Month: April 2021

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Thomas Hertwig | EyeEm)

Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4, 2021, the Verizon-owned Yahoo announced this week. The 16-year-old question-and-answer service will enter read-only mode on April 20, preventing users from posting new questions or answering other users' questions, Yahoo said. On the May 4 shutdown date, the website will no longer be accessible, and the URL will redirect to the Yahoo homepage, Yahoo said. No other Yahoo services are affected by this announcement.

Just why people still use Yahoo Answers is a question that probably lacks a satisfying answer. One Ars colleague suggested that I format this article "as a question followed by a bunch of poorly written responses that don't quite answer the question." Instead of that, let's take a look at some of the recent questions that have risen to the top or near the top of the Yahoo Answers homepage.

The shutdown announcement prompted anger from people asking if Yahoo Answers is being "shut to silence conservatives" and for recommendations of other sites that post "the truth regarding the left's degeneracy." Another asked whether former President Donald Trump should buy Yahoo to prevent the shutdown. Others wanted to know whether the US can survive Biden's presidency and whether Democrats will ever "admit" that the election was rigged (it wasn't).

Enlarge / The Apple TV 4K and remote. (credit: Samuel Axon)

It has been well over three years since Apple updated the Apple TV 4K, and online speculation about a follow-up hits a fever pitch every time Apple has a product unveiling event planned. So far, a new device hasn't materialized, but code in the tvOS 14.5 beta may hint not only that a new Apple TV is on the way, but that it will support 120 Hz playback at 4K.

As reported first by 9to5Mac, tvOS 14.5's PineBoard (the operating system's interface manager) contains references to the terms "supports120Hz" and "120Hz," a not-too-subtle indication that the OS will support 120 Hz refresh rates. And since the current Apple TV 4K only has an HDMI 2.0 port, which does not support 4K at 120 Hz (as opposed to the more recent HDMI 2.1 standard), this discovery seems to suggest that new Apple TV hardware is on the way as well.

Of course, only a few TVs today support 120 Hz refresh rates—typically high-end ones favored by gamers and made in the past two years. Most TVs still target 60 Hz. There is very little 120 Hz video content currently available, though enthusiasts have speculated that refresh rate could be a real boon for sports content. However, the new video game consoles that launched last year—Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S—support 120 Hz playback, which is preferred by some players for certain very fast-paced and difficult or competitive games.

Enlarge / The Apple TV 4K and remote. (credit: Samuel Axon)

It has been well over three years since Apple updated the Apple TV 4K, and online speculation about a follow-up hits a fever pitch every time Apple has a product unveiling event planned. So far, a new device hasn't materialized, but code in the tvOS 14.5 beta may hint not only that a new Apple TV is on the way, but that it will support 120 Hz playback at 4K.

As reported first by 9to5Mac, tvOS 14.5's PineBoard (the operating system's interface manager) contains references to the terms "supports120Hz" and "120Hz," a not-too-subtle indication that the OS will support 120 Hz refresh rates. And since the current Apple TV 4K only has an HDMI 2.0 port, which does not support 4K at 120 Hz (as opposed to the more recent HDMI 2.1 standard), this discovery seems to suggest that new Apple TV hardware is on the way as well.

Of course, only a few TVs today support 120 Hz refresh rates—typically high-end ones favored by gamers and made in the past two years. Most TVs still target 60 Hz. There is very little 120 Hz video content currently available, though enthusiasts have speculated that refresh rate could be a real boon for sports content. However, the new video game consoles that launched last year—Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S—support 120 Hz playback, which is preferred by some players for certain very fast-paced and difficult or competitive games.

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  The Odyssey 21 of Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky and Jenson Button, who are driving for the JBXE Extreme-E Team. Button is not the only F1 world champion to enter a team in Extreme E, but he is the only one to also strap in as a driver. [credit: Extreme E ]

Traveling to threatened environments in order to have a race to raise awareness about the threats to those environments might seem a little counterintuitive at first glance. But that's the concept behind Extreme E, a new racing series for electric off-road SUVs, created by some of the people who gave us Formula E.

When Extreme E was launched, it promised challenging racing against a backdrop of spectacular (spectator-free) scenery in remote locations, with participants traveling by ecologically aware boat, not fleets of jumbo jets. And the first X Prix, held this past weekend in Saudi Arabia, certainly delivered in that regard, with action reminiscent of a Tatooine pod race.

The fledgling sport has already attracted some of the biggest names in racing. Formula 1 world champions Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, and Jenson Button are each fielding a team, and Button is also donning his nomex as one of the drivers. As are rally legends Sebastian Loeb and Carlos Sainz, and Laia Sanz, one of the most successful Trials riders and a distinguished Dakar competitor. Even GMC Hummer is taking part now that it has found a new lease on life as an EV brand.

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  The Odyssey 21 of Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky and Jenson Button, who are driving for the JBXE Extreme-E Team. Button is not the only F1 world champion to enter a team in Extreme E, but he is the only one to also strap in as a driver. [credit: Extreme E ]

Traveling to threatened environments in order to have a race to raise awareness about the threats to those environments might seem a little counterintuitive at first glance. But that's the concept behind Extreme E, a new racing series for electric off-road SUVs, created by some of the people who gave us Formula E.

When Extreme E was launched, it promised challenging racing against a backdrop of spectacular (spectator-free) scenery in remote locations, with participants traveling by ecologically aware boat, not fleets of jumbo jets. And the first X Prix, held this past weekend in Saudi Arabia, certainly delivered in that regard, with action reminiscent of a Tatooine pod race.

The fledgling sport has already attracted some of the biggest names in racing. Formula 1 world champions Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, and Jenson Button are each fielding a team, and Button is also donning his nomex as one of the drivers. As are rally legends Sebastian Loeb and Carlos Sainz, and Laia Sanz, one of the most successful Trials riders and a distinguished Dakar competitor. Even GMC Hummer is taking part now that it has found a new lease on life as an EV brand.

Enlarge / A lot of happy developers out there in the world today. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Google's and Oracle's argument before the Supreme Court last October left opponents of API copyrights extremely nervous. For the previous decade, Google had been arguing in lower courts that it didn't infringe copyright law when it re-implemented Java for use in Android. Google had lost—twice—at the appellate level.

Last October, justices for the nation's highest court seemed skeptical as well. Not only were they asking Google's lawyer, Tom Goldstein, a lot of tough questions, a number of them didn't seem to even understand what an API was. That seemed like a bad sign for Google because the distinction between code that declares an API and code that implements it was fundamental to Google's argument.

In an interview with Ars just after the oral argument, Cornell legal scholar James Grimmelmann argued that Goldstein had botched the case.

Enlarge / Our Pixel 5 came in this funky green version. (credit: Ron Amadeo)

Nearly six months after the release of the Pixel 5, Google has revamped the way the GPU works, bringing the phone up to the level you'd expect from a Snapdragon 765G phone. The April 2021 security update for the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a (5G) came with a note saying that it includes "performance optimizations for certain graphics-intensive apps & games." Hands-on testing reveals the update apparently dramatically improves the Pixel 5 GPU, reportedly showing performance gains of up to 50 percent in some apps and benchmarks.

We don't have a Pixel 5 on hand to test, but Andreas Proschofsky from Der Standard tipped off the Internet that he's seeing "30-50 percent better" performance in 3DMark after the update. Andrei Frumusanu from Anandtech confirmed "performance has been essentially doubled from the scores published [in Anandtech's review], and in line or better than other 765G phones," adding that "the fact it took 6 months is sad, though." Hmm. Yes.

It might seem impossible to add 50 percent better performance from a mere software update, but Google is just fixing the terrible state of the launch phone. There was simply that much room for improvement relative to other phones. When we reviewed the device, we called it "the world's slowest Snapdragon 765G phone," noting that other Snapdragon 765G smartphones like the OnePlus Nord could wipe the floor with the device in head-to-head GPU benchmarks. It wasn't a great look for the Pixel 5, which was already facing a switch to mid-range hardware that meant it would be slower than the Pixel 4. Benchmarks allow us to put exact numbers on the changes, but this isn't a trick of benchmarking; the numbers reflected real-world performance when it came to 3D gaming, which was terrible on the Pixel 5.