Month: May 2019

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster is back with more deals to share today. Topping our list is an even better price on an already affordable Chromebook. Now you can get the newest model of Dell's Inspiron Chromebook 11 2-in-1 with an Intel Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of eMMC storage for just $249.

The laptop version of this notebook is our current favorite Chromebook for students thanks to its utilitarian design, comfortable keyboard, and versatile port array. It's not the most exciting Chromebook to look at, but it has an impact-resistant design that makes its glossy, gray polycarbonate exterior more durable than some other Chromebooks. Its 11-inch size allows it to easily slip into a backpack, and it doesn't have as much of an impact on keyboard comfort as you'd expect. The keyboard is splash-resistant, adding another layer of protection to this machine. We also appreciate the port selection: the Inspiron Chromebook 11 includes two USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 ports, an HDMI port, an SD card reader, an audio jack, and a lock slot.

This new model has an updated Celeron processor, a convertible design, and an 11.6-inch HD touchscreen. Both the laptop and convertible versions of this machine are great for getting schoolwork done, but the 2-in-1 design makes it even easier for students to collaborate with teachers and other students when completing projects. It also makes the machine a more capable media consumption device, so it could be an affordable, all-in-one device that your child can use for both schoolwork and leisure time.

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  I'm told this cabinet art isn't final, but it gives some idea of what the cabinet might look like. [credit: AtGames ]

For gamers of a certain age, a real, playable arcade cabinet is one of the ultimate nostalgic conversation pieces/status symbols that you can have in your home. AtGames' newly announced Legends Ultimate cabinet—which promises hundreds of built-in games and more available via download—sounds like it could be the ideal blend of authenticity, expandability, affordability, and convenience for that specific breed of nostalgic arcade fan.

The Legends Ultimate is far from the first "multicade" cabinet to hit the market or aim for home users. But this "all-in-one" cabinet, with pre-orders planned to start in July, differentiates itself in part with a console-level suggested retail price: $599 for a the full-sized 66" cabinet, or $399 for a "compact" 44" tall version. That's a huge step down in cost from existing options that easily cost thousands of dollars for a full-sized upright cabinet.

At its three-digit MSRP, the Legends cabinet is more comparable to the Arcade1UP line, which launched last year as a variety of 3/4 scale arcade reproductions in the $300 to $400 range. But each of those miniature cabinets only contains three to 12 built-in titles, limited control options, and no official options for expanding the lineup (aside from buying an entirely new cabinet).

Enlarge / Plankton swirls in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia. (credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

Tracking climate change means (among other things) tracking annual changes in global greenhouse gas emissions and the corresponding increases in the atmospheric CO₂ concentration. This can get confusing, though, because there isn’t a perfect year-to-year correlation between the two.

Our CO₂ emissions are released into the atmosphere, but the atmosphere interacts with other parts of Earth’s carbon cycle, which pull some CO₂ out. In the short term, the two sinks that matter most are the oceans and the ecosystems on land. CO₂ dissolves into seawater to maintain an equilibrium with the air, and photosynthetic organisms on land and in the oceans take in CO₂. Shifting ocean currents or weather on land that affects plant growth will alter the amount of CO₂ being taken out of the atmosphere.

It’s typically been thought that land ecosystems were the dominant source of this variability. But a team of researchers led by Tim DeVries at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Corinne Le Quéré at the University of East Anglia decided to investigate just how much of a role the oceans are playing.

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  The Moto Z4, featuring the return of the headphone jack! Motorola provided this loving render of the phone on top of a tangle of headphone wire. [credit: Motorola ]

Motorola announced its latest flagship smartphone, or at least the highest-end phone the company bothers to make anymore. The Moto Z4 is a mid-range Snapdragon 675-powered device that will launch June 13 on Verizon for $499.99.

The phone still supports MotoMods. Motorola has been chained to its modular ecosystem for four generations now, which has limited what it can do in terms of phone design. MotoMod compatibility means the phones all have to essentially share the same body, so the Z2, Z3, and Z4 are all stuck coloring within the lines set up by the original Moto Z, which were laid out in 2016.

The frozen-in-time design has created an issue with regard to the fingerprint sensor, since the original Moto Z had a front-mounted fingerprint reader. As time went by, slimming front bezels and the demand for bigger screens meant fingerprint readers needed to be relocated, but Motorola couldn't put it on the back fo the phone like everyone else, because it would be blocked by the clip-on MotoMods. With the Z3, the company finally came up with a creative solution in the form of a side-mounted fingerprint reader. For the Z4, Motorola's strange design problems are solved: it has an optical in-screen fingerprint reader, which is quickly becoming a standard phone feature.

Enlarge / Water vapor is emitted from the cooling towers of the FirstEnergy Corp. Perry Nuclear Generating Station in Perry, Ohio, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010. (credit: David Maxwell/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

This week, lawmakers in Ohio's House of Representatives voted 53-43 in favor of a controversial bill that would permit a consumer-funded subsidy for nuclear plants and possibly for ailing coal plants as well.

The bill would also end Ohio's renewable portfolio standard, which required that the state's utilities to obtain 12.5 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2027. Instead, that renewable portfolio standard is replaced by smaller steps to bolster renewable power, but environmental groups say the bill is a step in the wrong direction.

A version of House Bill 6 has now been introduced to the state's Senate. If it passes there, it will likely become law due to the Governor's support of the bill.

Enlarge / This is what the shield looked like after being excavated and conserved. (credit: Michael Bamforth)

When they found the shield, University of York archaeologists Michael Bamforth and his colleagues thought it must have been ceremonial, because surely bark couldn’t hold up against heavy iron-tipped spears and iron axes. After all, every other Iron Age shield archaeologists have found in Europe so far has been made of wood or metal. But it turned out that the tough, springy bark would have been perfectly capable of repelling arrows. Its lightness may even have made an Iron Age warrior more agile on the battlefield.

Welcome to the Iron Age; we’ve got swords and spears

By around 400 BCE, even small villages across Britain surrounded themselves with ditches, embankments, and palisades. At farmsteads scattered between villages, people grew wheat and barley or herded sheep and cattle. Local or regional chiefs ruled these farming tribes. No written sources tell us how often fighting broke out, or whether the bearer of this shield would’ve seen more action in cattle raids or in pitched combat, but the palisaded settlements hardly suggest a peaceful bucolic landscape.

“It is debatable how much fighting there would have been between these groups,” Bamforth told Ars Technica. “However, the Iron Age is a time of increasing personal wealth and power and one imagines that violence may have erupted over access to resources, trade, and all the other things that groups of people fight about today.”