Xbox One/PS4 Controller Support Coming To iPhone, Apple TV

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-oneps4-controller-support-coming-to-iphone-ap/1100-6467326/

Apple wrapped up its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) today with a bevy of announcements for both its hardware and software. Kicking the conference off was an unexpected surprise: PS4 and Xbox One controller support is headed to both iPhone (via iOS 13) and the Apple TV.

According to Apple’s official iOS 13 features preview, the upcoming software update–slated to launch this fall–will allow PS4 and Xbox One controllers to work on iPhones via Bluetooth compatibility. With Apple’s tvOS update–also slated to launch this fall–both controllers will work on the Apple TV as well. As a CNET report states, Apple hasn’t confirmed whether all controller features–such as rumble vibration and headphone functionality–will work once both products receive their respective updates.

The news comes not long after the California-based company unveiled its gaming streaming service, Apple Arcade. The monthly subscription service is expected to launch this fall, and while pricing remains undisclosed, Apple has confirmed that a lot of developers–including Konami, Sega, Sumo Digital, and more–are working on bringing games to the platform. Some titles include Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm, Team Sonic Racing, The Artful Escape, Where Cards Fall, and more.

In other WWDC news, iOS 13 will introduce the highly-requested dark mode feature to the entire platform. The iPad is getting its own software titled iPadOS and will implement new features like a column view for better multitasking. A dedicated app store is heading to the Apple Watch which will make downloads much easier and more streamlined. Apple also brought back the Mac Pro with 28 cores, a six-channel memory system, eight PCI expansion slots, and more.

The Apple TV got a 4K overhaul in September 2017 and is currently available for $179. CNET called the device an answer for those who have a 4K HDR TV and lots of iTunes purchases.

via GameSpot’s PC Reviews http://bit.ly/2mVXxXH

June 3, 2019 at 04:05PM

Xiaomi Shows Off Its Under-Display Front Camera

https://www.droid-life.com/2019/06/03/xiaomi-under-display-camera/

Xiaomi took to Twitter this week to show off its upcoming under-display selfie camera tech, which is looking pretty good. Once this becomes mainstream, we can say goodbye to notches, cutouts, and mechanized pop-ups. Those will be good times.

When the display is off, you can clearly see a darker circle in the screen, which is obviously the camera. However, when the display is on, it’s not noticeable in the below video. The user in the video opens up the camera app, switches to selfie mode, then shows off that it works.

This is what we all want, right?

via Droid Life: A Droid Community Blog http://bit.ly/2dLq79c

June 3, 2019 at 12:12PM

Comets Are Teaching Us How to Make Breathable Oxygen in Space

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=34854

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft saw material and gases – including oxygen – erupt off the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)
Space is an inhospitable place. For now, when humans go out in space capsules and stations, they need to bring their own air and water — and do without gravity — during their stay. In the future, if humans want to stay in space long-term (and they do), they’ll need t

via Discover Main Feed http://bit.ly/1dqgCKa

June 3, 2019 at 12:14PM

China’s First Mars Spacecraft Undergoing Integration for 2020 Launch

https://www.space.com/chinas-first-mars-spacecraft-for-2020-launch.html

HELSINKI — China remains on schedule to ready its first independent mission to Mars in time for a short launch window in mid-2020, according to a leading space official.

Mars 2020 mission spacecraft is undergoing integration,” Wang Chi, director of the National Space Science Center (NSSC) in Beijing, told SpaceNews in a rare update on the mission.

Ambitiously, the mission consists of both an orbiter and a rover, with a total of 13 science payloads. The NSSC will be involved in integration of the instruments with the spacecraft.

Related: China On the Moon! A History of Chinese Lunar Missions in Pictures

The orbiter will be equipped with a high-resolution camera comparable to HiRise on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a medium-resolution camera, subsurface radar, minearology spectrometer, neutral and energetic particle analyzers and a magnetometer.

The 240-kilogram solar-powered rover, nearly twice the mass of China’s Yutu lunar rovers, will carry a ground-penetrating radar, multispectral camera, a Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy instrument and payloads for detecting the climate and magnetic environment.

Meanwhile, the Academy of Aerospace Propulsion Technology, an institute under main space contractor the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), this month completed testing of a variable thrust engine, capable of 7,500 Newtons of thrust, which will provide the majority of deceleration for the landing.

Two preliminary landing areas have been selected. The first is Chryse Planitia, close to the landing sites of NASA’s Viking 1 and Pathfinder, with the second covering Isidis Planitia and stretches to the western edge of the Elysium Mons region, between the landing sites of Curiosity and Viking 2.

Map indicating two preliminary landing areas for China's 2020 Mars rover presented at the sessions of COPUOS in Vienna, Austria in June 2018.

A map indicating two preliminary landing areas for China’s 2020 Mars rover presented at the sessions of COPUOS in Vienna, Austria in June 2018.

(Image: © CNSA)

Site selection has been driven by a range of factors including flight system engineering constraints and the challenges of entry, descent and landing (EDL) on the Red Planet, and the science goals of the mission.

China has landed two spacecraft, Chang’e-3 and Chang’e-4, on the moon, but the challenges for Mars are greater and more varied. The presence of a thin atmosphere poses dangers to the spacecraft through aerothermal heating but does not provide great assistance for slowing or descending via parachute, while the remoteness of Mars means EDL process will be automated.

The spacecraft will employ blunt body aerodynamics, a supersonic parachute and powered descent for its landing attempt. Only NASA has succeeded in successfully landing and operating spacecraft on Mars, while Russia and European Space Agency have failed will multiple attempts.

A Long March 5, China’s most powerful launch vehicle, is required to launch the mission, though the heavy-lift rocket has not flown since a failure in 2017. A return to flight scheduled for mid-July appears to have slipped, as the rocket components have yet to be slipped to the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center.

A successful launch of the Long March 5 will be required for China to be ready for the Mars Hohmann transfer window in 2020, and missing this low-energy launch period would bring a wait of 26 months until the next mission launch opportunity.

Also launching missions to Mars during the launch window in July-August 2020 will be NASA, sending a 1,050-kilogram rover to Jezero crater, the ESA-Russia ExoMars 2020 lander and rover, and an orbiter from the United Arab Emirates.

India became the first Asian country to succeed with a mission to the Red Planet with the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft which entered orbit in 2014. China’s own first attempt, the Yinghuo-1 spacecraft which piggybacked on the Russian Phobos-Grunt sample return mission, was lost when its Zenit-2SB rocket failed to leave Earth orbit.

Chang’e-4 begins lunar day 6

China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft on the far side of the moon began a sixth lunar day of activities earlier this week, with the Yutu-2 rover awakening at 2:16 p.m. Eastern May 27, and the lander following at 6 a.m. May 28.

The Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration made the announcement May 28, stating that all eight science payloads would continue operation.

Despite a decrease in drive distances across lunar days, Wang Chi states that Yutu-2, “keeps roving and making observations as scheduled.”

yutu-2 looks back toward chang'e-4

China’s Yutu 2 moon rover looks back at its Chang’e 4 lander on the far side of the moon.

(Image: © CNSA)

Yutu-2 drove just 11.76 meters across day five, having covered 120 meters across the first two lunar days of operations.

A Chinese language space popularization blog stated following the end of lunar day five that sunlight reflected from the rover body onto the surface was causing issues with the obstacle detection systems, preventing roving.

Early results from the Visible and Near Infrared Spectrometer aboard Yutu-2 reported in Nature this month suggest the in-situ detection of materials originating from the lunar mantle in the regolith of Von Kármán crater.

via Space.com http://bit.ly/2WPkkGi

June 3, 2019 at 06:08AM

The world’s largest airplane may be grounded after a single flight

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1513361

  • The Stratolaunch aircraft took flight for the first and only time in April.

    Stratolaunch

  • The vehicle reached heights of up to 17,000 feet.

    Stratolaunch

  • It flew from Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

    Stratolaunch

  • But now, it seems like the airplane will never fly again.

    Stratolaunch

  • Stratolaunch is reported to be ceasing operations.

    Stratolaunch

  • So the vehicle will probably become the second coming of the Spruce Goose.

    Stratolaunch

The aerospace company founded by Paul Allen, Stratolaunch, is closing operations according to a report by Reuters that cited anonymous sources. The company will cease its efforts to challenge traditional aerospace companies in a new “space race,” four people familiar with the matter told the wire service.

In response to a query from Ars about potentially ending operations, a spokeswoman for the Seattle-based company replied, “We don’t have any news or announcements to share at this time. Stratolaunch remains operational.”

Questions about the future of Stratolaunch arose almost immediately after Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, died in October, 2018, at the age of 65. According to Reuters, the decision to set an exit strategy was made late last year by Allen’s sister, Jody Allen. In January, Stratolaunch abandoned efforts to build a series of rockets to be launched from its large carrier plane—an ominous sign.

This cast a pall over the plane’s first flight. With a 384-foot wingspan, this largest aircraft in the world took flight in April after eight years of development. “All of you have been very patient and very tolerant over the years waiting for us to get this big bird off the ground, and we finally did it,” Stratolaunch CEO Jean Floyd told reporters at the time. The company reported the airplane reached speeds of 189mph and heights of 17,000 feet during its 150-minute test flight before landing safely at the Mojave Air and Space Port. But it has not flown since.

Throughout the development of the large Stratolaunch airplane—Allen founded the company in 2011, spurred by childhood dreams of spaceflight and a desire to lower the cost of access to space—it has not been clear why such a large aircraft was needed to launch relatively small rockets. Stratolaunch had been contracted to launch the Pegasus rocket, developed by Northrop Grumman, which has a capacity of about 450kg to low-Earth orbit.

A competitor, Virgin Orbit, is much closer to market with its air launch system. The company uses a modified 747 aircraft named Cosmic Girl, and it’s expected to begin commercial service with its LauncherOne rocket later this year. This rocket has a capacity of about 500kg to low-Earth orbit.

It now seems as though the Stratolaunch aircraft may really be the second coming of the Spruce Goose aircraft.  This noted airplane, built in 1947 as a vanity project of the eccentric business magnate Howard Hughes, flew just a single one-mile flight at an altitude of less than 100 feet before going on display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in Oregon. It had a wingspan of 320 feet.

Listing image by Stratolaunch

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

May 31, 2019 at 05:08PM

Wireless nanowire lasers absorb infrared, emit blue light

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1513115

This article is about lasers (not necessarily the one pictured).
Enlarge /

This article is about lasers (not necessarily the one pictured).

Some of us are anxiously awaiting the photonics revolution, where photons will band together to overthrow the tyranny of electrons. One of the perpetual problems that’s slowing up the revolution is light sources: you need to have a laser that is coupled to a circuit that is going to do something. All of this has to be on a tiny scale that can compete with electronics. It shouldn’t consume much power either.

That’s a hard collection of hurdles to clear. But there is a loophole: a photonic circuit could have the sort of application that electronic devices don’t do very well.

Now, researchers have used that loophole as an excellent excuse to do a very cool experiment in powering lasers. The researchers showed how to power a laser with a laser—something that anyone with a modicum of laser physics knowledge can do. However, this is quite different: the powering laser changes the electronic structure of the medium to trick it into lasing.

Return of the band gap

Before we jump into the details, let’s take a quick trip down population inversion lane to visit the semiconductor laser. From our perspective, a semiconductor consists of electrons that are trapped in the valence band (where they cannot move) and electrons in the conduction band (where they can move). There’s an energy gap between the highest energy electron in the valence band and the lowest energy electron that can conduct.

For an electron to go from the valence band to the conduction band, it has to gain at least enough energy to cross the gap. For an electron to return from the conduction band to the valence band, it has to lose enough energy to cross the gap. It can make these transitions by absorbing or emitting a photon of light.

To get a semiconductor laser, electrons have to be excited from valence band to the conduction band so that they emit light as they lose energy and return to the valence band. On its own, this will get you a light emitting diode. To turn that into a laser, you have to achieve population inversion, which means that you have to have more electrons in the conduction band than in the valence band.

Once that is achieved, stimulated emission can take over. The presence of a light field drives the electrons in the conduction band to emit light of the same color and traveling in the same direction as the field.

Getting a semiconductor laser to go is really easy with a battery: you just supply current at the right voltage and you’re done. But you don’t have to use a battery. You can also supply light with photons at an energy greater than the gap. Let’s say that your semiconductor material will naturally emit red light as electrons cross the gap. If you pump in green light, the green photons will excite electrons. The overly-excited electrons will bounce around like toddlers mainlining sugar, losing energy as they go, until they hit the bottom of the conduction band. At this point, the electron will emit a photon and return to the valence band.

Put in sufficient green light, and you will get a red-light emitting laser.

Bending the band gap

Now, imagine that you have an entire stack of lasers that you can’t hook up to wires, so you want to power it with light. Your green laser is not going to work. The problem is  the top laser on the stack will absorb almost all the light. If you turn the power of the green laser up to force more light through, it is going to burn the top laser before it powers the next laser in the stack.

This is where the researchers’ new work comes in. Let’s return to our picture of a semiconductor. All the electrons are sitting at low energy, trapped in the valence band. Instead of directly absorbing energy, electrons can also tunnel through barriers to get to the conduction band. For this to work, the energy difference between the conduction band and the valence band needs to be reversed. This can be done by applying a very large electric field to the semiconductor. The field raises the energy of the valence band and drops the energy of the conduction band, allowing electrons to jump to the conduction band. 

The researchers apply that field using a very bright laser, which works because light has an electric field. When the light is turned on, the electrons can tunnel from what is now a high energy valence band to the low energy conduction band. After the laser is switched off, the conduction band energy increases, dragging the electrons with it.

Suddenly, the semiconductor finds itself with lots of electrons at high energy wanting to emit light. Hence, a laser is born.

Wireless lasers

The cool thing about this is that the color of the light used to drive the laser doesn’t matter much. The only conditions is that the photon energy should be much lower than the energy required to excite an electron to the conduction band. That means you can choose a color that suits the application (e.g., choosing light that is transparent to the material in which the photonic circuit is embedded). Mostly, you don’t have to worry about which color of light suits the semiconductor material.

It also works best on tiny lasers, like nanowires of Zinc Oxide (this is the material the researchers used). These are the types of lasers that are best suited to photonics applications that need to use inert materials—oxides are very unreactive—and need to be small. Finally, because the lasers only turn on when the light focuses on them, you can switch between different lasers by shifting the point of focus (admittedly, the lasers need to be spaced by quite a large distance in this case).

So, where will these be used? I’ve no idea at this point, and I don’t really care—I just love the physics. More seriously, it takes a very bright light to turn a laser on like this (think ~1TW/cm2), so the applications will certainly be niche.

Nano Letters, 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b00510  (About DOIs)

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

June 1, 2019 at 08:06AM

A tale of lost WW2 uranium cubes shows why Germany’s nuclear program failed

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1506075

This is one of the 664 uranium cubes from the failed nuclear reactor that German scientists tried to build in Haigerloch during World War II.
Enlarge /

This is one of the 664 uranium cubes from the failed nuclear reactor that German scientists tried to build in Haigerloch during World War II.

John T. Consoli/University of Maryland

When University of Maryland physicist Timothy Koeth received a mysterious heavy metal cube from a friend as a birthday gift several years ago, he instantly recognized it as one of the uranium cubes used by German scientists during World War II in their unsuccessful attempt to build a working nuclear reactor. Had there been any doubt, there was an accompanying note on a piece of paper wrapped around the cube: “Taken from Germany, from the nuclear reactor Hitler tried to build. Gift of Ninninger.”

Thus began Koeth’s six-year quest to track down the cube’s origins, as well as several other similar cubes that had somehow found their way across the Atlantic. Koeth and his partner in the quest, graduate student Miriam “Mimi” Hiebert, reported on their progress to date in the May issue of Physics Today. It’s quite the tale, replete with top-secret scientific intrigue, a secret Allied mission, and even black market dealers keen to hold the US hostage over uranium cubes in their possession. Small wonder Hollywood has expressed interest in adapting the story for the screen.

Until quite recently, Koeth ran the nuclear reactor program at UMD, which is how he met his co-author. Hiebert is completing a PhD in materials science and engineering, specializing in the study of historical materials in museum collections (glass in particular) and the methods used to preserve them, using the reactor facility for neutron imaging of a few samples. Koeth told her about his research into his cube’s origins, and she started collaborating with him as a side project.

A quest for cubes

So far they have tracked down ten cubes around the US. For instance, the Smithsonian Institute had a German uranium cube in storage. “We wound up in a warehouse that looked like the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, wooden crates from floor to ceiling,” said Koeth. “And in one of those crates there was another German cube.” There was also a piece of uranium from the original Chicago Pile-1—the first sustained nuclear chain reaction achieved by US physicists. They tracked a third cube to Harvard University, where it regularly gets passed around to students in introductory physics classes as a curiosity. (The cubes are only slightly radioactive and don’t pose a health concern, according to Koeth. Since uranium is so dense, “It winds up shielding itself,” he said. “The radiation you measure from it is only coming from the surface.”)

  • Alsos team dismantling “uranium machine” in cave at Haigerloch in April 1945. Uranium cubes are in the center, surrounded by graphite.

  • A replica of the failed B-VIII reactor on display at the Atomkeller Museum in Haigerloch, Germany.

  • Close-up of the uranium cubes strung together to form an “ominous chandelier.”

    Felix Koenig/Wikimedia Commons

Underpinning the Manhattan Project in the US was the fear that German scientists under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime would beat the Allies to a nuclear bomb. The Germans had a two-year head-start, but according to Koeth, “fierce competition over finite resources, bitter interpersonal rivalries, and ineffectual scientific management” resulted in significant delays in their progress toward achieving a sustained nuclear reaction. German nuclear scientists were separated into three isolated groups based in Berlin (B), Gottow (G), and Leipzig (L).

Renowned physicist Werner Heisenberg headed up the Berlin group, and as the Allied forces advanced in the winter of 1944, Heisenberg moved his team to a cave under a castle in a small town called Haigerloch—now the site of the Atomkeller Museum. That’s where the group built the B-VIII reactor. It resembled an “ominous chandelier,” per Koeth, because it was composed of 664 uranium cubes strung together with aircraft cable and then submerged in a tank of heavy water shielded by graphite to prevent radiation exposure.

As the German scientists were racing against time, Manhattan Project lead Lieutenant General Leslie Groves kicked off a covert mission dubbed “Alsos,” with the express purpose of gathering information and materials related to Germany’s scientific research. When the Allied forces closed in at last, Heisenberg took apart the B-VIII experiment and buried the uranium cubes in a field, ferreting away key documentation in a latrine. (Pity Samuel Goudsmit, the poor physicist who had to dig those out.) Heisenberg himself escaped by bicycle, carrying a few cubes in a backpack.

Koeth has been interested in physics in general, and nuclear physics in particular, since he was a young boy. “My parents will tell you they tried taking me to Toys R Us at age four and I just cried until we went to Radio Shack,” he said. When he was eight, an uncle gave him a copy of Richard Rhodes’ seminal history, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, and a nuclear physicist was born. So he knew a little about the history of the cubes, and his first question when he received one as a gift was, ‘What happened to the other cubes?”

UMD graduate student Miriam Hiebert and physicist Timothy Koeth with the uranium cube that started it all.
Enlarge /

UMD graduate student Miriam Hiebert and physicist Timothy Koeth with the uranium cube that started it all.

John T. Consoli/University of Maryland

He initially assumed all the uranium cubes would have been confiscated after the Nazi defeat and sent to the uranium processing facility at Oak Ridge in the US, to be used to fuel an atomic bomb. But a historian told him that by April 1945, the US had plenty of feedstock material and wouldn’t have needed the extra uranium. So he wondered if someone might have handed them out as souvenirs, perhaps to serve as paperweights.

There is no record of the cubes entering the US, but Koeth and Hiebert reasoned they might be able to determine if there was a common source for all the recipients of the cubes they’ve tracked so far—a “patient zero” responsible for distributing them. Koeth’s cube had come with that note as a clue. Now he just had to figure out who “Ninninger” had been.

It turned out the last name had an extra “N.” Koeth found a War Department memo dated February 24, 1945, stating that “Robert D. Nininger, Second Lieutenant, has been appointed Accountability Property Officer for the Murray Hill area.” That area was part of the feed materials network for the Manhattan Project. That meant he was in charge of all uranium for that part of the network, said Koeth. Nininger turned out to be a geologist by training and had even written a book on minerals for atomic energy.

As Heisenberg himself reported, the German scientists’ final experiment failed because the amount of uranium in the cubes was insufficient to trigger a sustained nuclear reaction. But Heisenberg was confident that “a slight increase in its size would have been sufficient to start off the process of energy production.” A model described in a 2009 paper bears that out, showing that the group would only have needed 50 percent more uranium cubes to get the design to work.

“If the Germans had pooled rather than divided their resources, they would have been significantly closer to creating a working reactor.”

During their quest, Koeth and Hiebert uncovered a box of declassified documents about German uranium in the National Archives and discovered there were about 400 other uranium cubes from a separate reactor experiment by the Gottow group. “The combined inventory would have been more than enough to have achieved criticality in the B-VIII reactor,” the authors concluded. So Germany’s secretive, isolationist approach actually hampered their nuclear program, because the two groups weren’t sharing information or resources. That said, it still might not have changed the course of the war in favor of the Axis powers, since the US Manhattan Project was fairly well advanced by then.

“Many contributing factors were likely involved in the resulting sequence of events,” the authors write. “Yet the revelation of the existence of the additional cubes makes it clear that if the Germans had pooled rather than divided their resources, they would have been significantly closer to creating a working reactor before the end of the war.”

For Koeth and Hiebert, the cubes “represent a bygone era in science” and supply crucial context to this vital period in physics history, along with other forgotten objects. “Perhaps most importantly, the story of the cubes is a lesson in scientific failure, albeit a failure worth celebrating,” they wrote.

DOI: Physics Today, 2019. 10.1063/PT.3.4202  (About DOIs).

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

June 3, 2019 at 06:56AM