Month: January 2023

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  A scene from the upscaled Xbox version of Goldeneye 007.

Fans of '90s split-screen shooter classic Goldeneye 007 (not to be confused with the loosely related 2010 Wii title of the same name) will only have to dig out their N64 controllers for a few more days. After 25 years, the game will finally see its first rerelease on modern consoles, with Switch and Xbox versions hitting on Friday, January 27.

As previously announced, the Switch version will be part of the awkwardly named Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership, which costs $50 per year. New footage of that emulated version of the original game shows the same blocky characters, muddy textures, and pixelated sprites that players know (and love?) from the original game. In addition to the previously announced online multiplayer support, the Switch version will also feature a widescreen mode to expand the 4:3 aspect ratio of the original game.

Xbox One and Series S/X owners, meanwhile, will be able to enjoy Goldeneye 007 as part of an Xbox Game Pass subscription or as a free DLC download that's now included with the purchase of 2005's Rare Replay. The first footage of that Xbox gameplay shows this version's upscaled 4K visuals, which smooth out those low-res original textures and the aliased edges on authentic low-polygon character and object models. This version only promises a "legendary local multiplayer mode," though, in addition to "alternative control options" for a modern Xbox controller.

Enlarge / The 14- and 16-inch M2 MacBook Pros. (credit: Apple)

In our review of Apple's new M2 MacBook Pros, our testing showed that the laptops' internal storage speeds were higher than those in the M1 MacBook Pros they replaced. But that won't be true for all models—9to5Mac has discovered that for the entry-level models with 512GB of storage, the M2 MacBook Pro's storage is slower than that in the M1 version.

The high-level Blackmagic Disk Speed Test shows the 512GB version of the M1 Pro MacBook Pro with a 4,900 MB/s read speed and 3,951 MB/s write speed, while the M2 Pro version shows a 2,973 MB/s read speed and 3,154.5 MB/s write speed. That's a drop of 40 percent for read speeds and 20 percent for write speeds.

The difference appears to come down to the NAND flash memory chips Apple is using for its SSDs. The old MacBook Pro, per its iFixit teardown, used four 128GB NAND chips in a 512GB SSD, while 9to5Mac's M2 Pro MacBook Pro appears to use a pair of 256GB NAND chips. Fewer chips likely mean lower costs for Apple—but also fewer places for the SSD to read from and write to simultaneously, which reduces overall speeds.

Enlarge / Artist concept of Demonstration for Rocket to Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) spacecraft. (credit: DARPA)

Nearly three years ago, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced its intent to develop a flyable nuclear thermal propulsion system. The goal was to develop more responsive control of spacecraft in Earth orbit, lunar orbit, and everywhere in between, giving the military greater operational freedom in these domains.

The military agency called this program a Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO for short. The program consists of the development of two things: a nuclear fission reactor and a spacecraft to fly it. In 2021, DARPA awarded $22 million to General Atomics for the reactor and gave small grants of $2.9 million to Lockheed Martin and $2.5 million to Blue Origin for the spacecraft system.

At the same time, NASA was coming to realize that if it were really serious about sending humans to Mars one day, it would be good to have a faster and more fuel-efficient means of getting there. An influential report published in 2021 concluded that the space agency's only realistic path to putting humans on Mars in the coming decades was using nuclear propulsion.

Enlarge / Apple allegedly still holds a ‘grudge’ against Google ever since co-founder Steve Jobs called its rival Android operating system a "stolen product." (credit: FT montage/Reuters)

Apple is taking steps to separate its mobile operating system from features offered by Google parent Alphabet, making advances around maps, search and advertising that has created a collision course between the Big Tech companies.

The two Silicon Valley giants have been rivals in the smartphone market since Google acquired and popularized the Android operating system in the 2000s.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs called Android “a stolen product” that mimicked Apple’s iOS mobile software, then declared “thermonuclear war” on Google, ousting the search company’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt from the Apple board of directors in 2009.