Month: January 2023

Enlarge / Average 2022 temperatures compared to the average of 1991-2020. (credit: NOAA)

They say history repeats, but usually they don’t mean it quite this literally. The global average surface temperature in 2021 ended up ranking fifth warmest or sixth warmest, depending on the dataset. We now have the tally for 2022—and it’s the new fifth or sixth warmest, depending on the dataset.

Each year in mid-January, various centers that manage global temperature datasets release their results for the previous year. Because each group pulls from a slightly different collection of weather stations and uses a slightly different calculation process, they don’t get exactly the same numbers. The big picture is identical, but since just 0.01°C can separate years in the ranking, those small differences can alter the order.

In the European Copernicus ECMWF dataset and the Berkeley Earth dataset, 2022 is the fifth warmest in the global instrumental record going back to the mid-to-late 1800s. Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and UK Met Office datasets pin it at No. 6, just below 2015 instead of just above it. NASA’s dataset has it tied with 2015 for fifth warmest. The total heat energy in the ocean, on the other hand, reached a new record. Over 90 percent of the total heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions has gone into the oceans, and this value varies less from year to year.

Enlarge / A 2015 photo by Zaheda Bhorat (shared by Rich Bowen) showing many of the original Apache Software Foundation's creators, with co-founder Jim Jagielski holding aloft the Foundation's feather logo. The photo is part of a set aiming to recreate a similar image taken around the time of the foundation's launch. (credit: Rich Bowen/Zaheda Bhorat (CC BY 2.0) )

A group representing Indigenous people in technology is calling on the Apache Software Foundation to change its name, based in part on the foundation's code of conduct.

Nonprofit group Natives in Tech writes in a blog post that while many organizations have appropriated indigenous culture, "none of them are as large, prestigious, or well-known as The Apache Software Foundation is in software circles." The organization takes issue with Apache co-creator Brian Behlendorf's explanation for why he suggested the name and its "Spaghetti Western" tropes, as well as the Foundation's feather logo and its stated "reverence and appreciation" for a singular, broadly described "Apache" identity.

In the 2020 self-sponsored documentary "Trillions and Trillions Served," Behlendorf says he sought a name more evocative than "New HTTPd" or the "Cyber-this or Spider-that" nomenclature that was popular at the time:

Enlarge / The Hummer EV has become the poster child for oversized, overweight EVs, and it was called out by the government's top road safety advisor. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

If you're concerned that road vehicles are getting too large and too heavy, particularly as we make the transition to electric ones, you're not alone. On Wednesday, National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy raised the alarm during her keynote speech at this year's Transportation Research Board's annual meeting in Washington, DC.

"I'm concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and [the] increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles," she told attendees.

The poster child for excessive EVs is the GMC Hummer EV, a monster truck with a monstrous 9,063 lb (4,110 kg) curb weight. The vehicle is still powerful enough to hurl itself to 60 mph in three seconds. Appropriately, that feature is called "WTF mode." Indeed, Homendy drew attention to the gigantic Hummer in her speech.

Enlarge / Microsoft and Activision may be sent back to the bargaining table thanks to FTC delays. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

When Microsoft first announced its intention to buy Activision Blizzard nearly a year ago, the companies said they expected the deal to close during the 2023 fiscal year, which ends this coming June. That schedule now seems exceedingly unlikely, thanks to a Federal Trade Commission scheduling order setting a hearing on the government's lawsuit for August 2. That means a final government decision on the matter could be delayed until the fall or later.

More importantly, that hearing schedule would likely push the final merger approval past a contractual deadline to close the deal by July 18, as reported by the Associated Press. Hitting that deadline would technically trigger the payment of a $3 billion breakup fee from Microsoft to Activision Blizzard. In practice, though, passing the deadline would likely force both parties to come back to the table to renegotiate the deal's specifics.

Taking a fresh look

Such an opportunity for a fresh look at the deal this summer could lead to a new perspective for both sides. A year ago, Microsoft's original offer valued Activision Blizzard at about $95 per share, a more than 40 percent premium over the company's roughly $65 share price at the time. Since that offer, though, there has been a broad market downturn that has seen the value of the S&P 500 fall by nearly 15 percent in just 12 months.

Enlarge / Apple's MacBook Pro lineup. (credit: Apple)

Capping a week of Apple rumors about the company's mixed-reality headset plans and its efforts to design its displays and wireless chips in-house, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple might reverse years of design decisions and rhetoric and add touchscreens to a future MacBook Pro refresh.

The report says Apple's hardware engineers are "actively engaged in the project" and that the company is "seriously considering" the move, but "plans could change" before the touchscreen Mac's possible launch in 2025—don't expect them to come with the M2 MacBook Pro refresh we're expecting this year.

If true, this wouldn't be the first time that Apple tested Mac touchscreens internally. In fact, multiple company execs over the last decade-plus have gone on the record to say that Apple has tested touchscreen Macs—usually while explaining why they think touchscreen Macs are a bad and unworkable idea.

Enlarge / Travelers wait in a terminal at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, during an FAA outage that grounded flights across the US on January 11, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Saul Loeb)

A Notice to Air Missions system outage that grounded flights across the US yesterday morning seems to have been caused by a damaged database file, the Federal Aviation Administration said last night.

"The FAA is continuing a thorough review to determine the root cause of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system outage," the FAA statement said. "Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file. At this time, there is no evidence of a cyber attack. The FAA is working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again."

Citing an anonymous source, CNN reported that "air traffic control officials realized they had a computer issue late Tuesday" and decided "to reboot the system when it would least disrupt air travel, early on Wednesday morning. But ultimately that plan and the outage led to massive flight delays and an unprecedented order to stop all aircraft departures nationwide."