Month: December 2020

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  No, you're not mistaken, we did review a 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S just over a year ago. But we're revisiting that model again today. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

Over the years, the Porsche 911 Carrera has changed. The silhouette may still be the same, the engine is still in the back, and after all these decades, it's still a treat to drive. I won't dissect all the changes made over the years from the first 911 (nearly called a 901, until Peugeot intervened), for Ars has you covered with one of those we prepared earlier. But you only have to park the current car—known as the 992—next to an older one, even just a couple of generations old, to see effect of time. All that extra stuff is added technology.

The 911 has grown, in length and width, largely to fit the energy-absorbing safety structures that we now reasonably expect our cars to contain. The interior uses glossy, pixel-dense digital displays instead of the old-fashioned arrangement of dials. The engines are all turbocharged now, even though it doesn't say "Turbo" on the back in that distinctive cursive typeface. This arrangement balances out the fast version of the electric Taycan being called a Turbo, but more importantly, it means the distinctive flat-six engines can meet modern emissions requirement, and there's enough power to account for the addition of weight over time. (The 911 Turbo is a separate, more expensive, more powerful model, which we would have reviewed in March but COVID-19 set fire to those plans.)

Doppelkupplungsgetriebe

And more often than not, the engine sends its power to the rear wheels via a PDK transmission. PDK standing of course for Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe, or Porsche double-clutch transmission. Porsche first developed PDK in the 1980s to win races at Le Mans, then tinkered with the idea for another couple of decades before debuting the technology on its road cars in 2009.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Today's Dealmaster is headlined by a nice discount on the Product RED version of the Apple Watch Series 6 that brings the high-end smartwatch down to $339 on Amazon. That's not an all-time low, but it's $60 off Apple's MSRP and about $30 off the going rate we've seen online in recent weeks. Other colors are available for $10 more, but either deal is a nice price on what is arguably the most full-featured smartwatch for iPhone owners.

Elsewhere, our roundup has deals on Samsung microSD cards, the Apple Pencil, loads of video games, Roku media streamers, and much more. It's probably too late to ship many last-minute gifts in time for the holidays, but you can check out our full roundup below.

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

Enlarge (credit: Eric Sonstroem / Flickr)

Did anyone have "mink farms" on their 2020 catastrophe bingo cards? It turns out that the SARS-CoV-2 virus readily spreads to mink, leading to outbreaks on mink farms in Europe and the United States. Denmark responded by culling its entire mink population, which naturally went wrong as mink bodies began resurfacing from their mass graves, forcing the country to rebury them. Because 2020 didn't seem apocalyptic enough.

More seriously, health authorities are carefully monitoring things like mink farms because the spread of the virus to our domesticated animals raises two risks. One is that the virus will be under different evolutionary selection in these animals, producing mutant strains that then pose different risks if they transfer back to humans. So far, fortunately, that seems not to be happening. The second risk is that these animals will provide a reservoir from which the virus can spread back to humans, circumventing pandemic control focused on human interactions.

Heightening those worries, mid-December saw a report that the US Department of Agriculture had found a wild mink near a mink farm that had picked up the virus, presumably from its domesticated peers. Fortunately, so far at least, the transfer to wild populations seems very limited.

Enlarge / Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, receives the Moderna Inc. COVID-19 vaccine during an event at the NIH Clinical Center Masur Auditorium in Bethesda, Maryland, on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

The country’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, received his first dose of Moderna’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine during a livestreamed event Tuesday at the National Institutes of Health.

Fauci, who will turn 80 this December 24, has been the country’s steady public health advisor throughout the pandemic, and many people have hinged their acceptance of any vaccine on Fauci’s personal approval.

The esteemed doctor is also director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, which co-developed the vaccine with Moderna.

Enlarge / Just some of the prizes you could win by entering this year's sweepstakes.

The holiday season can get busy. We get it. In between present shopping, home decoration, and endless replays of that Super Nintendo World tour with Shigeru Miyamoto, you may not have had time to take part in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes.

Like we said, we get it.

But fear not! You still have time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of $5,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win).

Enlarge (credit: Collage by Aurich Lawson)

When the world at large looks back at 2020, how much will video games figure into our memories? Frankly, humanity has a pretty massive bullet list of crazy, important, and scary moments that will likely outweigh the importance of, say, knocking out your dailies in an MMO.

But at Ars, we know that you've still been keenly interested in gaming articles this year—whether because you had questions about sold-out consoles and graphics cards, because you happened to be home near your gaming machines more often, or because your social life began revolving less around the local pub and more around a Discord channel. In an increasingly stressed out and homebound year, video games provided equal parts refuge and escape.

Thankfully, development studios quickly figured out the work-from-home thing well enough to finish and launch some incredible video games. (Well, some more than others.) Hence, we've again polled the Ars gaming braintrust to rank the games that provided the most comfort in a year where comfort was in seriously short supply.