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Enlarge / Walter Huang's Model X in a tow yard days after his fatal crash. (credit: NTSB)

On March 23, 2018, a glitch in Tesla's Autopilot technology contributed to the death of Walter Huang in Mountain View, California. As Huang's Model X approached a left exit on US Highway 101, the software apparently got the lane lines mixed up. The car steered to the left, putting itself in the space between the diverging lanes. Seconds later, it crashed into a concrete lane divider at 70 miles per hour. Huang was taken to the hospital but died soon afterward.

Last week, the National Transportation Safety Board released dozens of new documents that provide a detailed understanding of the circumstances of Huang's death. The documents confirm a claim by Walter Huang's family that he had experienced this particular glitch, in this particular spot, multiple times prior to his fatal crash. He complained to family and friends about the issue. However, the NTSB was not able to confirm another key claim: that Huang reported the issue to Tesla.

Forensic data also suggests one reason Huang might not have been paying attention to the road in the final seconds before his death: he was in the habit of playing a game called Three Kingdoms in his car while driving to work. Logs from his Apple-provided iPhone showed that he used the app during his morning commute every day the week of his fatal Friday crash. However, those logs don't provide enough information to say if he was interacting with the game in the final seconds before his death.

Enlarge / The 8" version of the Fire HD Kids Edition is the sweet spot—small enough for young kids, but noticeably bigger and nicer than the 7", with lots more storage. (credit: Amazon)

If you have little kids and need an inexpensive, safe source of games, media, and books for them, we've got good news for you—Amazon's Fire Kids Edition line of tablets are all on Black Friday-level sale right now. The Fire 7 Kids Edition is down from $100 to $60, the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition is down from $130 to $80, and the Fire HD 10 Kids Edition is down from $200 to $150. (The non-Kids Edition slates are on sale as well, with the Fire 7 available for $40, the Fire HD 8 available for $60, and the Fire HD 10 available for $110).

Amazon's 8" Fire Kids Edition tablet—normally $130, now $80—hasn't been this cheap since Black Friday. (credit: Camelcamelcamel)

If you're already a Fire Kids Edition user, that might be all you need to know. But for new(er) parents who haven't figured out what electronics to get for their little ones yet, let's go over some features—and advice—from a father of three who's been there and done that.

Fire HD—sort of an Android device, but not really

There are only two major tablet operating systems right now: Google's Android and Apple's iOS. In the technical sense, Amazon's Fire HD tablets—including the Kids Edition line—are without a doubt Android.

Enlarge / There's a demon behind you! Patrick Wilson starred in Director James Wan's 2010 film Insidious, one of two films used in a recent MRI study on fear. (credit: Blumhouse Productions)

When we watch horror movies, our brains are hard at work, with lots of interconnected cross-talk between different regions to anticipate perceived threats and prepare to respond accordingly. This enhances our excitement while watching, according to scientists at the University of Turku in Finland. Researchers used an MRI to map the neural activity of subjects while the subjects watched horror movies. Their findings are described in a recent paper published in the journal NeuroImage.

According to co-author Matthew Hudson, now at the National College of Ireland in Dublin, the objective was to take a closer look at dynamic interactions in the brain during an intense emotional experience. Most prior studies on neural mechanisms have adopted a binary approach, in that the focus is on comparing two conditions. But this ignores the temporal dynamics between the two conditions—the continuous fear response.

Hudson told Ars, "We wanted to use a naturalistic stimuli and new ways to analyze neural data to try and understand exactly how the fear response changes over time" rather than simply comparing brain activity before and after a perceived threat. Horror movies provided the perfect fear-inducing stimulus.

Enlarge / The Galaxy Z Flip's "glass" isn't any more scratch-resistant than plastic. (credit: JerryRigEverything)

There comes a point in the life of every foldable smartphone when, after a wave of hype and highly controlled early looks, the phone actually hits the hands of the general public—and durability issues immediately pop up. We've seen it with the Galaxy Fold, which died in the hands of reviewers and was delayed for six months; the Huawei Mate X, which had its launch limited to China and broke after a single drop; and the Moto Razr, which has a creaky hinge that jams easily and a display that delaminates. This weekend it was the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip's turn to disappoint us. The initial shipments are going out, and we're already seeing that Samsung's much-hyped flexible glass cover isn't much more durable than plastic.

YouTuber JerryRigEverything regularly does destructive durability tests on phones, partly by attacking a device with a set of Mohs picks. These pointy metal tools that are calibrated to the Mohs scale of mineral hardness allow a user to determine the hardness of a surface by doing a scratch test. You start with the softest pick and work your way up the set until you find something that can scratch the surface you're testing. A modern smartphone with Corning's Gorilla Glass scratches at level 6 on the Mohs hardness scale.

The Galaxy Z Flip features a first-of-its-kind flexible glass cover that Samsung calls "Ultra-Thin Glass." Until now, foldables have had to suffer through life with plastic display covers, which scratch easily, don't provide much protection, and just like a resistive touchscreen, feel bad to swipe around on, thanks to the squishy pliability of the display. With this new invention of flexible glass, the Z Flip promised a return to a hard, smooth, scratch-resistant display surface.

Enlarge / A man wearing a face mask rides his bicycle along an empty street in Beijing on February 12, 2020. (credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Coronavirus disease 2019—COVID-19 to its friends—hasn't racked up a bodycount like the influenza epidemic of 1918, but in this far more globalized world, it's still causing quite a degree of havoc. There are now over 71,000 confirmed cases reported so far, and fears of that number growing by orders of magnitude have resulted in the postponement or cancellation of large public events both in China and beyond. Last week we learned that Mobile World Congress, an annual tradeshow in Spain, won't happen in 2020—now we can start adding auto shows to that list.

On Monday, it emerged that the Beijing auto show—which was scheduled for April of this year—will be postponed, presumably until the health crisis is over. According to Autocar, rumors that the show would be cancelled or postponed had been circulating for a week, with no official response until now.

The Beijing auto show is in good company; last week the promoters of the Chinese Grand Prix—an F1 race scheduled to take place in Shanghai on April 19—successfully petitioned the FIA (the sport's organizing body) and Formula 1 to postpone the event until an as-yet-undecided date toward the end of the 2020 F1 season. Although there is no official word on the inaugural Vietnam Grand Prix—set for April 5—some in the sport are concerned about attending that race in Asia as well.