Month: April 2022

Enlarge (credit: NASA/CXO/University College London/W. Dunn et al; Optical: W.M. Keck Observatory)

Late in 2021, the astronomy community released its decadal survey, a roadmap of scientific priorities for the next 10 years, which describes the hardware we'd need to build in order to achieve them. That survey was focused on distant objects and recommended projects like large, broad-spectrum space telescopes.

This week sees the release of a second decadal survey, this one focused on the needs of astronomers and planetary scientists who focus on the objects in our Solar System. This survey's big-ticket recommendations are orbiters for Uranus and Enceladus, while smaller missions include preparations for sample returns from Mars, the Moon, and Ceres. As always, what we get done will depend on whether the planetary science budgets do better than keeping pace with inflation.

Big priorities

The survey lays out the overall scientific themes behind the priorities, but they're broad enough that they pretty much cover everything. As listed, they include a look at the materials present in small bodies within the Solar System to infer the details of planet formation from the protoplanetary disk, and observations of the planets to track their evolution since then. Also a priority: moon formation; studying the interiors and atmospheres of the planets; and the role of impacts in shaping planet evolution. Finally, there's the possibility of life existing at present or in the past on a body other than Earth.

Enlarge / "Skydance" is the key indicator of what's to come, since that game studio is led by former Star Wars Ragtag director Amy Hennig. (credit: Skydance New Media / Lucasfilm Games)

Lucasfilm Games' latest announcement might sound boilerplate: Another Star Wars adventure game is coming, and it doesn't have a release date, screen shots, or target platforms.

And yet, this Tuesday announcement is turning heads for a major reason: It brings Amy Hennig back to the Star Wars video game fold, nearly five years after her last major Star Wars project crashed and burned.

The news, announced by Hennig's current employer, Skydance New Media, and mirrored by Lucasfilm, confirms that Hennig will lead the production of "a richly cinematic action-adventure game featuring an original story in the legendary Star Wars galaxy."

Enlarge / Are we looking at an official Game Boy Advance emulator made by Nintendo? (credit: @TrashBandatcoot / Twitter)

In most cases, the release of yet another classic console emulator for the Switch wouldn't be all that noteworthy. But experts tell Ars that a pair of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance emulators for the Switch that leaked online Monday show signs of being official products of Nintendo's European Research & Development division (NERD). That has some industry watchers hopeful that Nintendo may be planning official support for some emulated classic portable games through the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service in the future.

What’s in the leak?

The two leaked emulators—codenamed Hiroko for Game Boy and Sloop for Game Boy Advance—first hit the Internet as fully compiled NSP files and encrypted NCA files linked from a 4chan thread posted to the Pokemon board Monday afternoon. Later in that thread, the original poster suggested that these emulators "are official in-house development versions of Game Boy Color/Advance emulators for Nintendo Switch Online, which have not been announced or released."

In short order, dataminers examining the package found a .git folder in the ROM. That folder includes commit logs that reference supposed development work circa August 2020 from a NERD employee and, strangely enough, a developer at Panasonic Vietnam.

Enlarge / The Nord N20. (credit: OnePlus)

OnePlus is launching a new mid-range phone in the US: the OnePlus Nord N20 5G. This is a $282 phone that will be available starting April 28, exclusively at T-Mobile.

For that just-under-$300 price tag, you get a 6.43-inch "FHD+" (this should mean 2220×1080) OLED, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 4,500 mAh battery. The SoC is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695. This is a 6 nm chip with two 2.2GHz ARM Cortex-A78 cores, six 1.7GHz Cortex-A55 cores, and an Adreno 619 GPU. There's an in-screen fingerprint reader, a microSD slot, and the phone supports an always-on display mode, so you can always see the time and your notifications.

At $282, this phone feels like a sequel to the Nord N200, which came out almost a year ago as another T-Mobile exclusive and is $240. Last year's phone had a 90 Hz display, though, which really helped it stand out at this price. The N20 is being downgraded to just 60 Hz. You'll also have to settle for a smaller battery (the N200 was 5,000 mAh) and losing the headphone jack.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

Delta Air Lines on Tuesday walked back calling the deadly pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2 an "ordinary seasonal virus" after widespread backlash from health experts and travelers, who noted that the virus that has killed nearly a million Americans so far is neither ordinary nor necessarily seasonal.

The downplayed descriptor for the coronavirus appeared in a news release the airline released Monday announcing that masks are now optional for employees and customers on domestic and some international flights. The change came on the heels of a federal judge's order that vacated the federal mandate for masking on mass transit and transit hubs, which include airplanes and airports but also transit stations, buses, trains, subways, ferries, taxis, and ride shares.

"We are relieved to see the US mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as COVID-19 has transitioned to an ordinary seasonal virus," Delta originally wrote in its news release Monday. The company updated the release Tuesday to read: "We are relieved to see the US mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as COVID-19 transitions to a more manageable respiratory virus—with better treatments, vaccines, and other scientific measures to prevent serious illness."