Month: August 2019

Enlarge / I'm not sure a more ridiculous promo image for a video game exists. Well done, From Software. (credit: From Software / Devolver Digital)

Microsoft's history with Xbox consoles in Japan is legendary, well-trodden stuff, though mostly because of flops and failures. It's truly a rabbit hole of culture-clash stories, with one byproduct being a selection of "hidden gem" Japanese games—the kinds that went unnoticed or underappreciated because of Xbox's cultural mismatch.

If you made me pick one of those games in particular, however, I'd point my giant, mechanized finger—surrounded by eight comically large weapons of destruction—at Metal Wolf Chaos. The game was published in December 2004 by From Software and launched exclusively on Japan's original Xbox. Back then, From Software was better known for robot-action series like Armored Core instead of its eventual best-selling Dark Souls games.

Fifteen years later, MWC's handlers have gone to the trouble of picking up its robo-combat pieces, putting them back together, and loosing them on Western audiences in the form of today's Metal Wolf Chaos XD, out now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC (Steam, GOG) for $24.99. If you've never heard of this game, you might wanna sit down for this sales pitch:

Enlarge / NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine listens as Bill Gerstenmaier, then the associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations directorate, gives input at the Space Symposium in April. (credit: NASA)

William Gerstenmaier may not have been not particularly well-known to the general public, but as the associate administrator for human spaceflight at NASA he carried considerable influence in the space community. So when he was effectively terminated from his position on July 10, it reverberated both throughout the domestic as well as the international spaceflight community.

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine, who moved Gerstenmaier aside because of ongoing delays with the Space Launch System rocket and a concern that the senior official was not moving ahead quickly enough with the Artemis Moon program, has said new leadership will be in place "soon."

This will be a critical hire for Bridenstine, as his new associate administrator for human spaceflight will have a number of important and difficult calls to make upon taking the job—and not just concerning the White House's efforts to return to the Moon by 2024. In particular, in the coming months, Gerstenmaier's replacement will be chairing meetings called "Flight Readiness Reviews" that will give a green light to the first crewed missions from US soil since 2011.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

Lots of companies are working to develop self-driving cars. And almost all of them use lidar, a type of sensor that uses lasers to build a three-dimensional map of the world around the car.

But Tesla CEO Elon Musk argues that these companies are making a big mistake.

"They're all going to dump lidar," Elon Musk said at an April event showcasing Tesla's self-driving technology. "Anyone relying on lidar is doomed."

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

Lots of companies are working to develop self-driving cars. And almost all of them use lidar, a type of sensor that uses lasers to build a three-dimensional map of the world around the car.

But Tesla CEO Elon Musk argues that these companies are making a big mistake.

"They're all going to dump lidar," Elon Musk said at an April event showcasing Tesla's self-driving technology. "Anyone relying on lidar is doomed."