Month: October 2021

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

The Dealmaster has finished reading Ars' mammoth macOS 12 review, which means the time has come for another roundup of the best tech deals we could find from across the web.

Today's rundown is headlined by a few notable discounts on LG's line of C1 OLED TVs, as both the 48- and 55-inch models are down to new lows of $1,100 and $1,300, respectively, at various retailers. Both deals are about $200 off the usual prices we've seen online since the C1 launched earlier this year. They join a roughly $300 discount on the 65-inch model that first arose toward the end of September, also marking the lowest price we've tracked.

The C1 is more or less the flagship model in LG's current line of OLED TVs, as it generally offers the best mix of price and performance. We don't typically review TVs at Ars, but like most of its OLED predecessors, the C1 has garnered widely positive reviews for producing stellar picture quality (largely thanks to the super-deep contrast of good OLED panels), smooth motion, wide viewing angles, low input lag, a thin and attractive design, and a user interface in webOS that supports most of the major streaming apps and isn't a total pain to use. It has gamer-friendly features like four HDMI 2.1 inputs and variable refresh rate support, and it works with all of the most commonly used HDR standards.

It's been a long wait, but we finally have the full official trailer for Wheel of Time, Amazon's highly anticipated adaptation of the late Robert Jordan's bestselling (and much beloved) 14-book series of epic fantasy novels. It's a doozy, chock-full of monsters battling magic-wielding warriors set to appropriately dramatic music and an ominous voiceover by star Rosamund Pike, who plays the central character, Moraine.

The only downside is that the streaming platform has decided to be a bit too clever for its own good. On YouTube, fans can view the trailer in the traditional 2D manner or in a virtual three-dimensional "wheel." That's thanks to YouTube’s “360 Experience” immersive capabilities, which, for example, let viewers see two sides of the same fight. And clicking on an arrow in the upper left-hand corner will bring you enhanced imagery of the action. As Amazon described it in a press release:

To the left of the screen, [viewers will] discover Moiraine’s powerful ‘One Power’ channeling—featuring her voice and faces, artifacts, and symbols hidden amongst the energy weaves. On the right, the corruption of the Dark One represents a dissention [sic] into madness. The trailer also features spatial audio that gives fans a more immersive experience as objects appear from either side of the ‘wheel.’

I get that all this is meant to be a bonus, and there are probably fans who will appreciate it. But most of the Wheel of Time fans here at Ars found the gimmick annoying. We're still pumped to watch the series, though.

Enlarge / The 11th-generation Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

It's the most reliable upgrade in tech: take a thing that was already good, and make the screen bigger.

From laptops to TVs to phones to game consoles to tablets to watches, the time-honored tradition of making the screen bigger has resulted in some excellent upgrades, at least as long as making the screen bigger doesn't screw up anything else.

And that's Amazon's playbook with the $140 11th-generation Kindle Paperwhite. Next to the 10th-generation model, the designs look nearly identical, but the new one has a larger screen enabled in part by slimmer borders around the top and sides.

Enlarge / ...and you'll neeeeeveeeeerrrr waaaaaaalk allooooooooooone.

The first and last time Nintendo collaborated with location-based AR company Niantic, the result was the worldwide mega-phenomenon Pokémon Go. Five years later, the companies are working together once again to see if they can recapture the magic with a new augmented reality game based on the much more niche Pikmin franchise.

After testing an early version of the Pikmin Bloom app over the last week, I can say that the game serves as an effective, super-cute pedometer, providing some nice, gentle motivation for reluctant walkers to get up and get their daily steps in. But while this gamified Fitbit requires less fuss and direct hassle than Pokémon Go, the game's basic "watch the numbers go up" loops also don't have the same compulsive collect-them-all appeal as Niantic's previous hit.

Watching numbers go up

For the uninitiated, Pikmin are tiny, colorful, slightly humanoid creatures with blooming flowers on their heads. In the original console games, your character grows and manages an expanding team of Pikmin with varying abilities to help a marooned spaceman escape a planet. In Bloom, the Pikmin who follow you on your daily walks are more concerned with planting petals and growing normal flowers, which show up permanently on the game's map.

Enlarge / Hair from Lakota Sioux leader Sitting Bull’s scalp lock, from which DNA was extracted for analysis. (credit: Eske Willerslev)

An international team of scientists has confirmed the lineage of a living descendent of the famous Lakota Chief Sitting Bull via a new method of DNA analysis designed to track familial lineage using ancient DNA fragments. According to the authors of a new paper published in the journal Science Advances, this is the first time that such an analysis has been used to confirm a link between deceased and living people—in this case, Sitting Bull and his great-grandson, Ernie LaPointe.

The team's method should be broadly applicable to any historical question involving even the limited genetic data gleaned from ancient DNA. “In principle, you could investigate whoever you want—from outlaws like Jesse James to the Russian tsar’s family, the Romanovs," said co-author Eske Willerslev of the University of Cambridge. "If there is access to old DNA, typically extracted from bones, hair or teeth, they can be examined in the same way."

Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake) was a Lakota leader who is best known for his defeat of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn (aka, the Battle of the Greasy Grass) on June 25-26, 1876. Various tribes had been joining Sitting Bull's camp over the preceding months, drawn by his spiritual leadership and seeking safety in numbers against US troops. Their number soon grew to more than 10,000. Custer's men were badly outnumbered when they attacked the camp and were forced to retreat. The Sioux warriors ultimately killed Custer and most of his men in what was later dubbed Custer's Last Stand.

Enlarge / A Verizon booth at Mobile World Congress Americas in Los Angeles in September 2018. (credit: Verizon)

Verizon has made a deal to use Amazon's low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to add capacity to the Verizon cellular network and provide fixed-wireless Internet service in rural parts of the US. Verizon said it will use Amazon satellite connectivity for both consumers and large businesses.

There won't be any immediate change to Verizon's services because Amazon has said its Project Kuiper division won't launch any satellites until at least 2023. The companies yesterday announced a "strategic collaboration" in which they "have begun to develop technical specifications and define preliminary commercial models for a range of connectivity services for US consumers and global enterprise customers operating in rural and remote locations around the world."

Verizon already provides LTE home-Internet service in rural areas and 5G home-Internet service in urban areas. But availability is limited, and Verizon plans to use Amazon Kuiper to expand its fixed-wireless offerings.

Enlarge / Former Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes goes through security after arriving for court at the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building on September 17, 2021, in San Jose, California. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Theranos sent a major investor financial projections that were wildly optimistic—perhaps even deceptive—the jury heard yesterday in the criminal trial of company founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes. 

Laura Peterson, who oversees investments for RDV Corporation, the DeVos family office, testified that Theranos sent her company forecasts that predicted hundreds of millions of dollars in the very near future.

In October 2014, Theranos pitch materials said the startup would bring in revenues of $140 million in 2014, losing just $3 million that year. The picture was even more positive for 2015, when the projections forecast $230 million in profit from $990 million in revenue. In reality, the startup brought in only $150,000 in revenue in 2014. Peterson said that she and others were unaware that the company made no money in 2012 or 2013.