VA Tech experiment was inspired by Death Valley’s mysterious “sailing stones” at Racetrack Playa. Scientists have figured out how to make frozen discs of ice self-propel across a patterned metal surface, according to a new paper published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. It’s the latest breakthrough…
Photophoresis can generate a tiny bit of lift without any moving parts. Most people would recognize the device in the image above, although they probably wouldn’t know it by its formal name: the Crookes radiometer. As its name implies, placing the radiometer in light produces a measurable change: the…
Feature had been removed from US Apple Watches after Apple lost a patent fight. In early 2024, Apple removed a blood oxygen monitoring feature from its then-current Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches, following a ruling that the feature violated light-based pulse oximetry patents from a California-based…
The head of the FAA’s commercial spaceflight division will become a political appointee. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday directing government agencies to “eliminate or expedite” environmental reviews for commercial launch and reentry licenses. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), part of the Department of Transportation (DOT), grants…
Apple has purportedly been working on new smart home devices for years now. Rumors about a touchscreen-equipped smart home device from Apple have been circulating for years, periodically bolstered by leaked references in Apple’s software updates. But a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman indicates that Apple’s ambitions might extend…
Opinion: Theatrical testing scenarios explain why AI models produce alarming outputs—and why we fall for it. In June, headlines read like science fiction: AI models “blackmailing” engineers and “sabotaging” shutdown commands. Simulations of these events did occur in highly contrived testing scenarios designed to elicit these responses—OpenAI’s o3 model…
581 miles on a single charge is impressive, but haven’t other drives gone farther? Ars recently reviewed the Polestar 3, the large electric SUV from the performance-oriented Volvo spinoff. There is a lot to like about the big Polestar, particularly the way it drives: sharp enough to give Porsche…
Gemini will remember this, so it’s time to check your privacy settings. As Gemini is increasingly woven into the fabric of Google, the way the chatbot accesses and interacts with your data is in a constant state of flux. Today, Google is announcing several big changes to how its…
Despite the reputation, it’s better, more practical transit than you might think. America has a motorcycle problem. Whereas the rest of the world views two-wheeled motorized transportation as transportation, the US sees motorcycles and scooters as toys. They’re not something you use to commute to work or run errands.…
Dual mouse controls work surprisingly well—if you find somewhere to use them. In my decades as a video game player and reviewer, I’ve used the humble PC mouse in hundreds of games for everything from first-person aiming and third-person character movement to basic menu navigation and unit selection. In…
