similar announcement back in July. At that time, the company recalled three other products after an FDA inspection found batches contaminated with the bacteria Pseudomonas brenneri, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Burkholderia multivorans.

Pseudomonas brenneri is a bacterium recently found in natural mineral waters, and its clinical significance is murky. However, Pseudomonas fluorescens is known to be an opportunistic pathogen, causing blood infections, and Burkholderia multivorans can cause infections in people with compromised immune systems and cystic fibrosis. It was also recently found to be a rare but emerging cause of meningitis.

Jaguar

It must be restomod Friday or something. You may remember that last year Jaguar revealed it had created an electric powertrain conversion for the E-Type. Or perhaps you watched the royal wedding earlier this summer and noticed that the happy couple drove off into the sunset in that same electric E-Type. Well, now Jaguar has announced that the E-Type Zero is a concept no more: it will offer the (fully reversible) conversion to the rest of us.

Out goes the XKE straight-six engine, along with the fuel tank and gearbox. In its place is an electric motor that shares many components with the new Jaguar I-Pace, a single-speed reduction gearbox, and a 40kWh lithium-ion battery pack that is about the same size and weight as the absent engine. Which means that the weight and balance of the now-electric E-Type should be the same as it was before it underwent such radical surgery. However the electric car will actually have better performance than a Series 1 E-Type. Range is 170 miles between charges.

Enlarge (credit: Corr et al. 2018)

In 1545, freshly refitted to carry a greater number of heavy cannon, the warship Mary Rose sailed into battle against a French fleet north of the Isle of Wight. The debate over what happened next is still heated, but the most accepted version is that the added weight of the cannons made the Mary Rose sit almost a meter lower in the water than before. When the ship made a sharp turn—or perhaps when a sudden gust of wind caught the sails—water poured into open gunports, flooding the ship. Nets in place over the deck, meant to repel enemy boarders, ended up trapping more than 500 sailors aboard as the ship went down.

The Mary Rose, and many members of her crew, spent the next 437 years getting buried under several meters of silt at the bottom of the Solent, the strait north of the Isle of Wight. That silt helped preserve about 40 percent of her hull and about 19,000 artifacts and pieces of timber, which archaeologists recovered in 1982. That’s incredible luck for a 500-year-old shipwreck, especially one as historically significant as the Mary Rose, but the waterlogged wood of Henry VIII’s prize warship still faces a threat.

Eating away at the wood

Some of the marine bacteria that move in when a ship sinks munch on sulfur and release a compound called hydrogen sulfide. And when iron fittings, cannons, and other artifacts corrode, they release ions that react with the hydrogen sulfide to produce iron sulfides. That doesn’t matter much in an environment without much oxygen—and there's not much in several meters of silt at the bottom of the Solent, for instance. But when exposed to air again, the iron sulfides react with oxygen to produce sulfate salts and sulfuric acid, which eat away at the already fragile timbers and artifacts where wood is in contact with iron.

Enlarge (credit: Corr et al. 2018)

In 1545, freshly refitted to carry a greater number of heavy cannon, the warship Mary Rose sailed into battle against a French fleet north of the Isle of Wight. The debate over what happened next is still heated, but the most accepted version is that the added weight of the cannons made the Mary Rose sit almost a meter lower in the water than before. When the ship made a sharp turn—or perhaps when a sudden gust of wind caught the sails—water poured into open gunports, flooding the ship. Nets in place over the deck, meant to repel enemy boarders, ended up trapping more than 500 sailors aboard as the ship went down.

The Mary Rose, and many members of her crew, spent the next 437 years getting buried under several meters of silt at the bottom of the Solent, the strait north of the Isle of Wight. That silt helped preserve about 40 percent of her hull and about 19,000 artifacts and pieces of timber, which archaeologists recovered in 1982. That’s incredible luck for a 500-year-old shipwreck, especially one as historically significant as the Mary Rose, but the waterlogged wood of Henry VIII’s prize warship still faces a threat.

Eating away at the wood

Some of the marine bacteria that move in when a ship sinks munch on sulfur and release a compound called hydrogen sulfide. And when iron fittings, cannons, and other artifacts corrode, they release ions that react with the hydrogen sulfide to produce iron sulfides. That doesn’t matter much in an environment without much oxygen—and there's not much in several meters of silt at the bottom of the Solent, for instance. But when exposed to air again, the iron sulfides react with oxygen to produce sulfate salts and sulfuric acid, which eat away at the already fragile timbers and artifacts where wood is in contact with iron.