Month: September 2023

Enlarge / A leaked internal slide deck shows an unusually detailed preview of the Xbox Series X's proposed mid-generation refresh. (credit: Microsoft)

The US Federal Trade Commission's case against Microsoft didn't ultimately block the company's proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but leaked documents from the case are giving us an unusually detailed look at Microsoft's near-future plans for the Xbox. Court documents published by the Verge include a slide deck, complete with renders, that detail a mid-generation refresh of both Xbox Series consoles, plus a revamped controller with an updated design and new features.

The biggest changes are coming to the Xbox Series X. Codenamed "Brooklin," the updated console looks like a marriage of the original boxy monolith that is the Series X and the cylindrical design of Apple's old "trash can" Mac Pro. The console would be all-digital, ditching its optical drive but stepping up from 1TB to 2TB of internal storage. The port on the front changes from USB-A to USB-C, and the console would include Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 upgrades.

On the inside, the console's CPU and GPU would use a 6 nm manufacturing process instead of the current 7 nm process. Because the specs are changing, this means power consumption will go down, and the deck indicates that the console's power supply will be 15 percent smaller than the current Series X (that measures out to around 270 W, based on the 315 W capacity of the current power supply). An "all-new southbridge" will "modernize IO," and a "new low-power standby mode" would use just 20 percent as much power as the current console's standby mode.

Enlarge / With NASA planning more missions to space in the future, scientists are studying how to mitigate health hazards that come with space flight (credit: SpaceX)

When 17 people were in orbit around the Earth all at the same time on May 30, 2023, it set a record. With NASA and other federal space agencies planning more manned missions and commercial companies bringing people to space, opportunities for human space travel are rapidly expanding.

However, traveling to space poses risks to the human body. Since NASA wants to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s, scientists need to find solutions for these hazards sooner rather than later.

As a kinesiologist who works with astronauts, I’ve spent years studying the effects space can have on the body and brain. I’m also involved in a NASA project that aims to mitigate the health hazards that participants of a future mission to Mars might face.