Month: February 2019

Enlarge / Now that's some shiny chrome. (credit: Marc Ellis / Flickr)

Google is developing a new cache for Chrome (via CNET)that should make some page loads extremely fast. The only catch? They'll have to be pages you've already seen and are revisiting after hitting the browser's back button.

Chrome already caches the files that make up a page, so revisiting a page in most circumstances shouldn't force the browser to retrieve the images, JavaScripts, and CSS that are used to build the page. But currently, the browser has to re-parse the HTML and re-build the page's programmatic representation, uncompress the images, re-execute all the JavaScript, reapply all the stylesheets, and so on. It's just the networking step that gets skipped.

The new bfcache (for "back/forward cache") changes that: it lets the browser capture the entire state of a running page—including scripts that are in the middle of execution, the rendered images, and even the scroll position—and reload that state later. With bfcache, rather than having to reload the page from scratch, the page will look as if it was paused when you click a link to a new page and subsequently resumed when you hit back.

Enlarge / The titular alien. (credit: 20th Century Fox)

The long wait is over for sci-fi and horror film buffs: the 1979 classic Alien will be released in 4K and HDR for the film's 40th anniversary. The remaster will be available on an UltraHD Blu-ray disc.

20th Century Fox and partners embarked on an effort to remaster the film in 4K last year, under supervision by Pam Dery and director Ridley Scott. Alien was originally shot on 35mm film, and the remaster was made using the original negative.

Remastering older films for the UltraHD era has sometimes proven challenging for studios. In many cases, original film masters have degraded, and 4K on a 65-inch TV is adept at revealing graininess and other flaws that result from aged or damaged film.

Enlarge / The titular alien. (credit: 20th Century Fox)

The long wait is over for sci-fi and horror film buffs: the 1979 classic Alien will be released in 4K and HDR for the film's 40th anniversary. The remaster will be available on an UltraHD Blu-ray disc.

20th Century Fox and partners embarked on an effort to remaster the film in 4K last year, under supervision by Pam Dery and director Ridley Scott. Alien was originally shot on 35mm film, and the remaster was made using the original negative.

Remastering older films for the UltraHD era has sometimes proven challenging for studios. In many cases, original film masters have degraded, and 4K on a 65-inch TV is adept at revealing graininess and other flaws that result from aged or damaged film.

Enlarge / Wind turbines have variable output, but if that can be forecast, that output is more valuable. (credit: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Alphabet subsidiary DeepMind (it was acquired by Alphabet in 2014) has been developing artificial-intelligence programs since 2010 to solve complex problems. One of DeepMind's latest projects, according to a recent Google post, has centered around the predictability of wind power.

Those giant turbines you see along the highway only produce power when they're moving, and that poses a problem for the grid: in the absence of expensive energy storage, it's difficult to plan how much power those turbines will be able to provide.

That's not to say that wind-farm owners don't try to predict output. The industry has been using AI techniques for years to try to come closer and closer to real wind predictions.

Enlarge / Wind turbines have variable output, but if that can be forecast, that output is more valuable. (credit: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Alphabet subsidiary DeepMind (it was acquired by Alphabet in 2014) has been developing artificial-intelligence programs since 2010 to solve complex problems. One of DeepMind's latest projects, according to a recent Google post, has centered around the predictability of wind power.

Those giant turbines you see along the highway only produce power when they're moving, and that poses a problem for the grid: in the absence of expensive energy storage, it's difficult to plan how much power those turbines will be able to provide.

That's not to say that wind-farm owners don't try to predict output. The industry has been using AI techniques for years to try to come closer and closer to real wind predictions.

Enlarge / Discovery lead Sonequa Martin-Green as Starfleet officer Michael Burnham. (credit: CBS)

Star Trek: Discovery has been renewed for a third season, Variety reports. Additionally, there will be a small shift in the show's leadership. Current writer and producer Michelle Paradise will be promoted to co-executive producer, running the show alongside Alex Kurtzman.

In a statement, Kurtzman hyped Paradise's credentials:

Michelle joined us midway through season two and energized the room with her ferocious knowledge of Trek. Her grasp of character and story detail, her drive, and her focus have already become essential in ensuring the Trek legacy, and her fresh perspective always keeps us looking forward. I'm proud to say Michelle and I are officially running Star Trek: Discovery together.

Kurtzman took over the show during season two after the previous showrunners departed amidst some workplace controversy. He previously co-wrote the 2009 Star Trek movie reboot directed by J.J. Abrams. Before that, he was a writer and producer on Alias, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Fringe, and a number of CBS broadcast procedurals like Hawaii Five-0, Limitless, and Scorpion. Paradise previously created the MTV series Exes & Ohs, worked as a writer and producer on CW series Hart of Dixie, and was an executive producer for The Originals, also on the CW.

Angkor Wat today, as viewed across a pond next to the 12th-century Hindu temple to Vishnu built under the rule of Suryavarman II. (credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen)

In the early Middle Ages, nearly one out of every thousand people in the world lived in Angkor, the sprawling capital of the Khmer Empire in present-day Cambodia. But by the 1500s, Angkor had been mostly abandoned—its temples, citadels, and complex irrigation network left to overgrowth and ruin. Recent studies have blamed a period of unstable climate in which heavy floods followed lengthy droughts, which broke down the infrastructure that moved water around the massive city.

But it turns out Angkor’s waterworks may have been vulnerable to these changes because there was no one left to maintain and repair them. A new study suggests that Khmer rulers, religious officials, and city administrators had been steadily flowing out of Angkor to other cities for at least a century before the end.

A long road to ruin

University of Sydney environmental historian Dan Penny and his colleagues took sediment cores from a moat near the south gate of Angkor Thom, the citadel at the administrative and political heart of the city and the Khmer Empire. Year after year, windblown sediment and runoff from the city’s drainage system settled to the bottom of the moat, storing pollen from local crops, particles of charcoal from burning, and sediment from cleared land. It makes a good measure of activity in the city: the more Angkor’s administrators cleared land, built new structures, and otherwise disturbed the landscape, the more sediment washed and blew into the moat.

Enlarge (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Although we make every effort to cover our own travel costs, in this case McLaren flew us to Phoenix to drive the 720S Spider (and the 600LT Spider; we published that one last week) and provided two nights in a hotel.

In 2016, we tested the McLaren 650S Spider, a carbon-fiber drop-top supercar we thought was so clever it deserved a PhD. But three years is a long time in the supercar world, and the 650S is old news. Meet the McLaren 720S Spider. It, too, is made from carbon fiber. But now, instead of a 3.8L twin-turbo V8, there's a more powerful 4.0L twin-turbo V8. The car also has an all-new roof mechanism that goes up or down in just 11 seconds.

At the same time, the new model is lighter than the outgoing Spider (by 83lbs/38kg), making it the lightest car in its class (compared to the Ferrari Pista Spider, Lamborghini Huracan Performante Spyder, or the Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster). It's stupendously fast and extremely eye-catching—both qualities you'd want if you were spending $315,000 on a supercar. But it's also amazingly easy to drive, civilized to live with, and even pretty good on gas, considering it's capable of hitting 60mph in 2.8 seconds before topping out at 212mph (341km/h).