Month: August 2023

Enlarge / Microsoft does not currently sell an Xbox-branded repair tray with dozens of perfect little slots for screws and components. But there's nothing stopping them from doing so, I might suggest. (credit: Microsoft/YouTube)

If you're the type of person who hates the idea of giving Microsoft another $65 for a new controller (or more than $100 for an Elite Series 2) because you know there's just one part broken, Microsoft has a store for you. It's small, but it's something.

Direct from Microsoft, you can now buy a half-dozen Xbox repair and replacement parts for both the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and the standard Xbox Wireless Controller. Each controller has top cases and button replacement sets in black and white, plus the two inner circuit boards that provide charging, input, vibration, and, of course, sockets with new potentiometers installed to fix stick drift.

Parts on their own aren't that helpful to most of us, though, so Microsoft is also providing written and video guides. The videos are essentially full teardowns of each controller. The Elite Series 2 requires a plastic pry tool (aka spudger), a T6 and T8 screwdriver, and tweezers. The videos are helpful and aimed at all skill levels. "Always push away from yourself when using pry tools, so if you slip you won't harm yourself" is advice I have refused to accept a number of times.

Enlarge / Pulsars are spinning neutron stars, the relics of massive stars gone supernova. (credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

Here's a bit of science history that genuinely surprised many of us here at Ars Technica. We all know the famous story of how Jocelyn Bell-Burnell discovered pulsars in 1967 as a graduate student at the University of Cambridge—and the longstanding debate about whether she should have shared the Nobel Prize awarded to her supervisor, Antony Hewish. But apparently, an Air Force staff sergeant manning an early warning radar station in Alaska arguably beat Bell-Burnell to the punch. He just couldn't come forward until 2007, after the instrument had been decommissioned. Nature reported the story at the time, but we most definitely missed it—and we probably weren't the only ones.

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that create pulsed emissions as their magnetic fields sweep across the line of sight with Earth. As previously reported, whenever a massive star runs out of fuel, it explodes into a supernova. If it's above a certain threshold in mass, it becomes a black hole. Below that threshold, it becomes an ultra-dense neutron star. Pulsars are unusual in that they spin rapidly and have very powerful magnetic fields, so they emit very high-energy beams of light. The star's rotation makes it seem like those beams are flashing on and off like a cosmic lighthouse.

Bell-Burnell was monitoring the new radio telescope at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, sifting through reams and reams of paper records to hunt for any unusual anomalies in the peaks of data representing incoming galactic radio waves. Three weeks in, on August 6, she spotted a faint signal coming from a particular area of the sky that disappeared, then reappeared, in 1.34-second intervals. The team quickly ruled out any known natural sources or other kinds of interference. She and Hewish even joked that it might be a signal from an alien civilization, dubbing the object "LGM-1" for "Little Green Men."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

How automakers make use of data collected by connected cars is coming under scrutiny in California. On Monday, the California Privacy Protection Agency announced that it will review the data privacy practices of connected vehicle manufacturers. The agency is empowered to do so thanks to a 2018 state law, the California Consumer Privacy Act.

"Modern vehicles are effectively connected computers on wheels. They're able to collect a wealth of information via built-in apps, sensors, and cameras, which can monitor people both inside and near the vehicle," said Ashkan Soltani, CPPA's executive director.

"Our Enforcement Division is making inquiries into the connected vehicle space to understand how these companies are complying with California law when they collect and use consumers' data," he said in a statement.