Month: December 2023

Enlarge / Apple's 15-inch M2 MacBook Air. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

The MacBook Air is Apple's most popular laptop, and when the Apple M1 and M2 chips landed, they came to the Air first. That changed with the M3 chip generation, which came to the MacBook Pro and iMac first but left the Air untouched.

That situation should change early next year, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is reportedly preparing to launch updates to the MacBook Air, as well as several new iPad models, in "the March time frame." Apple hasn't released any new iPads in 2023, and the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air was introduced in July of 2022.

Gurman says not to expect design changes from the M3 Air. The M2 version introduced a new non-tapered design with a display notch, a new keyboard, and a MagSafe port, and the M3 Air should look externally identical.

Enlarge / An infrared image of one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI)

We are not alone—at least as a galaxy. About 50 dwarf galaxies surround the Milky Way. But when its intense gravity inevitably draws them to venture too close, they will probably be annihilated. It’s happened before.

Though scientists used to think that all those dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way were going to stick around for tens of billions of years, that might not be the case. “Most dwarf galaxies are star systems that arrived late in the Milky Way… in sharp contrast with a long-term satellite hypothesis,” an international team of researchers said in a study recently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Based on data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, this study has found that many dwarf galaxies that were orbiting the Milky Way only a few billion years ago have ended up destroyed after being pulled in by our much more massive galaxy. It is possible dark matter has something to do with this.

Enlarge / An infrared image of one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI)

We are not alone—at least as a galaxy. About 50 dwarf galaxies surround the Milky Way. But when its intense gravity inevitably draws them to venture too close, they will probably be annihilated. It’s happened before.

Though scientists used to think that all those dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way were going to stick around for tens of billions of years, that might not be the case. “Most dwarf galaxies are star systems that arrived late in the Milky Way… in sharp contrast with a long-term satellite hypothesis,” an international team of researchers said in a study recently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Based on data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, this study has found that many dwarf galaxies that were orbiting the Milky Way only a few billion years ago have ended up destroyed after being pulled in by our much more massive galaxy. It is possible dark matter has something to do with this.

Enlarge (credit: L. Toshio Kishiyama/Getty Images)

The White House's plan to boost electric vehicle adoption came under heavy fire in Congress on Wednesday. Five Democratic Representatives joined the Republican majority to pass a bill that would prohibit the US Environmental Protection Agency from enacting stricter new corporate average fuel efficiency regulations that would require automakers to sell many more EVs by the year 2032.

Its passage in the House follows a letter-writing campaign by some US auto dealers to get the White House to abandon its climate targets as the dealers say they find it too difficult to sell electric vehicles.

As Ars detailed at the time, the tougher new regulations will require automakers to sell four times as many zero-emission vehicles to meet the new fleet averages. If the rules go into effect, two-thirds of all new passenger cars and light trucks would have to be EVs by 2032.

Enlarge (credit: L. Toshio Kishiyama/Getty Images)

The White House's plan to boost electric vehicle adoption came under heavy fire in Congress on Wednesday. Five Democratic Representatives joined the Republican majority to pass a bill that would prohibit the US Environmental Protection Agency from enacting stricter new corporate average fuel efficiency regulations that would require automakers to sell many more EVs by the year 2032.

Its passage in the House follows a letter-writing campaign by some US auto dealers to get the White House to abandon its climate targets as the dealers say they find it too difficult to sell electric vehicles.

As Ars detailed at the time, the tougher new regulations will require automakers to sell four times as many zero-emission vehicles to meet the new fleet averages. If the rules go into effect, two-thirds of all new passenger cars and light trucks would have to be EVs by 2032.