NASA, SpaceX Make History With Crew Dragon Manned Launch

SpaceX has officially made history with the first successful launch of humans into space by a private company. The Crew Dragon capsule, carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, safely reached orbit 12 minutes into the launch and is now on its way to the International Space Station. It was the first crewed launch from American soil in almost nine years following the retirement of the Space Shuttle program. The joint NASA-SpaceX collaboration means the US no longer has to rely on Russian Soyuz launches to move astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

As part of the launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket successfully landed on the company’s drone ship, appropriately named Of Course I Still Love You. At the 12-minute mark, the Dragon capsule separated from the second stage as it reached orbiting altitude.

Today’s launch took place on pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center after an aborted attempt this past Wednesday due to unfavorable weather conditions. Contrary to the usual NASA procedure, SpaceX fueled up the Falcon 9 after the two astronauts had already boarded the Dragon. While the mission is completely automated, both Behnken and Hurley retain the ability to manually control the capsule and will in fact do so as part of the flight, which SpaceX initially didn’t want to do.

NASA-SpaceX Demo-2 successful separation of the second Falcon 9 stage.

The astronauts will perform a variety of tasks aboard the Crew Dragon as part of the demo mission in addition to the manual-control demonstration. Then, at about 10:30 AM Sunday eastern time, Hurley and Behnken will arrive at the International Space Station, where the Crew Dragon will engage its new automated docking system.

After a short stay on the ISS (the exact length of which has not yet been determined), the two astronauts will return to Earth in the Dragon and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean with parachutes. That will be the first time astronauts will have landed this way since 1975, before the days of the Space Shuttle program. While the Crew Dragon capsule does have its own SuperDraco engines, both as backup propulsion and as a launch-abort system, they won’t be used in this mission. Future landings with the engines may well be in the cards, though.

Following a successful SpaceX Demo-2 mission, NASA and SpaceX hope to use the Crew Dragon to send and return astronauts to the ISS on a regular basis.

Now read:

• NASA Awards Lunar Lander Contracts to SpaceX, Blue Origin, Dynetics
• SpaceX Will Test ‘VisorSat’ System to Make Starlink Satellites Invisible
• NASA’s Coronavirus Ventilator Gets FDA Approval

ET Deals: $540 Off AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-Core CPU, Apple Watch Series 5 for $299, Dell Alienware Aurora R8 Intel Core i7 + Nvidia RTX 2070 Super Gaming PC for $1,142

If you have huge performance needs, or if you just want to build an astonishingly powerful PC, you won’t want to miss this deal. For a limited time, you can get AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, which is among the most powerful CPUs on the market today with 64 CPU cores. Right now you can get it with a $540 discount, which helps take the sting off of buying one of these costly yet powerful CPUs.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-Core Processor ($3,449.00)

AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 3990X is arguably the single most powerful processor on the market today with a whopping 64 CPU cores and an astonishingly high number of threads that sits at 128. The CPU also has an enormous pool of cache that adds up to a total capacity of 292MB. You can also overclock this processor to unleash additional performance, but as it ships with a max operating frequency of 4.3GHz, you really don’t need to. If you want to build a computer with an almost ridiculous amount of processing power, this is what you want to buy, and for a limited time it’s on sale! Right now you can get the Threadripper 3990X from Amazon with a $540 discount that drops the price from $3,990.00 to just $3,449.99.

Apple Watch Series 5 GPS 40mm ($299.99)

Apple’s newest smartwatch is the company’s first to feature an always-on display, which remains illuminated and provides on-screen information for the entire time the watch remains on. Like last year’s model, the new Watch Series 5 offers up to 18 hours of battery life on a single charge. For a limited time, you can get one from Amazon marked down from $399.99 to $299.99.

Dell Alienware Aurora Intel Core i7-9700 Gaming Desktop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD and 2TB HDD ($1,142.99)

Dell’s Alienware Aurora pairs a fast Intel Core i7-9700 processor with an immensely powerful Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card. This combination makes the system excellent for gaming — not to mention it also comes with a 1TB HDD that gives you plenty of storage space. This system typically retails for $1,419.99 but right now you can get it for $1,142.99 from Dell with promo code LCS10OFF.

Roborock S5 Wi-Fi Robotic Vacuum ($364.79)

This high-powered robot vacuum has 2,000Pa of suction power and a large 5,200mAh battery that enables it to run for up to 150 minutes on a single charge. The Roborock S5 also supports Wi-Fi and can be controlled using a smartphone app and Alexa voice commands. Right now you can get it from Amazon marked down from $599.99 to $364.79 with promo code ROBOROCKS5.

Apple iPhone XS Max ($699.99)

Apple’s iPhone XS Max is a feature-rich smartphone with a large 6.5-inch OLED display and a powerful A12 Bionic processor. For a limited time, you can get one of these phones with 64GB of internal storage from Woot marked down from $999.99 to just $699.99.

Amazon Fire TV Recast Over-The-Air DVR 500GB ($149.99)

Amazon’s Fire TV Recast is a type of DVR device with 500GB of storage space that can hold up to 75 hours of video. It allows you to record up to four shows simultaneously, and this content can then be played back on a wide range of supported devices. Right now you can get this device from Amazon marked down from $229.99 to $149.99.

Dell Vostro 15 5490 Intel Core i5-10210U 1080p 15.6-Inch Laptop w/ 8GB DDR4 RAM and 256 M.2 NVMe SSD ($699.00)

Dell upgraded this laptop with one of Intel’s new 10th generation Core i5-10210U processors that has four CPU cores clocked at 1.6GHz. The system also comes with a fast NVMe SSD storage device and a 1080p display, which makes it well suited for everyday tasks. It can even run some games with low settings thanks to a low-end Nvidia GPU. You can get it now from Dell marked down from $1,284.29 to just $699.00.

Featured Deals

• AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-Core Unlocked Desktop Processor for $3449.99 at Amazon (list price $3990)
• Apple Watch Series 5 40mm GPS Smartwatch for $299.99 (44mm for $329) at Amazon (Discount at checkout – list price $399)
• Alienware Aurora R8 Intel Core i7-9700 8-core Gaming Desktop with RTX 2070 SUPER for $1142.99 at Dell (use code: LCS10OFF – list price $1419.99)
• Dell G5 Intel i5-9400 6-core Gaming Desktop with GTX 1660 Ti, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD for $849.99 at Dell (use code: 50OFF699 – list price $929.99)
• Apple AirPods Pro for $227.99 at Amazon (Discount at checkout – list price $249)
• Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Gaming Desktop with Radeon RX 5700 XT, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD for $1079.99 at Dell (use code: LCS10OFF – list price $1199.99)
• Dell Vostro 5000 Intel Core i5-9400 6-core Desktop for $499 at Dell (use code: SUMMER499 – list price $998.57)
• Dell Vostro 14 5490 Intel 10th Gen Core i5-10201U Quad-core 14″ 1080p Laptop for $699 at Dell (list price $1284.29)
• AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Desktop Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler for $167 at Amazon (list price $199)
• WD Black SN750 250GB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD for $54.99 at Amazon (list price $79.99)
• WD Black P10 5TB Game Drive Portable External Hard Drive for $114.99 at Amazon (list price $149.99)
• Roborock S5 2000Pa Smart WiFi Robot Vacuum for $364.79 at Amazon (use code: ROBOROCK55 – list price $599.99)
• Apple iPhone XS Max 64GB Unlocked Smartphone for $699.99 at Woot (list price $999.99)
• Fire TV Recast 500GB 2 Tuner Over-the-air DVR for $149.99 (1TB 4 Tuner for $200) at Amazon (list price $229.99)

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

Now read:

• Need To Learn To Code? Learnable Can Get You There Without Breaking Your Brain Or Wallet
• ET Deals: $700 Off LG 65-Inch 4K TV + Bonus $75 Gift Card, Adata XPG 1TV 3,500MB/s NVMe SSD for $109, Eufy Video Doorbell + Wireless Chime $99
• ET Deals: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X $274, WD Black SN750 250GB NVMe SSD $54, Dell XPS 8930SE Intel Core i7 Nvidia RTX 2070 Super Gaming Desktop $1,449

AMD’s 64-Core Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Is Currently $540 Off

I don’t normally write up individual CPU sales or deals, but AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 3990X is currently $540 off its $3,990 base price. That corresponds to a price cut of ~14 percent, which is fairly significant for a chip in this market segment.

I spent quite a bit of time with the 3990X earlier this year, including an early effort to hit a world record overclock courtesy of Mother Nature. For a brief window of time earlier this year, ET held the second-highest Cinebench R20 score, though other overclockers with access to LN2 have since hit higher performance levels. You can grab the chip on Amazon if you’re interested.

Is the 3990X a Good Investment?

The 3990X is the fastest x86 CPU you can buy today for certain workloads, but it doesn’t make much sense in others. Whether the chip is worth purchasing comes down to what you’re doing with it. The Windows 10 scheduler is limited to 64 threads in a processor group by default, which means the applications that scale up to the full potential of the CPU are required to have their own schedulers in order to do so.

If you’re willing to overclock the CPU — and you’ve got a motherboard that can handle the load — there’s some serious additional performance to be gained. Setting even a modest all-core frequency of 3.7GHz yielded real improvements over stock, and an all-core 3.7GHz seems likely, considering our chip was capable of an all-core 4.3GHz.

But since we don’t recommend CPUs based on OC performance and overclocking is never a sure thing, the 3990X is going to remain more of an acquired taste than a dedicated enthusiast part. One area where it’s proven spectacularly useful is for mass video encoding. I’ve been running a great many encode tests as part of the Deep Space 9 Upscale Project (DS9UP). The 3990X is capable of handling 15-20 simultaneous file encodes, where the 10980XE begins to sag well below that number. While no single encode can stretch up to 128 threads, having a great many potential threads to throw at individual workloads has proven advantageous.

But while I’ve found an actual, practical use for a 64-core CPU, it’s a decidedly niche application — most people aren’t trying to run dozens of different encode tests simultaneously for the purposes of upscaling a television show. On the whole, the 3990X still represents a “halo” part for AMD, while the 3970X is the competitive top-end part. In workloads that can’t take full advantage of the 3990X, the 3970X’s faster clocks often deliver higher performance.

The cool thing about the 3990X is that if you do need one, it’s a really nice halo.

Now Read:

• From 4.3GHz All-Core Overclocking to SMT Scaling: A Comprehensive Review of the AMD Threadripper 3990X
• The AMD 3990X Pre-Review and Overclocking World Record Attempt
• No, AMD Isn’t Building a 48-Core Ryzen Threadripper 3980X

Some AI Advances in the Last Decade May Have Been Illusory

Digital Human Brain Covered with Networks

Over the past decade, artificial intelligence and machine learning have emerged as major hotbeds of research, driven by advances in GPU computing, software algorithms, and specialized hardware design. New data suggests that at least some of the algorithmic improvements of the past decade may have been smaller than previously thought.

Researchers working to validate long-term improvements in various AI algorithms have found multiple situations where modest updates to old solutions allowed them to match newer approaches that had supposedly superseded them. The team compared 81 different pruning algorithms released over a ten year period and found no clear and unambiguous evidence of improvement over that period of time.

According to David Blalock, a computer science graduate student at MIT who worked on the project, after fifty papers “it became clear it wasn’t obvious what state of the art even was.” Blalock’s advisor, Dr. John Guttag, expressed surprise at the news and told Science, “It’s the old saw, right? If you can’t measure something, it’s hard to make it better.”

Problems like this, incidentally, are exactly why the MLPerf initiative is so important. We need objective tests scientists can use for valid cross-comparison of models and hardware performance.

What the researchers found, specifically, is that in certain cases, older and simpler algorithms were capable of keeping up with newer approaches once the old methods were tweaked to improve their performance. In one case, a comparison of seven neural net-based media recommendation algorithms demonstrated that six of them were worse than older, simpler, non-neural algorithms. A Cornell comparison of image retrieval algorithms found that performance hasn’t budged since 2006 once the old methods were updated:

Image from Science

There are a few things I want to stress here: First, there are a lot of AI gains that haven’t been illusory, like the improvements to AI video upscalers, or noted advances in cameras and computer vision. GPUs are far better at AI calculations than they were in 2009, and the specialized accelerators and AI-specific AVX-512 instructions of 2020 didn’t exist in 2009, either.

But we aren’t talking about whether hardware has gotten bigger or better at executing AI algorithms. We’re talking about the underlying algorithms themselves and how much complexity is useful in an AI model. I’ve actually been learning something about this topic directly; my colleague David Cardinal and I have been working on some AI-related projects in connection to the work I’ve done with the DS9 Upscale Project. Fundamental improvements to algorithms are difficult and many researchers aren’t incentivized to fully test if a new method is actually better than an old one — after all, it looks better if you invent an all-new method of doing something rather than tuning something someone else created.

Of course, it’s not as simple as saying that newer models haven’t contributed anything useful to the field, either. If a researcher discovers optimizations that improve performance on a new model and those optimizations are also found to work for an old model, that doesn’t mean the new model was irrelevant. Building the new model is how those optimizations were discovered in the first place.

The image above is what Gartner refers to as a hype cycle. AI has definitely been subject to one, and given how central the technology is to what we’re seeing from companies like Nvidia, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Intel these days, it’s going to be a topic of discussion well into the future. In AI’s case, we’ve seen real breakthroughs on various topics, like teaching computers how to play games effectively, and a whole lot of self-driving vehicle research. Mainstream consumer applications, for now, remain fairly niche.

I wouldn’t read this paper as evidence that AI is nothing but hot air, but I’d definitely take claims about it conquering the universe and replacing us at the top of the food chain with a grain of salt. True advances in the field — at least in terms of the fundamental underlying principles — may be harder to come by than some have hoped.

Top image credit: Getty Images

Now Read:

• Level Up: Nvidia’s GameGAN AI Creates Pac-Man Without an Underlying Game Engine
• Microsoft Built One of the Most Powerful Supercomputers in the World to Develop Human-Like AI
• Nvidia Unveils Its First Ampere-Based GPU, Raises Bar for Data Center AI

How to Be a Task Manager Wizard, According to the Guy Who Wrote It

If you’ve used Windows for longer than an hour or two, chances are that you’ve interacted with Task Manager. The utility has been present in every version of Windows going back to Windows 95, though the version that shipped with that OS was far more primitive and it didn’t open when you hit Ctrl-Alt-Del (that key command opened the “Close Program” dialog instead). Now, the author of the application, Dave Plummer, has published his own guide to using it, including some tips we’ve never seen before.

If Task Manager crashes, you can restart it by hitting Ctrl-Shift-Esc. Windows will first attempt to revive the hung version — if it can’t, it’ll open a new window for you after a maximum of 10 seconds. Task manager also will not fail to load, even on a resource-constrained system. It will load one tab at a time before it fails altogether.

Ctrl-Shift-Esc also launches Task Manager if you can’t get access to either the “Run” command or can’t get Ctrl-Alt-Del to work.

If Task Manager crashes, restarting it with Ctrl-Alt-Shift (Taskmgr.exe) will restart it with all settings reset to factory original defaults. This actually works for every app Plummer has written, though he didn’t include a list.

You can right-click on any process in the “Process” tab and click “Open File Location” if you need to find the physical location of a file.

You can also add columns to the Task Manager if you want to change what it shows you.

Dave Plummer is also the author of Space Cadet Pinball and worked on a number of other aspects of Windows and MS-DOS before that. It’s not often we get to hear from the actual author of a core software application most of use on a regular, if not daily basis — so hopefully you picked up a few new tips.

One general Windows tip that I’ll throw in of my own, because I’ve never had a great place to put this, and it *is* Task Manager-centric. Assume that you have a video game that’s locked and refusing to show you the desktop. Ctrl-Alt-Delete works — it turns the screen blue and gives you the option to launch Task Manager — but you can’t actually see the Task Manager window. It’s buried underneath a frozen game screen.

There’s a solution to this.

When this happens, press Win + Tab. Right-click on the game or screen-grabbing application and choose “Move to.” Shove the app in question on to a different desktop, as shown below:

If this was a desktop-stealing game, sending it to a different desktop would clear my own display and let me use TM to close the app.

This will clear your primary desktop and give you full access to Task Manager. You can now use TM to kill the locked-up game. This can be incredibly useful with grabby 3D titles that won’t show you the desktop, even if they’re technically supposed to support alt-tab behavior.

Now Read:

• Microsoft: We Were on ‘The Wrong Side of History’ With Open Source
• How Does Windows Use Multiple CPU Cores?
• May 2020 Windows 10 Update: Linux, Ray Tracing, Search Upgrades

Raspberry Pi 4 Now Available With 8GB of RAM, 64-Bit OS

Credit: Michael Henzler/CC BY-SA 4.0

For years, the Raspberry Pi has been the premier single-board computer for hobbyists. These devices cost as little as $5 and include all the core components of a computer, but there are also more powerful versions. The latest Raspberry Pi 4 has a new model with 8GB of RAM. Combined with its quad-core ARM chip and ample I/O options, the latest Raspberry Pi 4 can take on even more tasks that would have required a PC in the past. It even has a new 64-bit OS to leverage all that RAM. 

The Raspberry Pi 4 launched last year in 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB RAM configurations. The rest of the hardware was a solid improvement over past versions with a pair of HDMI outputs, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, and a quad-core Cortex-A72 ARM chip clocked at 1.5GHz. There’s even a USB-C port for power. Although, the first board revision had a flaw that prevented many USB cables from supplying power. 

There was no 8GB RAM option at launch because there was no 8GB LPDDR4 chip compatible with the circuit board. It took a little work to accommodate the additional RAM on the Raspberry Pi 4. Designers had to remove the old switch-mode power supply from the right side of the board (near the USB-A ports), adding a higher capacity switcher next to the USB-C port on the left. 

The official Raspberry Pi Linux build also needed some work. Until now, Debian-based Raspbian OS only came in 32-bit. 32-bit systems can only address about 4GB of RAM, so the 8GB module would go to waste. There are third-party operating systems that will see all that RAM, but the official Raspbian is now available as a 64-bit image. The Raspberry Pi foundation notes this is still an “early beta,” though. 

The 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 is available now at various retailers for $75, which is $20 more than the 4GB edition. That extra RAM could be a real boon to several popular Raspberry Pi projects. For example, a media server like Plex or Kodi should be more responsive on the new 8GB version. The same goes for running a Minecraft server, which is bundled with Raspbian. The Raspberry Pi is all about creativity, and you can get more creative with 8GB of RAM than 4GB.

Now read:

• Raspberry Pi 4 Wi-Fi Fails When Using 1440p Video Output
• Raspberry Pi 4 Launches With More Powerful Processor and 4K Video
• Everything We Know About the Raspberry Pi 4

ET Deals: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X $274, WD Black SN750 250GB NVMe SSD $54, Dell XPS 8930SE Intel Core i7 Nvidia RTX 2070 Super Gaming Desktop $1,449

If you’re planning to build a new PC in the near future, you may want to pick up AMD’s high-performance Ryzen 7 3700X CPU, which is currently on sale with a $55 cut off its original MSRP.

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X w/Wraith Prism LED Cooler ($274.99)

AMD’s Ryzen 7 3700X comes with eight SMT enabled CPU cores with a max clock speed of 4.4GHz. This gives you exceptional performance for multitasking and running power-hungry applications. Currently, you can get it from Amazon marked down from $329.99 to $274.99.

Western Digital Black SN750 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD ($54.99)

This little M.2 SSD has a capacity of 250GB and it can transfer data at a rate of up to 3,100Mbps. This makes it significantly faster than a 2.5-inch SSD, and it’s also fairly inexpensive, marked down at Amazon from $79.99 to $54.99.

Dell XPS 8930 Special Edition Intel Core i7-9700K Desktop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD ($1,449.99)

Equipped with an overclockable Intel Core i7 processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card, this desktop has enormous gaming potential. It should be able to run games at 2K resolutions with relative ease. Get one today from Dell marked down from $2,149.99 to $1,449.99 with promo code 50OFF699.

Asus ROG Strix B450-I Gaming Mini-ITX Motherboard ($137.59)

Asus designed this motherboard to fit inside of a mini-ITX case, making it a suitable solution for building a compact SFF PC. It also features a high-end Realtek ALC 1220 audio codec and a built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi NIC. Currently, this board can be picked up from Amazon marked down from $159.99 to $137.59.

SanDisk Extreme Portable 500GB External SSD ($81.77)

Sandisk built this external SSD with a large 500GB capacity and a rugged water-resistant exterior. The drive can transfer data at speeds of up to 550MB/s over USB 3.1, which will far outstrip your typical USB flash drive and external HDD. You can currently buy this SSD marked down from its original retail price of $169.99 to $81.77.

Dell Vostro 5000 Intel Core i5-9400 Desktop w/ 8GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD ($499.00)

Dell’s Vostro computers were designed as office and business solutions, and this Vostro 5000 is no different. It’s equipped with an Intel Core i5-9400 processor that offers mid-level processing performance that’s perfect for a wide range of office and work tasks. Dell is offering these systems for a limited time marked down from $998.57 to $499.00 with promo code SUMMER499.

Asrock Z390M-ITX/AC Mini-ITX Motherboard ($138.23)

In addition to being relatively small, this motherboard was designed to support overclocking. This means you can push up the clock speed on Intel’s unlocked CPUs to unleash additional performance. The board also features a pair of Gigabit NICs and integrated 802.11ac Wi-Fi. For a limited time, you can get one from Amazon marked down from $189.99 to $138.23.

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

Now read:

• ET Deals: Dell Alienware M15 R1 Nvidia RTX 2070 Gaming Laptop for $1,547, Apple iPhone XS Max for $699, Amazon Kindle + 3-Month Kindle Unlimited Subscription Only $59
• Need To Learn To Code? Learnable Can Get You There Without Breaking Your Brain Or Wallet
• ET Deals: $700 Off LG 65-Inch 4K TV + Bonus $75 Gift Card, Adata XPG 1TV 3,500MB/s NVMe SSD for $109, Eufy Video Doorbell + Wireless Chime $99

$350 ‘5G BioShield USB Key’ Packs 128MB Storage, Gallons of Snake Oil

The last few months have seen a surge in conspiracy theories that tie 5G (a cellular networking standard) to coronavirus (a viral pandemic). It was inevitable that we’d see scam products designed to prey on people as a result, and lo’ and behold, the “5G BioShield USB key” appears to be having a moment.

The 5G BioShield USB Key contains “Proprietary holographic nano-layer catalyst technology” that provides “remediation from all harmful radiation, electro-smog, and biohazard pollution.” It’s currently available for £283 or £795 if you buy three, and features “quantum biological shielding technology.” The feature image above, pulled from the website, makes masterful use of contrasting visual elements to tell a simple story: Smoking USB stick + St. George and the Dragon + Lion = BioShield. Right.

You can tell this is going to be a fun trip just based on what the company claims to be capable of protecting you from. “All harmful radiation” would include high-energy gamma-ray bursts, which are capable of emitting as much energy as the Sun will emit in its entire lifetime over a handful of seconds. Next, we have “electro-smog,” a nonexistent phenomenon. So far, the BioShield can protect you from a nearby star collapsing into a black hole or the EM equivalent of Santa Claus. Finally, we’ve got “biohazard pollution.”

This is an astonishingly broad claim that the FDA really ought to be looking into. A “biohazard” is defined as “a biological substance that poses a threat to the health of living organisms, primarily humans.” This includes everything from bacteria and viruses to Nickelback.

How Does it Work?

I’m so glad you asked. The 5G BioShield USB Key works through quantum oscillations to reharmonize disturbing frequencies created by electric fog. It restores the coherence of atoms by geometrically optimizing them for the induction of life force. It does this by magnetically inducing spin in your energy field and emits a number of life-force frequencies to generally revitalize the body.

One of the above claims was made up by me. The other three are from the company’s website. Can you tell which one it is?

Fortunately, Rory Cellan-Jones of the BBC pulled one of these devices apart to see what it actually contained. And the verdict is…

It’s a 128MB USB stick. With a sticker on it.

Image by Pen Test Partners, via the BBC

That’s it.

There are a lot of things people spend money on that I don’t personally find appealing. That’s fine. I once had a friend who made $200 by being willing to vacuum a dude’s house in a 1950s housedress and heels for two hours. Not the sort of thing I’d go for, but you do you.

(If I’m being honest, I was a bit jealous. I could’ve used $200.)

But devices like this are flagrant scams. They mislead people into believing they have acquired meaningful medical protection in exchange for garbage worth pennies on the dollar. No matter how frustrated I get with people who believe in conspiracy theories like a link between coronavirus and 5G, there’s a yet-worse group: The people who damn well know better and prey on the elderly, non-technical, and afraid merely because they can.

No matter how stupid theories about 5G and coronavirus sound to those of us who understand the technical facts of both situations, it isn’t crazy to doubt if authorities — governments, corporations, or both — have been completely honest about the safety and efficacy of the products, solutions, or standards they peddle.

The United States government has, within living memory, tested biological agents on its citizens and used black citizens as guinea pigs in long-running medical experiments to observe the progression of syphilis without disclosing to these individuals that their condition was curable. A 1976 flu vaccine campaign in the United States (as a response to a feared flu pandemic) caused ~450 people to develop Guillan-Barré, a potentially life-threatening autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks its own peripheral nervous system. People who remember these things aren’t crazy to have concerns. It’s precisely because they aren’t crazy that these issues deserve to be taken seriously and those concerns answered.

Finding out you’ve been taken in by a bad (or bad-faith) argument never feels good. But the one thing worse than being duped by a conspiracy theory is being someone who knows or ought to know that the theory is absolute claptrap and deliberately spreading it anyway. Selling this kind of snake oil during a global pandemic isn’t harmless.

5G does not cause coronavirus. 5G waves are not something you need protection from. If anything, mmWave 5G needs protection from you, since you’re a much bigger threat to its ability to propagate than its pathetic penetration characteristics are to your epidermis. If you are afraid of these things, please don’t be.

Now Read:

• 5G Will Not Kill Us All, but Stupidity Might
• YouTube Says It Will Remove 5G Misinformation After People Burn Cell Towers
• Why Do 44% of Republicans Believe Bill Gates Will Use Coronavirus Vaccines to Inject Them With Microchips?

Microsoft Says Xbox Series X Will Be ‘Most Compatible’ Console Ever

Moving to a new console generation has often meant leaving some of your favorite games behind, but Microsoft says that won’t be the case with the Xbox Series X. The team developing this next-gen console is testing older games to ensure they don’t just work but work better. Not only will older titles be faster and smoother, but Microsoft is also working on a host of technologies that can add new features to the games of yesteryear. 

While Microsoft’s primary focus is on making new games that could never have run on older consoles, the Xbox Series X team has also spent more than 100,000 hours playing old titles on the console. Microsoft’s Director of Program Management Jason Ronald says thousands of classic games are already fully playable on the Xbox Series X, and the goal is to have 200,000 hours of play testing on the books by the time the console launches in late 2020. 

Backward compatibility isn’t as simple as making sure you’ve got the right kind of disc drive. The system and chip architectures change in significant ways across console generations. Developers also optimize console games for a very specific set of capabilities and specs. A new console platform needs to know how to “talk” to older games. Microsoft built the tools for backward compatibility into the core of the Xbox Series X with its custom CPU and a new operating system hypervisor. 

According to Ronald, classic games will load faster than they did on their original consoles. Plus, more demanding games that struggled to maintain a smooth frame rate on base-model hardware like the Xbox One S will perform unencumbered on the Series X. 

Microsoft isn’t just going to lean on faster hardware and call it a day, though. The Xbox Advanced Technology Group has developed several new features that will enhance the classic game experience. For example, an HDR reconstruction technique will automatically add HDR support to legacy titles. It’ll even work on games from the original Xbox that were developed almost 20 years ago. Microsoft has touted the upcoming console’s “Quick Resume” feature, which allows players to quickly return to their game from a suspended save state. That feature will work with backward-compatible games with no changes to the games themselves. 

The Xbox Series X will even be able to render older games at resolutions up to 4K. The team is also working on technologies that will allow doubling the frame rates on older games. Again, this all happens on the platform side — game developers don’t need to change anything. 

Microsoft aims to have the Xbox Series X ready for sale this holiday season. It has not announced pricing yet, but rumors suggest it’s waiting for Sony to announce the PS5 price so it can undercut it with the Series X.

Now read:

• Microsoft Declares 60fps ‘Standard’ on Xbox Series X, but Not Guaranteed
• Sony Scaling Back PlayStation 5 Production Over Price, Not Coronavirus
• PlayStation 5 vs. Xbox Series X: Which Is Better?

HP Launches Reverb G2 VR Headset, Deepens Valve Partnership

Following a surprisingly strong reception among gamers for its first-generation Reverb VR head-mounted display (HMD), HP has deepened its relationship with Valve as part of launching its newly announced Reverb G2 ($599). Using a keynote slot at Augmented World Expo 2020, the two companies, along with Microsoft, outlined their partnership around the new model Reverb and full SteamVR support.

HP’s Reverb G2 By the Numbers

The headline number for the G2 is unchanged from the G1 — 2K x 2K resolution per eye. That keeps it among the highest-resolution end-user devices out there but doesn’t break new ground. However, the G2 does have a newly designed LCD that HP says provides a much better image with improved contrast and clarity. The new panels also run at 90fps, making them a good fit for gaming. In addition, the G2 features brand-new optics designed by Valve and an inter-pupil distance (IPD) adjustment with a range of 60-68 mm. For me, this is a must-have for any decent HMD, so it is good to see HP adding it.

One of the biggest hardware changes is the addition of two side-mounted tracking cameras, bringing the total to four. HP claims the difference in tracking accuracy is obvious and substantial. The G2 also borrows Valve’s audio technology, with speakers and spatial audio similar to the Valve Index. Dual microphones are unchanged from the first generation Reverb. New controllers also sport a more traditional game controller layout — similar to those used by Oculus, for example. The grip buttons also have an analog readout now, for additional flexibility in application design.

Ergonomics Also Get an Upgrade

For starters, there is now a single-barrel 6-meter cable connecting the G2 to a computer. If you have a USB-C port that provides at least 6 watts of power, you can simply plug in the G2. If you have a lower-power port, you’ll need to use the included splitter and AC power adapter. You’ll also have to use something like that if you only have traditional USB 3 ports. The redesigned headband also has a flip-up feature, so you can quickly put the HMD to your face without having to fiddle with the headband. Video is DisplayPort 1.3, and the G2 ships with a DisplayPort-to-mini-DisplayPort adapter.

Gamers: HP and Valve Now Have Your Back

While the G2 is still a Windows MR device, HP has worked closely with both Microsoft and Valve to support SteamVR games and apps. So by launch, the plan is that you should be able to take full advantage of SteamVR content.

Buying a Reverb G2

If you live in the US, you can now pre-order a Reverb G2 for $599. You get the HMD, two of the new-design controllers, and cables. For backpack use, a shorter cable is available, as are replaceable face protectors. Other geographies will follow, of course. Unfortunately, don’t expect to actually get your unit until it is scheduled to ship in the fall. You can purchase the new controllers separately if you’d like to use them with an existing Reverb.

Now Read:

• HP’s Refreshed VR Headset Is Gunning for the Vive Pro
• Valve Lays Off 13 Employees, May Have Slashed VR Division
• How to Buy the Best VR Headset to Play Half-Life: Alyx

Windows May 2020 Update Launches With DirectX 12 Ultimate

Microsoft has debuted the Windows 10 May 2020 update, also known as Windows 10 2004. The update was delayed somewhat thanks to the impact of coronavirus, and certain aspects of it are still in the pipeline, but the bulk of its promised features are baked-in and ready for prime time.

New features baked into Windows 10 2004 include reduced installation times for future updates. Microsoft argues it has reduced update times from over 80 minutes in 1703 to 16 minutes in 2004, with only a single reboot required for many users. This is an improvement I’ve noticed but didn’t have hard data on — updates definitely install more quickly now than they did when Windows 10 was newer.

Cortana has been enhanced with a chat-based UI that supposedly allows her to respond more effectively to typed or natural language queries. Cortana’s overall portfolio has shrunk in the past year, so Microsoft appears to be focusing on making her better at a smaller group of tasks. Also, you must now be logged into a Microsoft account, work account, or school account to use Cortana, which makes local accounts far more attractive. You can now adjust the position of the Cortana window in Windows 10 2004 as well.

Accessibility Improvements

Microsoft has made a number of accessibility improvements to Windows 10, including new options to customize your text cursor, and a new option for Magnifier to read text aloud. Microsoft has also redesigned Narrator to improve its efficiency and will use audio to demarcate when the software has begun or finished scanning text rather than having it say “Scan on” or “Scan off.” Microsoft has also improved support for announcing capital letters and words.

Narrator actually got a number of significant changes to how it handles web browsing and email and now supports Firefox as well as rich text in both Chrome and Firefox. Overall, these sound like a significant set of improvements for low-vision individuals. Eye controls have also been improved, with a new “Switch” function for clicking buttons and a “Dwell” function for selecting them.

There are new improvements to the Windows for Linux subsystem, including support for ELF64 Linux binaries and ARM64 device support. There are new improvements to Bluetooth pairing and various task manager enhancements. GPU temperature is now reported in Task Manager under the performance tab. Any chance we could get that for CPUs, too?

Windows Search should now be more efficient and it understands near-miss typos now, like “Exce” or “Powerpiont”, where the OS previously returned no data.

DirectX 12 Ultimate and… Notepad?

DirectX 12 Ultimate is more of a minor update to DX12 than a major new version release. Essentially, DX12U cleans up the standard, ensuring that there’s a common set of capabilities that define the DX12 standard. As optional features like DXR (DirectX Raytracing) were implemented, different GPUs with very different feature sets could all claim to be “DirectX 12” capable, making it more difficult for customers to know what kind of DX12 card they needed to buy.

We covered the major features of DX12U in this story, but this is a feature level that will be met by Nvidia’s Turing and Ampere, AMD’s upcoming RDNA2, and Intel’s Xe architecture. Keep in mind, DX12U games will run on DX12 GPUs. Those of you who remember the distinction between DirectX 10.0 and 10.1 may remember a similar issue between AMD and Nvidia over that standard. Both AMD and Nvidia GPUs could play DX10 games — AMD just had a few extra bells and whistles that Nvidia lacked. This is an analogous situation. DirectX Raytracing 1.1 and variable rate shading are the biggest new features in DX12U.

As for Notepad, Microsoft had to publish a separate document to list all of the improvements. One massive improvement? Wrap around Find/Replace. Text zooming is also now available, and line and column numbers now display when Word Wrap is enabled. You’ve also got the option to send feedback about Notepad directly from Notepad, which seems like kind of a nice thing to do given that Microsoft just updated an application nobody was sure it remembered existed.

These aren’t all the changes in Windows 10 2004 — you can grab the IT professional-specific list here and a consumer-oriented version here — but it’s the major highlights. There aren’t a lot of attention-grabbing improvements, but there are a number of useful gains. The accessibility changes are particularly welcome, as is Microsoft’s overall focus on this area of Windows development.

If you want the Windows 10 2004 update, you’ll have to grab it via Windows Update for now. Microsoft has more details on its blog.

Now Read:

• Microsoft: We Were on ‘The Wrong Side of History’ With Open Source
• How Does Windows Use Multiple CPU Cores?
• May 2020 Windows 10 Update: Linux, Ray Tracing, Search Upgrades

Asteroid Impact That Killed Dinosaurs ‘Worst-Case’ Scenario: Scientists

Credit: NASA

We’ve known for several decades that the dinosaurs were most likely wiped out by a meteor impact, but ongoing research continues to discover new nuances to the overall situation. New data published in Nature Communications suggests that the dinosaur-killer hit at a steep and somewhat uncommon angle — and that the consequences for life on Earth were significant.

Most reports and discussions of Chicxulub assume that the asteroid struck at a 90-degree angle. While an easy simplification, this is likely untrue; only one in 15 meteor impacts is steeper than 75 degrees, and only 25 percent occur between 60 degrees and vertical, according to the paper. Furthermore, when an asteroid strikes at 90 degrees, three distinctive features — the mantle uplift center, peak ring center, and crater center — are all on top of one another. That’s not the case at Chicxulub. Instead, these features are staggered off-center, with the peak ring center and the mantle uplift center on opposite sides of the crater center. This indicates the impact angle was something other than 90 degrees.

Image by Nature

The crater center is the center of the area the asteroid or comet excavated, the peak ring center is the center of the inner ring of displaced rock that forms in this type of complex crater (as shown in Lowell crater below), and the point of maximum mantle uplift is the spot where the mantle rose highest under the crust in response to the impact. After a hit like the Chicxulub impactor, the Earth would have rung like a bell for days, seismologically speaking.

Lowell Crater, Mars, with peak ring visible. Image from NASA via Wikipedia

The researchers modeled a variety of impact angles and speeds to determine what the most likely criteria for the impactor were. What they found strongly suggests that the asteroid or comet approached at a 60-degree angle, based on the remains of the crater and how the debris was distributed. The images below show the trajectory of a 60-degree impact versus a 30-degree impact.

60 degree impact. Image by Nature.

30-degree impact. Image by Nature.

At low impact angles, the center of the mantle uplift and the center of the simulated peak ring are both shifted downrange. When the impact occurs at a high angle, the mantle uplift offsets uprange, while the peak impact ring offsets downrange. The degree of offset depends on the impact angle, and 60 degrees matches the offsets we see at Chicxulub.

The “worst-case scenario” comes into play because of what the asteroid hit. The rocks underneath the Chicxulub impact site were rich in hydrocarbons, sulfur, and CO2, in part thanks to huge organic deposits left over from living things. The 60-degree impact, according to the researchers, released 2-3x more sulfur and CO2 than a 90-degree impact would have, and 10x more than a very shallow (15-degree) impact would have.

In short, we may exist today because the dinosaurs didn’t just get hit by an asteroid — they got hit by an asteroid in the worst possible way. Had the asteroid arrived moments later, or at a slightly different angle, the last 66 million years of history on Planet Earth might have gone down a very different path.

Feature image credit: NASA

Now Read:

• We May Have Found Fossils From the Dinosaurs’ Last Moments on Earth
• Dinosaur-Killing Impact May Have Superheated Earth’s Atmosphere for 100,000 Years
• The Extinction Event That Wiped Out the Dinosaurs Almost Didn’t Happen

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Eufy Security Wi-Fi Video Doorbell +Wireless Chime ($99.99)

We’re living in dangerous times, but you can help to keep your home safe with a home video surveillance device like this one from Eufy. Eufy’s Wi-Fi Video Doorbell features an HD camera with a resolution of 2,560×1,920. It also has a built-in microphone and speaker, letting you chat with anyone that comes to your door even when you’re not home. For a limited time, you can get one of these devices with a free wireless chime from Amazon marked down from $135.99 to $99.99.

Netgear RAX15 AX1800 Wi-Fi Router ($99.99)

Engineered to utilize the new 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard, Netgear’s RAX15 Wi-Fi router can transmit data at a rate of 1.8Gbps over an area of up to 1,500 sq ft. It also has a built-in USB port for adding network resources such as a printer or USB storage. Currently Amazon is selling these routers marked down from $149.99 to $99.99.

Alienware AW988 Wireless Gaming Headset (159.99)

Alienware designed this headset so that it can be used wirelessly over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi or over a 3.5mm jack when the battery is low. The headset also has RGB LED lights built into the ear cuffs that give the headset some extra flare. Right now you can get one of these headsets from Dell marked down from $229.99 to $159.99.

Apple AirPods Pro ($227.99)

Apple’s new AirPods Pro utilizes a new design that’s different from the company’s older AirPod earphones. The key new feature that these earphones have is active noise cancellation. Each earphone also uses a custom driver and a high dynamic range amplifier to improve sound quality. You can snag them with a $22 discount from Amazon that drops the price from $249.99 to $227.99.

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• Need To Learn To Code? Learnable Can Get You There Without Breaking Your Brain Or Wallet