Month: July 2019

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  The key art for For All Mankind. [credit: Apple ]

As you've probably gathered from the Internet today, this is the 50th anniversary of the historic launch of Apollo 11. Tech giant Apple, which has recently gotten into TV production, has released a new, short sneak-peek video for its space-themed For All Mankind series to tie in with the milestone.

This marks the second trailer for the show, but this one has a different focus than the one we saw last month. In it, the showrunners discuss the motivation behind making For All Mankind, the themes it will cover, and more in a series of interviews interspersed with footage. Some of the clips are new, but many are recycled from the previous trailer.

However, those interviewed include (among others) co-creator and executive producer Ronald D. Moore—best known as the creator and showrunner of 2004's Battlestar Galactica, Outlander on Starz, and a longtime writer and producer for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Maril Davis (who wrote many of Battlestar Galactica's best episodes), and Michael Okuda, who famously headed up art direction for the 24th-century-era Star Trek series. Those are obviously sci-fi fan favorites, so it's good to hear them talking about how space exploration can inspire.

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  The first all-new Lotus since the company was bought by Geely will be this hypercar, called the Evija. [credit: Lotus Cars ]

Depending how old you are, the name "Lotus Cars" will mean different things. For some, it's fast-but-fragile F1 cars in the 1960s and 1970s. Or perhaps it's James Bond's submarine car. Or it's the lightweight, nimble Elise, variations of which have made up the bulk of its range since 1996. Regardless of which era you identify with, throughout those decades a common thread has always been the company's precarious financial situation. But that changed in 2017, when Geely became Lotus' new corporate parent.

Geely is the Chinese company that has been responsible for Volvo's renaissance since it purchased the Swedish automaker from Ford in 2010. And ever since news of the Lotus purchase broke, we've been wondering what the boutique British brand might be able to achieve. After all, the company has never lacked ideas, particularly those involving making cars lighter or making cars handle better (often the two are related). Many industry watchers have worried that we'd be faced with a souped-up SUV, something derived from Volvo's SPA or CMA platforms. That may still come to pass; just ask Porsche whether the Cayenne was a bad idea if you're unsure.

But before that happens—and before the Elise gets redesigned for a third generation—there will be the Evija. That's the name for its new all-electric hypercar, which is to be a low-volume halo car for the rest of the brand. Its specs are eye-opening, even among this rarefied class of vehicles.

Enlarge / Chris Hemsworth will return as the Norse god of thunder in the as-yet-untitled Thor 4. (credit: Marvel Studios)

Director Taika Waititi is a hot commodity in Hollywood these days, with no sign of his star fading any time soon. He's just signed on with Marvel Studios to direct Thor 4, according to the Hollywood Reporter, and Chris Hemsworth is expected to return as the titular god of thunder.

(Some spoilers for first two Thor films and Avengers: Infinity War and End Game below.)

The first Thor was mostly good, blending action and comedy in a winning mix, although it wasn't quite as strong as other origin stories in the MCU. The second? Well, The Dark World suffered from early pacing problems and an overly elaborate plot, bolstered primarily by terrific performances by Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Their complicated relationship remains the heart of the franchise. Then Marvel, in a savvy move, hired relative newcomer Waititi to direct 2017's Thor: Ragnarok.

Enlarge / A scene from the creation of the since-deleted "Kai-Zero G" in Super Mario Maker 2. (credit: YouTube / GrandPooBear)

The unexplained removal of one of the most popular, ultra-difficult Super Mario Maker 2 courses is raising concerns about Nintendo's moderation policies for the popular Switch title.

David Hunt, a popular Mario speedrunner who goes by GrandPooBear online, noted this morning that his level "Pile of Poo: Kai-Zero G" had been unceremoniously removed from Nintendo's Super Mario Maker 2 servers. Since its upload on July 5, the low-gravity course—which took its name from the ultra-hard set of Mario ROM hacks known as Kaizo games—had received over 1,200 "hearts" from over 10,500 players as of last night. This was enough to put it on the first page of popular "Super Expert" courses in the game.

But today isn't the first time GrandPooBear has faced the seeming caprice of Nintendo's online moderation. Three years ago, he found all of his popular levels in the original Super Mario Maker had been deleted, a state of affairs Nintendo was not able to adequately explain in a recorded call with the streamer at the time.

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  The control panel for one of the Enel X DC fast chargers used by each Formula E team. The rest of the charger is hidden behind the panels that line each temporary garage, and the Formula E race cars use a custom charging plug (not pictured). [credit: Enel X ]

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—This past weekend, the Formula E electric racing series made its annual return to these shores, racing in Red Hook against the backdrop of the downtown Manhattan skyline. When the checkered flag waved on Sunday, it marked the end of Formula E's fifth season. I'll have some more thoughts on the race weekend itself, as well as how the series has matured over the past half-decade shortly. But first, I wanted to look at an aspect of the sport that maybe we've neglected down the years. It's one that probably has more direct relevance to anyone who owns an electric vehicle than any other aspect of EV racing—DC fast charging.

Perhaps it should have been obvious. After all, I've written thousands of words about the reasons why car companies decide to enter motorsports. Every racing series balances competing aspects—being a sporting competition, being entertainment for the public, being a marketing platform, and being an arena for research and development for new road-car technology.

While I'm not naive enough to think that technology transfer into road cars is the most common or predominant reason to go racing, it's also not an avenue that should be dismissed out of hand. Windshield wipers, disc brakes, dual clutch transmissions, and even direct injection engines were proven on track before filtering their way into the showroom. For the automotive OEMs that are flocking to Formula E, this is one of the attractions, particularly as the series is keeping a tight control of things like race-car aerodynamics that can explode budgets without a scintilla of relevance for street cars.

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  The Nokia 2.2. [credit: Nokia ]

How cheap do you like your smartphones? HMD is bringing the latest version of the Nokia 2 to the US, called the "Nokia 2.2." It's $139 and currently for sale at Best Buy and Amazon. You might expect a pretty stripped-down device for $139, but as usual, HMD is delivering a good package for the price, with a fairly modern design, the latest version of Android, and a killer update package with two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates.

On the front you have a 5.71-inch, 1520×720 IPS LCD with a flagship-emulating notch design and rounded corners. There's a sizable bezel on the bottom with a big "Nokia" logo on it, but it's hard to complain about that for $140.

This is a cheap phone, so don't expect a ton in the specs department. Powering the Nokia 2.2 is a MediaTek Helio A22 SoC, which is just four Cortex A53 cores at 2GHz. The US version gets 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage version with an option to add a MicroSD card. The back and sides are plastic, and on the side you'll find an extra physical button, which will summon the Google Assistant. The back actually comes off, and—get this—you can remove the 3000mAh battery! Speaking of unnecessarily-removed smartphone features from the past, there's also a headphone jack.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Bonilla1879)

More than 220,000 unserved rural homes and businesses in 24 states will get broadband access because of funding authorized yesterday by the Federal Communications Commission, the agency said. In all, the FCC authorized more than $563 million for distribution to ISPs over the next decade. It's the latest payout from the commission's Connect America Fund, which was created in 2011.

Under program rules, ISPs that receive funding must build out to 40 percent of the required homes and businesses within three years and an additional 20 percent each year until completing the buildout at the end of the sixth year.

The money is being distributed primarily to smaller ISPs in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia. Verizon, which is getting $18.5 million to serve 7,767 homes and businesses in New York, is the biggest home Internet provider on the list.

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

This year's Amazon Prime Day event is slowing down, but there are still dozens of deals available that're worth checking out. Though Amazon is still pushing lots of nonsense, Prime Day offers some genuinely good deals on luxury and expensive items—think laptops, monitors, headsets, gaming consoles, and so on. Our Prime Day deals list highlights the better ones—but even as curated as it is, it's still huge.

If you don't have time to comb through all of that, or if you're on a strict budget, we've outlined a few Prime Day deals we particularly like that are still live and available for $50 or less. Keep in mind that most offers are attached to the sales event, which means you must be a Prime subscriber to get them and that they'll probably expire by tomorrow. Nevertheless, as we wind down our Prime Day coverage, you can see the full list of budget-friendly deals below.

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.