Month: March 2024

Enlarge / Kudos to the designer of this umbrella-shaded rooftop terrace at Colossal Order, perhaps the only worker who can imagine a place that isn't overwhelmed by Steam reviewers. (credit: Paradox Interactive)

Under the very unassuming name of patch 1.1.0f1, Cities: Skylines 2 is getting something quite big. The sequel now has the modding, map editing, and code modding support that made its predecessor such a sprawling success.

Only time will tell if community energy can help restore some of the momentum that has been dispersed by the fraught launch of Cities: Skylines 2 (C:S2). The project of relatively small developer Colossal Order arrived in October 2023 with performance issues and a lack of content compared to its predecessor. Some of that content perception stemmed from the game's lack of modding support, which had contributed to entire aspects of the original game not yet available in the sequel.

When Ars interviewed Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen in December, she said that modding support was the thing she was most looking forward to arriving. Modding support was intended to be available at launch, but the challenges of building the new game's technical base, amid many other technical issues, pushed it back, along with console releases.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

We are quickly barreling toward an age of viable Arm-powered Windows laptops with the upcoming launch of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite CPU. Hardware options are great, but getting useful computers out of them will require a lot of new software, and a big one has just launched: Chrome for Windows on Arm.

Google has had a nightly "canary" build running since January, but now it has a blog post up touting a production-ready version of Chrome for "Arm-compatible Windows PCs powered by Snapdragon." That's right, Qualcomm has a big hand in this release, too, with its own press announcement touting Google's browser release for its upcoming chip. Google promises a native version of Chrome will be "fully optimized for your PC’s [Arm] hardware and operating system to make browsing the web faster and smoother."

Apple upended laptop CPU architecture when it dumped Intel and launched the Arm-based Apple Silicon M1. A few years later and Qualcomm is ready to answer—mostly by buying a company full of Apple Silicon veterans—with the upcoming launch of the Snapdragon X Elite chip. Qualcomm claims the X Elite will bring Apple Silicon-class hardware to Windows, but the chip isn't out yet—it's due for a "mid-2024" release. Most of the software you'll be running will still be written in x86 and need to go through a translation layer, which will slow things down, but at least it won't have to be your primary browser.

Enlarge / The Dali container vessel after striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed into the Patapsco River in Baltimore on March 26. The commuter bridge collapsed after being struck by a container ship, causing vehicles to plunge into the water and halting shipping traffic at one of the most important ports on the US East Coast. (credit: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A container ship rammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore around 1:30 am on March 26, 2024, causing a portion of the bridge to collapse into Baltimore Harbor. Officials called the event a mass casualty and were searching for people in the waters of the busy port.

This event occurred less than a year after a portion of Interstate 95 collapsed in north Philadelphia during a truck fire. That disaster was initially expected to snarl traffic for months, but a temporary six-lane roadway was constructed in 12 days to serve motorists while a permanent overpass was rebuilt.

US cities often face similar challenges when routine wear and tear, natural disasters, or major accidents damage roads and bridges. Transportation engineer Lee D. Han explains how planners, transit agencies, and city governments anticipate and manage these disruptions.