Month: December 2019

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  Oddly enough, "What would happen if Mario grabbed the Master Sword?" is also the subject of a fanfic I wrote in 1989...

Link from the Legend of Zelda series is among the new characters coming to Super Mario Maker 2 in a free downloadable update coming Dec. 5.

At first glance, it may seem like Link, who will only be playable in the Super Mario Bros. game style, is just a rehash of the cosmetic Link Amiibo costume that was available in the first Super Mario Maker on the Wii U. But this version of Link is more than just a visual upgrade, with the ability to attack enemies with sword and dash attacks, block projectiles with a shield, and throw bombs that can destroy blocks. Link can also shoot arrows in three different directions to collect far-off items.

Link's integration into Super Mario Maker follows the addition of a "Dungeon Maker" mode in the recent Switch re-release of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Neither one is quite the full-fledged "Zelda Maker" game some fans have been clamoring for, but it shows Nintendo is at least toying with the idea in a few different ways.

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  Two solid rocket boosters provide the majority of thrust off the pad. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann for ESA and ArianeGroup ]

Last week, an Ariane 5 rocket launched from Europe's primary spaceport in French Guiana. Normally, such launches garner little attention outside of aerospace circles because they're typically successful and take place in a pretty remote location—in the jungles of South America.

However, Tuesday's launch of a pair of communications satellites to geostationary transfer orbit is notable for a couple of reasons. For one, the rocket company Ariane Group, and the European Space Agency invited a talented pair of photographers to capture the Ariane 5 launch in exquisite detail. The fruits of the work by Trevor Mahlmann and John Kraus appear in the photo gallery above.

Arianespace also has, or soon will, reached some notable milestones in the history of its launch program. Last Tuesday's mission marked the 250th time a member of the Ariane fleet of rockets—there have been five versions, Ariane 1 through 5—has taken flight. Moreover, on December 24, the Ariane family of rockets will celebrate its 40th anniversary.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster is back with a jumbo-sized roundup of hand-picked Cyber Monday tech deals. To be candid, many of the discounts we're seeing on Black Friday's sister holiday are similar to what we saw last week. We do have some new offers worth noting, including new Nintendo Switch bundles, a Sonos speaker sale, monitor deals, and more. Still, for online tech deals, Cyber Monday is primarily a good opportunity to capitalize on the discounts you may not have checked out on Black Friday.

Not that this is a bad thing. Even after sorting through all the junk on offer, we've still got a boatload of worthwhile deals that cover just about every type of tech gadget. As we did with our Black Friday deals list, we've highlighted a few deals we particularly like ahead of our full rundown. You can see it all below.

(P.S. Because the Dealmaster is a company guy, he'll note that Ars has its own Cyber Monday sale: New Ars Pro++ subscribers can get discounts on a YubiKey 5c or YubiKey 5 NFC device.)

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

The last decade has seen remarkable improvements in the ability of computers to understand the world around them. Photo software automatically recognizes people's faces. Smartphones transcribe spoken words into text. Self-driving cars recognize objects on the road and avoid hitting them.

Underlying these breakthroughs is an artificial intelligence technique called deep learning. Deep learning is based on neural networks, a type of data structure loosely inspired by networks of biological neurons. Neural networks are organized in layers, with inputs from one layer connected to outputs from the next layer.

Computer scientists have been experimenting with neural networks since the 1950s. But two big breakthroughs—one in 1986, the other in 2012—laid the foundation for today's vast deep learning industry. The 2012 breakthrough—the deep learning revolution—was the discovery that we can get dramatically better performance out of neural networks with not just a few layers but with many. That discovery was made possible thanks to the growing amount of both data and computing power that had become available by 2012.