Month: August 2018

Enlarge / Georgia Tech researchers color-coded fire ants with markers to better monitor their movements. (credit: Rob Felt/Georgia Tech)

The next time you're stuck in traffic, consider taking a cue from the lowly ant. Fire ants may hold the secret to regulating traffic flow, whether it be cars packed onto a freeway during rush hour, shepherding crowds through narrow passageways, or coordinating swarms of robots.

"Ants that live in complex subterranean environments have to develop sophisticated social rules to avoid the bad things that can happen when you have a lot of individuals in a crowded environment," said Georgia Tech physicist Daniel Goldman, who has been studying fire ants for years and is co-author of a new paper in Science detailing how they optimize their tunnel-digging efforts.

In a jam

Physicists have long been fascinated by traffic jams, especially so-called "phantom" traffic jams (aka, "jamitons"), where there doesn't seem to be any good reason for the slowdown. It all comes down to density and the physics of self-organization. Traffic moving freely "flows" like a liquid. Traffic jammed to a standstill is akin to a solid.

Few cars are quite as legendary as the Aston Martin DB5. It's not because they sold well—just over a thousand were built between 1963 and 1965. And it's not because they won famous races. Instead, the DB5 became such an icon thanks to an early example of product placement, because it's the car that James Bond drove in the film Goldfinger. And now, Aston Martin has said it's going to build 25 of them, complete with gadgets. But they won't be cheap—each will cost $3.51 million (£2.75 million) plus tax.

In the film, 007's car was modified by Q Branch and equipped with revolving number plates, machine guns, an oil slick dispenser, and even an ejector seat. In reality, the car used in the film—actually one of Aston Martin's pre-production prototypes—was modified by John Stears, who won an Oscar for his work. No one knew at the time quite how much the DB5 would steal the show, and after the film the gadgets were removed from the car and then reinstalled some years later.

Enlarge / A customer inspects the 2013 iPhone at the Wangfujing flagship store in Beijing. (credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

Apple removed thousands of gambling apps from China's App Store after the company came under fire from state-run media. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the tech giant removed as many as 25,000 illegal gambling apps, many of which were disguised as official lottery apps, from China's App Store after China Central Television criticized the company for not doing more to catch and remove banned content.

"Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China," Apple said in an emailed statement to The Wall Street Journal. "We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store."

While Apple occasionally cleans up its App Stores to remove spam apps and content, this recent situation shows another way that the company has bent to the rules of the Chinese government. Last year, Apple removed VPN apps from its Chinese App Store after the local government banned services that were not already approved by the state. VPN apps allowed Chinese users to bypass the Great Firewall to get uncensored access to blocked websites.

Enlarge (credit: Sega)

This week, for the first time since the early '00s, Sega's Shenmue games will be available on modern platforms. Both original games, 1999's Shenmue and 2001's Shenmue II, arrive on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC on Tuesday, August 21, as a $30 compilation.

Chances are, you never got to dive into either, owing not only to their age but also their exclusive launches on largely unpopular consoles in the West (the Dreamcast and original Xbox, respectively). This week's compilation changes the access-half of the equation (and comes to tide fans over while waiting for the crowdfunded Shenmue III). But does it deliver a must-play return to Sega's console swan song?

Not really. The team responsible for restoring this pair of games has erred on the side of authenticity. In good news, that means everything from the original games—art, dialogue, presentation—has been shined up as much as humanly possible. These are the best versions of Shenmue games in the world. But hundreds of open-world games have surpassed Yu Suzuki's classic in the days since, and none of those later games' successes have inspired Sega to fix what's broken here.

Enlarge / At the heart of the Relativity factory is the "Stargate" 3D printer, which the company says is the largest metal 3D printer in the world. (credit: Relativity Space)

Relativity is one of the most ambitious companies in the rocket industry. It seeks to manufacture the entirety of its rockets using 3D printing techniques, hoping to one day print a rocket on the surface of Mars to launch from there. But are either of these goals achievable?

Some new moves by the company suggest they just might be. On Monday morning, Relativity will announce the hiring of Tim Buzza as an adviser to shepherd the company's launch vehicle execution. These duties will include finalizing the selection of a US-based launch site (a decision will come before the end of this year) and overseeing development of ground launch systems at that site.

Tim Buzza (credit: Relativity Space)

Buzza is a well-known figure in the aerospace industry. He was employee number five at SpaceX, having hired on in 2002, and over a 12-year career ended up as the company's vice president of launch operations. In an oral history interview in 2013 with NASA, Buzza explained his early duties at SpaceX.

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Essential really seems to want to get rid of whatever phones it has left in stock. Last month we highlighted a deal in which the struggling startup’s first and only Android phone was marked down to $250 on Amazon Prime Day. On Monday, the device is going for even less than that, as Amazon is selling the “Halo Gray” edition of the handset for $224.

The Essential Phone first sold for $699 when it launched last summer and has undergone a couple of permanent price drops after sales reportedly fell well short of expectations. To be clear, the device still has its share of issues: there’s no waterproofing, no microSD slot, no headphone jack, and some users have reported issues with reception on T-Mobile. Battery life is just okay, and even after several updates the camera isn’t really competitive with any other flagship phone from last year. Essential’s modular accessory system has been a total bust, too.

But most of those criticisms aren’t as bad in the context of a $220 phone. The phone still uses a Snapdragon 835, last year’s premier SoC, and still runs smoothly. The ceramic back, along with the slim bezels and notch around the display, look and feel much higher-end than anything else currently going in this price range. It also comes with 128GB of storage by default.