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The forecasting supremacy of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and its global weather prediction model is well documented. This most glaringly reached the American public when only the European forecast model correctly predicted Hurricane Sandy would turn toward the northeastern United States in 2012, rather than remaining out to sea. For several years, the United States and its global forecasting system (GFS) have been struggling to catch up.

But as the United States' forecasting enterprise has more or less stayed the same, other nations are now equaling and passing the GFS model. Perhaps the most well accepted method of measuring a model's accuracy is by scoring its "anomaly correlation," a measure of its ability to accurately predict observations (a score of 1 is perfect). For the northern hemisphere during the last two months, as measured at the 500mb level of the atmosphere (about 5.5km above the Earth's surface), the European model scores by far the highest, at .905. It is followed by the United Kingdom's model (.870), Canadian model, (.868) and finally the GFS (.857).

On Tuesday, Cliff Mass, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist who closely tracks the forecast model "wars," wrote about the GFS model's poor performance relative to other nations. He concluded: "It is not that U.S. global (numerical weather prediction) is getting less skillful, but that other nations are innovating and pushing ahead faster. This situation could be greatly improved within a year, but to do so will require leadership, innovation, and a willingness to partner with others in new ways."

If you were hoping for an all-new iPhone design this fall, The Wall Street Journal says you may be disappointed. Aside from the oft-rumored and controversial decision to remove the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, this year's iPhones will allegedly share a lot in common with the iPhone 6 and 6S.

According to the usual, shadowy "people familiar with the matter," the new iPhone design will be about a millimeter thinner than the current iPhone 6 and 6S design, and the removal of the headphone jack will improve the phone's waterproofing. Otherwise, though, the phones will be similar to the 6 and 6S design, and they'll retain the same 4.7 and 5.5-inch screen sizes. A more extensive overhaul, including an edge-to-edge OLED display and the elimination of the Home button, could follow for the iPhone's 10th birthday in 2017.

Apple has redesigned the iPhone every other year since the iPhone 3G came out in 2008. The 3GS changed the internals but kept the same external design, and the iPhone 4 and 4S, 5 and 5S, and 6 and 6S maintained the same cadence. Outliers like the iPhone 5C and SE aside, retaining an iPhone 6-style design for the third year in a row would be a big break from tradition. As in the "S" years, Apple would need to lean on performance and camera improvements along with some other big hardware addition—Siri in the 4S, TouchID in the 5S, 3D Touch in the 6S—to sell the phone to upgraders and new users.

On Tuesday, Amazon began announcing settlement payments to customers who bought e-books between April 2010 and May 2012. (Some less-literate Ars staffers, like Nate Anderson, got as little as $1, while others, like yours truly, got more than $48.)

The funds are coming from Apple as part of an antitrust lawsuit that was settled earlier this year.

“You don't have to do anything to claim your credit, we have already added it to your Amazon account," reads the e-mail. "We will automatically apply your available credit to your purchase of qualifying items through Amazon, an Amazon device or an Amazon app.”

After six years of litigation, Sony is now agreeing to pay the price for its 2010 firmware update that removed support for the Linux operating system in the PlayStation 3.

Sony and lawyers representing as many as 10 million console owners reached the deal on Friday. Under the terms of the accord, (PDF) which has not been approved by a California federal judge yet, gamers are eligible to receive $55 if they used Linux on the console. The proposed settlement, which will be vetted by a judge next month, also provides $9 to each console owner that bought a PS3 based on Sony's claims about "Other OS" functionality.

The deal also provides up to $2.25 million in attorneys' fees for the lawyers who brought suit. Under the plan, gamers eligible for a cash payment are "all persons in the United States who purchased a Fat PS3 model in the United States between November 1, 2006, and April 1, 2010." The accord did not say how much it would cost Sony, but the entertainment company is expected to pay out millions.