Ars Technica

On May 2, 2008, the Chaitén volcano in Chile awoke with unexpected fury after more than 9,000 years of dormancy. The eruption blasted rocks and ash a dozen miles into the air, and then heavy rainfall swept the fallen debris up in immense mudflows.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

Earlier this month, startup Embodied announced that it is going out of business and taking its Moxie robot with it. The $800 robots, aimed at providing emotional support for kids ages 5 to 10, would soon be bricked, the company said, because they can’t perform their core features without the cloud.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

At their best, "remastered" video games keep terrific older titles viable on new generations of hardware and for new generations of fans. At their worst, they can feel like a cash-in.

In the hit virtual reality game Gorilla Tag, you swing your arms to pull your primate character around—clambering through virtual worlds, climbing up trees and, above all, trying to avoid an infectious mob of other gamers.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

Yesterday, US Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Joshua Hawley (R-MO) sent letters to the heads of Ford, General Motors, and Tesla, as well as the US heads of Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Stellantis, Subaru, Toyota, and Volkswagen, excoriating them over their opposition to the right-to-repair movement.

If you want to watch the next two FIFA Women’s World Cups in the US, you’ll need a Netflix subscription.
FIFA confirmed the news today, marking an unexpected change for the sports event, which has historically played on free-to-air broadcast channels.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

For months, popular fighting game YouTubers have been under attack. Even the seemingly most cautious among them have been duped by sophisticated phishing attacks that hack their accounts to push cryptocurrency scams by convincingly appearing to offer legitimate sponsorships from established brands.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

Home Assistant announced today the availability of the Voice Preview Edition, its own design of a living-room-friendly box to offer voice assistance with home automation. Having used it for a few weeks, it seems like a great start, at least for those comfortable with digging into the settings.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

When the Sun is blazing and the wind is blowing, Germany’s solar and wind power plants swing into high gear. For nine days in July 2023, renewables produced more than 70 percent of the electricity generated in the country; there are times when wind turbines even need to be turned off to avoid overloading the grid.

The AI-generated video scene has been hopping this year (or twirling wildly, as the case may be).