Month: March 2021

Enlarge / The Android Ready SE logo. (credit: Google)

OK, it's time to head out the door, so make sure you've got your phone, keys, and wallet.

That's a lot of items to carry around, so what if you only had to bring your phone? After all, your keys and wallet are just legacy authentication devices. We could totally replace them with a phone! That's the future Google is working toward as it pushes Android forward with support for driver's licenses and digital car keys.

Google's latest announcement details work to standardize an Android ecosystem around hardware and software, called the "Android Ready SE Alliance," that will make all this work. "SE" here is "secure element," a hardware component quarantined from the rest of the system, designed to only run secure computing tasks like an NFC payment. The idea is that phone manufacturers will be able to buy an "Android Ready SE" from secure element vendors like NXP, Thales, STMicroelectronics, Giesecke+Devrient, and Kigen, and Google says that these SE vendors are "joining hands with Google to create a set of open-source, validated, and ready-to-use SE Applets" that will support these emerging use cases.

• 

  SpaceX's Starship SN11 on Pad B in South Texas awaiting launch. In the distance, the first Super Heavy booster prototype (BN1) continues stacking operations. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]

7:45 am ET Tuesday Update: Today's the day—probably. After an inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration arrived on Monday evening, SpaceX checked the last remaining box for its Starship SN11 launch attempt.

The launch window runs from 7 am local time (12:00 UTC) to 3 pm (20:00 UTC). Although the region is clouded in this morning, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said early Tuesday that the company is working toward an 8 am launch (13:00 UTC), and roads are already closed to local traffic.

It is not clear how much visibility SpaceX will want for today's test flight, and we do anticipate some clearing of skies later this morning. So we'll watch and wait to see what happens with the vehicle and the weather. When SpaceX's official webcast goes live it will be embedded below. In the meantime, local activity can be tracked through NASASpaceflight.com's livestream.

• 

  From the front, there's little to distinguish this box from the millions of others Nintendo has produced for Super Mario Bros.

For a while now, we've watched as early sealed copies of Super Mario Bros. have commanded six-figure prices at auction, starting with a $100,000 copy sold in 2019 and continuing through a $140,000 sale last year. Those previous sales look downright cheap now, though, as bidding on another sealed Super Mario Bros. has already reached $372,000 on Heritage Auctions.

That price comes after 13 early proxy bids, placed ahead of four days of live bidding for a large lot of comics and games memorabilia set to start on April 1. The bid also includes a 20 percent "buyer's premium" that will go to Heritage Auctions itself and not the game's current owner.

Early provenance, excellent condition

Unlike some earlier high-priced Super Mario Bros. sales, this copy isn't from the earliest production run of the game, which had a box sealed only with a small sticker and which was only sold in New York City during the NES' late 1985 test-market run. But this copy is one of the earliest shrink-wrapped editions of the game, sold only for a short time in late 1986, according to WATA Games' guide. This copy also received an incredible 9.6 out of 10 on WATA Games' quality scale, with an "exceptional" A+ seal in "near-mint" condition. It also still has an intact hangtab, meaning it never had its seal pierced for hanging it in a store display.

A package is transported on a conveyor belt in an Amazon logistics center. (credit: Ronny Hartmann/picture alliance | Getty Images)

Amazon argued yesterday before the Texas Supreme Court that it should not be held liable for defective products sold through its site.

Over the years, several customers have been injured by defective products they purchased on the site from third-party sellers, including one woman whose eye was blinded by a defective dog leash and another who was burned by a laptop battery. The case currently before the Texas Supreme Court involves a 19-month-old toddler who suffered permanent damage to her esophagus when she ingested a lithium-ion battery that popped out of a knockoff remote control. 

For years, Amazon has claimed that it is not liable in such cases since it functions as a middleman for sales made through its Marketplace platform.