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(credit: Richard Masoner @ Flickr)

Individual tax credits and rebates aren't the only policy levers we use to try and increase the adoption of electric cars and other alternative fuel vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration both have quite a lot to say about the matter as well, especially through rules that set fleet-wide standards for both fuel efficiency (the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency, or CAFE standards) and an associated Greenhouse Gas Emission standard. But a new paper from Jeremy Michalek and colleagues suggests that the incentives built into those standards—meant to encourage the uptake of alternative fuel vehicles—might actually increase fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions.

New CAFE standards that get stricter over time were announced by the NHTSA in 2015. CAFE mandates fleet-wide targets for car makers, with a formula that takes into account the footprint of each model. Bigger cars or light trucks are allowed to get lower fuel efficiency than smaller models, and a car maker's total sales are taken into account to calculate the average across their model range.

At the same time, the EPA has another set of standards for the amount of greenhouse gas emissions across a manufacturer's range (this is separate from the EPA fuel efficiency rating that new cars get, which also differs quite a bit from the CAFE numbers). Failing to meet these targets comes with a set of different consequences. OEMs that don't meet their CAFE target have to pay a fine ($5.50 per 0.1mpg per vehicle sold), which several car makers have historically chosen to accept as cheaper than the alternative. The EPA's emissions standards aren't quite as lenient, however; it's within the agency's power to revoke one's license to sell vehicles inside the US.

LARP archers accused of patent infringement. (credit: Larping.org)

When Jordan Gwyther started Larping.org, a website that promotes his favorite hobby, he didn't expect it would lead to him being sued for patent infringement over foam arrows. And when he spoke out about the lawsuit, neither he nor his attorney saw what was coming next: the patent-owner filed papers in court last week asking for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would keep Gwyther quiet.

Live-action role-playing (aka LARPing) is an increasingly popular pastime in which ordinary folks transform into medieval weekend warriors, donning armor and using foam weapons to duke it out in local fields and parks.

Gwyther founded Larping.org five years ago as a community hub where LARPers could talk to each other and find local events. Over time, he also started selling certain items useful to LARPers, like leather and metal armor, latex weapons, and foam arrows. "It's a hobby that grew into a side business," Gwyther told Ars in a phone interview this morning.

(credit: Kārlis Dambrāns)

On Friday, prosecutors asked a federal court in Riverside, California to force Apple to comply with a court order issued earlier this week to assist the FBI’s investigation of the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack.

Apple has been ordered specifically to create a custom firmware in the seized iPhone 5C that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, which would remove a possible automatic wipe feature on the phone if a passcode is incorrectly entered 10 times. If Apple does comply, it would allow the government to brute force access to the phone.

The 35-page motion to compel is a clear repudiation of Apple’s public position, which has been to wholly resist the court order. Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook called the court order an “overreach by the US government.”

Finally... I have destroyed every other type of game that might stand in my way.

LAS VEGAS—In the Academy Awards season, the term "Oscar bait" has developed as a somewhat derogatory term for the kind of overwrought period dramas that seem tailor-made to take home a Best Picture statuette. After attending last night's DICE Awards ceremony in Las Vegas (put on by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences for 19 years now), I'm beginning to think we should start similarly referring to a certain type of open-world role-playing and adventure game as "DICE bait."

Fallout 4's Game of the Year win last night (and the strong performance of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in other categories) cements the open-world, single-player RPG as the genre to beat at the DICE Awards. Four of the last seven DICE Game of the Year recipients have fit that same broad gameplay mold: Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in 2011, and Mass Effect 2 in 2010. All four games also won in the Best Role-playing Game category, and these games tended to clean up in the less specific categories focused on general art and design, too.

If you expand the definition of DICE bait slightly to include more linear (but equally cinematic and character-driven) adventure games, you'll find two more recent DICE Game of the Year winners: Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2 in 2009 and The Last of Us in 2013. It's not just limited to DICE either; top picks at ceremonies like the Game Developers Choice Awards and The Game Awards show a similar bias to just a couple genres.

For many Americans, the lure of space is irresistible. (credit: NASA)

Back in 1978, excitement about the future of NASA, with the space shuttle soon to debut, was palpable. So when the space agency called for astronaut applications, a record 8,000 people responded. That number has stood as a record for applications until today, when the space agency announced that a whopping 18,300 people applied to join its 2017 astronaut class.

The agency's administrator, Charles Bolden, said the total number of applications reflects public approbation for NASA's Journey to Mars. “It’s not at all surprising to me that so many Americans from diverse backgrounds want to personally contribute to blazing the trail on our Journey to Mars,” the four-time astronaut said. “A few exceptionally talented men and women will become the astronauts chosen in this group who will once again launch to space from US soil on American-made spacecraft.”

NASA’s astronaut applications have surged even as its flight opportunities have fallen by about 90 percent. Back in the early 2000s during the peak of the space shuttle program, NASA had more than 150 active astronauts. That’s because the shuttle, with six to seven launches a year, afforded 40 to 50 annual flights into space. The number of active astronauts is now about one-third of that peak due to the shuttle's retirement in 2011.

(credit: Leon Landmesser)

Peace, love, unity, respect… and anti-cannibalism. Such a revised credo for ravers may follow a new study that found many ecstasy users are inadvertently ingesting novel psychoactive substances, known as “bath salts,” which in some cases trigger violent behavior.

Of 48 party-going, life-time ecstasy users that provided hair samples, half tested positive for bath salts (synthetic cathinones), researchers reported. Of the 34 people who said on a survey that they believed they had never taken bath salts, 14 (about 41 percent) tested positive for the psychoactive substances.

“While we cannot completely rule out dishonest responses (e.g., underreporting “bath salt” use), our results suggest that many ecstasy users are unintentionally or unknowingly using synthetic cathinones and/or other [novel psychoactive substances],” the authors wrote in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.