Upon observing an area that’s around 75,000 square kilometers in size, they found locations that reflected those signals back in a way that indicates the presence of water trapped underneath a kilometer of ice. The main lake, the one discovered back in 2018, measures 30 kilometers or 19 miles across, while each of the three smaller lakes surrounding it are a few kilometers across.
While the scientists’ findings are promising, some experts still believe we won’t find lakes on the red planet at all. Jack Holt, a planetary scientist part of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter program, doesn’t believe there’s enough heat flow under the surface of the planet for water to remain liquid. And even if we do find liquid water under Martian ice, that won’t automatically mean we’ll also find life. See, the lakes have to be very salty to remain liquid, but their salt content must not exceed five times that of seawater to be able to support life. As John Priscu, an environmental scientist at Montana State University, told Nature:
“There’s not much active life in… briny pools in Antarctica. They’re just pickled. And that might be the case [on Mars].”
Google Meet has introduced noise cancellation for mobile devices on Android and iOS, matching what it can already do on the desktop. The feature will be useful for folks working from home in a noisy environment who prefer to use Meet on a smartphone.
As with the PC version, the noise reduction filters out any noises that don’t sound like voices. That means it’ll get rid of things like typing, construction noise or closing a door, but it can’t block voices from a TV or other people talking in the room. The feature is turned off by default, so you’ll need to turn it on if you want to use it, but there are certain circumstances where you may not want it. “If non-speech is an important part of your call, like playing musical instruments, turn off noise reduction,” Google advises.
“The new target date will deconflict the Crew-1 launch and arrival from upcoming Soyuz launch and landing operations. This additional time is needed to ensure closure of all open work, both on the ground and aboard the station, ahead of the Crew-1 arrival. The increased spacing also will provide a good window of opportunity to conduct additional testing to isolate the station atmosphere leak if required. SpaceX continues to make progress on preparations of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, and the adjusted date allows the teams additional time for completing open work ahead of launch.”
The mission will take NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, as well as JAXA’s Soichi Noguchi, to the ISS. There will stay there for six months. SpaceX delivered the Crew Dragon spacecraft that will be used for this flight to Cape Canaveral in Florida back in August. The capsule will launch on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Halloween at around 2:40AM Eastern time.
NASA says it’s in the final stages of the data reviews needed for the company’s certification following Demo—2. It will broadcast a series of media briefings to provide updates about the certification process and to talk about the Crew-1 mission starting on September 29th, 11 AM Eastern.
At CES 2019 Hyundai showed off something straight out of a sci-fi movie: the Elevate Ultimate Mobility Vehicle. With each wheel attached to an extendable “leg” attached to each wheel, the concept could crawl over obstacles or pick up disabled passengers by lifting itself over steps to reach their front door. Now Hyundai has established New Horizons Studio, a division focused on making these UMVs a reality.
According to its head Dr. John Suh, who lead the CRADLE unit that developed that wild Elevate concept, “We aim to create the world’s first transformer-class vehicle, also known as the Ultimate Mobility Vehicle.”
At the top of the range, the Alto 9+ is a 3.1-channel soundbar with an accompanying subwoofer that relies on processing to create surround sound effects including height. The setup doesn’t include upward-firing drivers but still promises “multi-dimensional sound that delivers depth and excitement for a more cinematic experience” thanks to the dedicated center channel and support for Dolby Atmos. It’s also compatible with Google Assistant and Apple AirPlay, and is available right now for $299.
The Alto 8i sound bar ditches the subwoofer add-on for dual internal subwoofers, making it cheaper and more compact. It’s a 2.1-channel sound bar that easily fits into your existing setup and maintains processing for Dolby Atmos audio tracks. It costs $179, and will start shipping next month.
TCL
The Alto 6 and 6+ drop the Dolby Atmos support featured in TCL’s more expensive models, but allow buyers to pick between having an add-on subwoofer or not. They’re still Roku Ready for extremely easy setup and use, and are made to match TVs in the 40-inch size range. According to TCL they’ll be available at the end of the month, with a price of $79 for the Alto 6 and $129 for the Alto 6+ that comes with a subwoofer.
TCL
The Alto 3 is the smallest and cheapest option, and is intended for smaller areas like dorm rooms. It doesn’t have a subwoofer built-in or provided externally, so what you can expect is stereo audio that at least outpaces what speakers on small, cheap TVs can provide, as well as Dolby processing — but not via HDMI, since it doesn’t have any of those jacks for input or output. The Alto 3 goes on sale in October for $59.
Last week a lot of people got their first taste of an in-the-wild encounter between organic human life and one of Boston Dynamics’ advanced robots. In Northern Ontario, Canada @bloodtear noticed the Spot robot walking down the street and had an encounter that wouldn’t have been odd if it had been with a real dog instead of a robot copy.
everyone yelling telling me he is not cute and will destroy us all. um thats ur opinion!!!! i for one welcome our robot dog overlords. kings!!!!!
After their brief interaction flashed across social media and made a few headlines, Boston Dynamics issued a statement about the interaction. According to the company, the robot was on an “evening stroll” with a handler who was “conducting routine mobility tests,” and Nathan explained in other tweets that the operator was following behind with a remote control We’re still waiting to see more real-world applications for the company’s various robotic ventures, but now that they’re on sale, you can expect to see more people bumping into these devices going forward.
“We implement extensive IT security protocols and are working diligently with our IT security partners to restore IT operations as quickly as possible,” the statement reads. “Patient care continues to be delivered safely and effectively.”
NBC News reports some UHS hospitals have had to fall back on filing patient information using pen and paper due to the attack. On Reddit and Twitter, there are also reports of UHS facilities redirecting ambulances to other nearby hospitals. “When the attack happened multiple antivirus programs were disabled by the attack and hard drives just lit up with activity,” says one of those reports.
A UHS employee told Bleeping Computer that they saw files renamed during the attack to include a .ryk extension. That extension is associated with the Ryuk ransomware. Like most other ransomware, Ryuk encrypts files to prevent someone from accessing them until they pay a fee.
If UHS was the victim of a ransomware attack, it wouldn’t be the first time a healthcare provider has been the target of a cyberattack. On September 9th, Düsseldorf University Hospital in Germany sent a patient to a hospital 19 miles away after hackers compromised their IT systems in a ransomware attack. The patient died while doctors tried to transfer her to the other hospital.
Google makes a point of noting that the policy will only affect at most three percent of developers with apps on the Play Store. And of that three percent, it says nearly 97 percent already use Google Play’s billing system to let people pay for their in-app purchases. But making up that less than one percent of Play Store developers are companies like Netflix and Spotify. They currently bypass that requirement by prompting their customers to pay for subscriptions directly. The policy change will effectively force those companies to pay Google’s 30 percent fee on in-app purchases.
The policy clarification almost certainly comes in response to Fortnite‘s recent removal from the Play Store. In August, Epic Games added an alternate billing system to the iOS and Android versions of the game that allowed players to bypass the App Store and Google Play when paying for Fortnite‘s in-game V-Bucks currency. In fact, Google explicitly mentions Fortnite when talking about the openness of the Play Store, saying, “even if a developer and Google do not agree on business terms the developer can still distribute on the Android platform.”
It’s been nine months since Apple acquired a feature-length documentary on Billie Eilish, and it has at last revealed when you’ll be able to watch the RJ Cutler-directed film. It will release Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry in theaters and on Apple TV+ in February. It didn’t confirm an exact premiere date, however.
Apple named Eilish its artist of the year at the first Apple Music Awards, which were held in December. The star won five Grammy Awards in January, including the ceremony’s biggest honors: Best New Artist, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
If you’ve used an Apple Watch before, most of the SE’s features will be familiar. The knob is a handy way to scroll through notifications, apps and volume controls, and together with the button it offers several nifty shortcuts. Long pressing the digital crown triggers Siri, while pressing the button below shows the power menu. Double tapping that pulls up your default card on Apple Pay.
Navigating the interface is the same as before, too, and if you’ve already set up your favorite apps in the dock, they’ll carry over when you set up the new device. As an Android user who’s mostly lived with other smartwatches though, I found it jarring that a swipe right doesn’t bring me back a page. I also still prefer Samsung’s Tizen OS for its simpler navigation where my favorite widgets and apps are just a spin away. On Apple’s Watches I have to first pull up all apps or the dock, then find the one I want.
What’s new with the Watch SE are mostly updates from watchOS 7, like the new Fitness app, sleep tracking and automatic hand wash detection and countdown. There are also new shareable watch faces with support for multiple complications from the same app. Having the daily UV index and the weather at the same time on my home screen made it easy to tell when I could skip the sunscreen.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Tapping any of these complications pulls up the respective app, and it was easy to summon my activity rings to see how far I was from closing them. In watchOS 7, you can set individual targets for each of the three circles, as opposed to one overall goal. I spend so much of my day stuck at my desk that a Stand goal of getting up every hour for 10 hours is nearly impossible to achieve, so I tuned that down and bumped up my exercise target instead.
Apple also added four new workouts you can track with watchOS 7 — dance, core training, functional strength training and cooldown. Dance and cooldown are intriguing additions but, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference in tracking these activities versus a generic “other exercise” session. Apple said it uses the watch’s sensors to figure out how your arms and legs are moving as you dance to predict body movement, then uses that data along with your heart rate in its algorithm to determine your calories burned. It’s nice to have theoretically more accurate information on your calorie expenditure, but at the end of the day, the report you’ll get looks very similar to what you get for other activities.
I don’t like wearing a watch to bed, but of all the smartwatches I’ve tested lately, the Apple Watch SE is the one I minded the least. Sadly, it also delivers the least insightful data. While Fitbit and Samsung use the heart rate monitor to figure out whether you’re in REM, light, deep or restorative sleep, Apple only takes into account accelerometer data. It does track your heart rate overnight but doesn’t use that to tell what sleep zone you’re in. The Watch SE also wasn’t as accurate at detecting when I fell asleep either. It assumed I had gone to bed at the time I had set in my Wind Down sleep schedule when in fact I only got in an hour later.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
According to the Watch SE, I was restless right after I fell asleep, when really I was just awake and fidgeting. Then, when I woke up and snoozed my alarm a few times, none of those movements registered and Apple decided to take the time I finally stepped out of bed as when I woke up. This is the sort of unreliable tracking that plagued early Fitbits, but they’ve grown much better over the years. If accurate and insightful sleep tracking is important to you, the Apple Watch won’t be your best option.
Apple also introduced a Wind Down and Wake Up feature that helps you prepare for bed and your work day. I set my bedtime to 1am, and at midnight, the Watch SE went on Do Not Disturb and stopped bothering me, which was nice. But I continued to while away on my phone anyway, despite Do Not Disturb being enabled there too.
When my morning alarm went off, it was a gentle tune rather than a jarring cacophony, which was nice, but not much different from simply picking a better sound for my phone. These sounds were already available for iOS, anyway. What is better is that you can use the watch’s haptic engine for a vibration-based alarm on your wrist to rouse you without bothering others. Also, if you wake up and move in the 30 minutes before your set time, the Watch will ask if you want to turn off the alarm, which is a nice touch.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Another new watchOS 7 feature is hand-wash detection, which is particularly relevant during the pandemic. The Watch will automatically recognize, based on the way your hands are moving, if you’ve started to wash them. Then, it’ll turn on the microphone to listen for sounds of water and soap suds to confirm, and launch a 20-second timer to make sure you’re scrubbing for the recommended duration.
This is helpful when I’m getting my first wash in after returning home, but kind of annoying subsequently because I don’t always need to wash my hands for 20 whole seconds. Sometimes I just need to get some grease off my palm and ten seconds is enough. Thankfully, all you get if you stop washing before the time’s up is a gentle admonishment that you can skip, so it’s only a minor annoyance. The Watch SE was almost always able to detect when I’d started washing my hands, missing only one very quick session. But it also thought I was cleaning my hands when I was actually washing some grapes. Again, it was easy enough to just ignore the timer and go on with my day.
