Month: April 2021

The store has received a stay of execution on the PS3 and Vita... (credit: Playstation)

Just three weeks ago, Sony announced its plans to shut down the digital stores for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita, effective this summer. Today, Sony partially reversed course, with Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan writing in a blog post that "it's clear that we made the wrong decision here."

As such, the PS3 and Vita online stores will continue operations, Ryan said, while the PSP store will still shut down as planned on July 2. PS3 and Vita players will continue to be able to purchase games through the hardware itself, while web-based versions of those stores will seemingly remain closed following their shutdown last month.

"When we initially came to the decision to end purchasing support for PS3 and PS Vita, it was born out of a number of factors, including commerce support challenges for older devices and the ability for us to focus more of our resources on newer devices where a majority of our gamers are playing on," Ryan wrote. "We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so I’m glad we were able to find a solution to continue operations."

Enlarge / Picking up moisture from the ice-free sea, a storm builds and heads towards Europe. (credit: NASA)

Extreme weather has become the new normal—whether it’s precipitation, drought, wind, heat, or cold. The question of how the ever-shrinking layer of Arctic sea ice has contributed to any of these changes has prompted some lively discussion over the past few years. Researchers have proposed that a weakened jet stream driven by vanishing Arctic sea ice might play a large role in extreme winter events like the descending polar vortex that struck North America earlier this year. But the idea hasn’t held up well in light of more recent evidence.

But now, researchers have identified a direct link between extreme winter weather and sea ice loss. The 2018 “Beast of the East” winter storm hit Europe with record-breaking snowfall and low temperatures. And potentially as much as 88 percent of that snowfall originated from increased evaporation of the Barents Sea.

The working hypothesis is that Arctic sea ice acts as a cap for Arctic waters, limiting evaporation. Less sea ice and warmer Arctic temperatures mean more evaporation, potentially explaining the increased severity of winter storms like the Beast of the East. Until now, it’s been tough to measure direct evidence linking sea ice loss to extreme European winters, but recent advances in technology are making this a little less challenging.

Enlarge (credit: Sundry Photography / Getty)

A 2019 Tesla Model S has crashed in a fiery blaze in the Woodlands, an area north of Houston. The crash, which happened on Saturday around 11:25 pm local time, killed two people inside.

"Our preliminary investigation is determining—but it's not complete yet—that there was no one at the wheel of that vehicle," said Harris County Constable Mark Herman in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We're almost 99.9 percent sure."

Police found one of the passengers in the front right passenger seat, while the other was sitting in the back.

Enlarge / The event invitation that went out to members of the press and Apple's partners. (credit: Apple)

At 10 am Pacific time (1 pm Eastern) on Tuesday, April 20, Apple will host its first live product launch event since the company's three-event gauntlet late last year. Tim Cook and co. are expected to put much of the focus on the iPad lineup—but other announcements, like Apple Silicon Macs, are also possible.

As longtime Ars Technica readers expect, we'll be liveblogging the event and publishing stories about the new announcements as everything unfolds.

If there's one thing people are confident of going into this event, it's the fact that Apple will announce new iPad Pro models. Leaks and rumors have claimed that the new iPad Pro will look quite similar to its immediate predecessor but that it will have a faster chip, improved cameras, and (at least in the larger 12.9-inch model) a Mini LED display.

Enlarge / The home territory of New Guinea highland populations. (credit: Marc Dozier)

The inhabitants of the Pacific came in waves. Aboriginal Australians were the first to cross the area, and they were followed by separate populations that inhabited New Guinea and nearby island chains. Later still, the Polynesians, descendants of early East Asians, spread through the distant islands of the Pacific.

While modern genetics has made these rough outlines clear, it has also made it clear that these different populations sometimes interacted, sharing DNA along with technology and trade goods. Paleontology finds have made it clear that at least three distinct hominin species had occupied some of these islands before modern humans arrived, including the enigmatic Hobbits of Indonesia and a similarly diminutive species in the Philippines.

A recent study of the genomes of Pacific island populations provides a map of some of the major interactions that took place in the Pacific. And it suggests at least one of these involved the introduction of additional Denisovan DNA.

Enlarge / A Starlink satellite dish in the Idaho panhandle's Coeur d'Alene National Forest. (credit: Wandering-coder)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk expects the Starlink satellite broadband service to be "fully mobile" later in 2021, allowing customers to use the satellite dishes away from home.

"Yeah, should be fully mobile later this year, so you can move it anywhere or use it on an RV or truck in motion. We need a few more satellite launches to achieve comp[l]ete coverage & some key software upgrades," Musk wrote on Twitter Thursday.

SpaceX revealed a portion of its mobile plans last month when it asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to deploy a modified version of its user terminal to moving vehicles. But while that application is for a not-yet-released version of the terminal with "mountings that allow them to be installed on vehicles, vessels, and aircraft," Musk's comment about Starlink being "fully mobile" later this year was in reference to the standard terminal that has been deployed to beta customers the past few months.