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Claire returns from her job as a nurse in World War II, only to time travel back to eighteenth century Scotland. (credit: Starz/Sony)

At first glance, Starz' series Outlander looks like breezy historical romance. Its protagonist, Claire Beauchamp, stands in a dramatic landscape wearing 18th century clothing, her hair blowing in a Scottish wind. The series’ leading man, Jamie Fraser, sports long curling red hair and a kilt that somehow manages to suggest both pragmatic durability and convenient access.

Those first impressions are not wrong, precisely. Most of Outlander is set in 18th-century Scotland (and France in the upcoming second season). Claire is increasingly interested in taking advantage of Jamie Fraser’s accommodating kilt. But Outlander isn't just a great, detailed, and persuasive historical romance. It's also the first hit series from Ron Moore since Battlestar Galactica.

Though it may seem like a departure, Moore has woven sci-fi into the fabric of the series, a time travel story whose setting in the 18th century Scottish highlands offers an intriguing alternate history twist. That initial impression of a historical romance is actually just one facet of a series that is, like the books it’s based on, a crazy and appealing genre mashup. Outlander somehow brings together time travel and alternate history with romance, psychological suspense, and political drama.

(credit: EU Truck Platooning )

When people talk about self-driving vehicles, it's usually in reference to passenger cars that will whisk us to and from work while we recline in comfort, reading a book or catching up on Netflix. This is understandable; the car makers, technology companies, and other autonomous advocates want to raise public awareness and acceptance of self-driving technology, and linking it to a frustration-free commute is certainly a way of doing that.

But it's not just passenger vehicles that are going to go hands-free—the implications for road haulage and the freight sector are going to be massive. Over in Europe, a demonstration of semi-autonomous trucking called the European Truck Platooning Challenge wrapped up successfully on Wednesday. Organized by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, it involved trucks from six different European manufacturers (DAF Trucks, Daimler, IVECO, MAN, Scania, and Volvo).

Several trucks from each company left their home bases and traveled in platoons to the Dutch port of Rotterdam, arriving en masse on April 6. The trucks in each platoon were connected via Wi-Fi, which enabled them to be synchronized and therefore driven much closer to each other than would possible with just human drivers on board. Of course, we're not talking about completely autonomous (level 4) vehicles here—there was a driver on board each vehicle. But the trucks were equipped with radar and optical sensors, making them at least as smart as the semi-autonomous Teslas, Audis, and other cars we've been driving here at Ars recently.

A scene from a crowded, early public stress test of the Nostalrius servers. (credit: YouTube)

One of the most popular "pirate" servers for World of Warcraft, running a classic version of the game no longer offered by Blizzard, will be shutting down under the threat of legal action from Blizzard.

The Nostalrius servers had been in operation for about a year, running version 1.12 of the original World of Warcraft as it existed in 2006, just before the release of "the Burning Crusade" expansion. The administrators say that 800,000 registered accounts and 150,000 active players were working through quest progressions reproduced to precisely match the game of a decade ago.

But the team behind Nostalrius says its French hosting provider has been issued a formal letter asking it to shut down the servers or face a potential copyright infringement lawsuit. As such, the servers will be shut down on April 10.

A proposed FemtoSat is shown in space, with a penny for scale. (credit: Arizona State)

The miniaturization of space continues, unabated. First came CubeSats, measuring about 11cm long and weighing no more than 1.33kg. These small research payloads have helped spur the development of a small satellite launch industry, and using the International Space Station to deploy them has become one of the national lab's hottest commercial activities.

However, the evolution of satellites downward from thousands of kilograms, down to a single kilogram, does not seem to be stopping. On Thursday. Arizona State University announced it is developing FemtoSats, a 3cm cube with a mass of just 35g. These "SunCubes" grew out of a research project begun in 2014 by Jekan Thangavelautham, a professor in the university's School of Earth and Space Exploration.

The FemtoSats will deploy in an almost matryoshka doll-like manner—from a CubeSat fitted with a Jack-in-the-box-like spring. According to the developers, this mechanism will allow the FemtoSat standard to be bootstrapped to the CubeSat standard, allowing FemtoSats to be carried as additional payloads on CubeSat missions. A single deployer could release 27 FemtoSats.

President Barack Obama. (credit: White House)

The White House has reportedly decided not to give public support to legislation that would force tech companies to help law enforcement agencies break into encrypted products.

Reuters reported the news today, attributing it to "sources familiar with the discussion." The draft legislation from Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) could be introduced this week and "would empower judges to require technology companies such as Apple to help law enforcement crack encrypted data," Reuters wrote.

The Obama administration said in October that it wouldn't seek legislation requiring tech companies to install backdoors in their products. But last month, President Obama said he thinks the government should have some access to encrypted data to investigate terrorist plots and crimes such as child pornography and tax fraud. "You cannot take an absolutist view on this," Obama said at the South By Southwest conference. "If your view is strong encryption no matter what and we can and should create black boxes, that does not strike the balance that we've lived with for 200 or 300 years. And it's fetishizing our phones above every other value. That can't be the right answer."