Technology

This gallery of SN10 images shows the vehicle’s flight on Wednesday. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ] So what, exactly, are we to make of the third flight of a full-scale Starship prototype? If nothing else, Wednesday afternoon’s flight provided several minutes of first-rate entertainment: Rocketship goes up. Rocketship comes down. Rocketship lands. And then, with an …

Starship goes up. Starship goes down. But is the program moving forward? Read More »

Enlarge / Ars’ Kyle Orland tries out the Nintendo Switch in its portable mode. (credit: Jennifer Hahn / Ars Technica) Nintendo’s next Switch hardware revision has long been rumored, but details on what to expect from a possible “Switch Pro” finally began firming up on Wednesday, thanks to an apparent leak from its screen supplier. …

New Nintendo Switch production to begin in June, will be 4K when docked Read More »

Enlarge (credit: NPG Press) Remotely operated vehicles have changed how we explore and exploit the ocean. They can operate for far longer than human-occupied vehicles, go into areas where risk would dictate people avoid, and reach depths where very few craft can take a human. But even so, a lot of the hardware gets taken …

Researchers build a swimming robot that works in the Mariana Trench Read More »

Enlarge (credit: KJ Parish) Facebook will lift a ban on political advertising imposed after the US election to curb the spread of misinformation, and it has pledged to investigate whether its political ads systems need a further overhaul. Advertisers would be able to resume running political ads on March 4, Facebook said in a blog …

Facebook lifts ban on US political advertising Read More »

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images) As Google’s plan to kill third-party tracking cookies ramps up, the company is answering questions about what will replace it. Many people have wondered: if Google kills cookies, won’t the company just cook up some other method for individually tracking users? Today, Google answered that concern in a …

Google claims it will stop tracking individual users for ads Read More »

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images) Comcast just released a 2020 Network Performance Data report with stats on how much Internet usage rose during the pandemic, and it said that upload use is growing faster than download use. “Peak downstream traffic in 2020 increased approximately 38 percent over 2019 levels and peak upstream traffic …

Comcast hides upload speeds deep inside its infuriating ordering system Read More »

Enlarge / A person browsing Parler in early January, before the site got into a fight with AWS. (credit: Jaap Arriens | NurPhoto | Getty Images) Social media platform Parler has dropped a federal lawsuit alleging that Amazon colluded with Twitter to drive a rival offline—but in its place, the platform has filed a new …

Parler sues Amazon (again), claims AWS ban sank a billion-dollar valuation Read More »

A startup called Ample has developed a new modular battery and quick-swap station, and it just deployed the first five in the Bay Area. [credit:Ample ] On Wednesday morning in San Francisco, a startup called Ample launched its new electric vehicle battery-swap technology. The company has designed an extremely small footprint for its swap stations, …

This startup has an intriguing concept for EV battery swaps Read More »

Enlarge / Starship SN10 on the pad on Wednesday, March 3, 2021. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann / Ars Technica) Update 3:45 pm EST: The SN10 Starship prototype very nearly launched on Wednesday afternoon from South Texas, but a last-second out-of-bounds reading aborted the attempt. The abort was caused by a “slightly conservative high thrust limit,” SpaceX founder …

SpaceX recycling vehicle for second Starship launch attempt [Updated] Read More »

Enlarge / Dr. Rochelle Walensky, President Joe Biden’s pick to head the Centers for Disease Control. (credit: Getty | Chip Somodevilla) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to release guidance this week—possibly as early as Thursday—on activities that are considered safe for people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. But, while …

CDC to release guide for life after vaccination—with normalcy still far off Read More »