Month: September 2021

Hovercraft have been in use around the world by the military and civilians for fun many decades. All hovercraft are similar no matter who builds them in the technology they use that allows them to float on a cushion of air over any surface. A company called VonMercier has debuted what it calls a luxury hovercraft known as the Arosa.

The Arosa looks very much like a hypercar with a pair of big fans on the front resembling wheels and a two-seat cockpit. The cockpit has a tandem seating arrangement and what appears to be a digital dashboard. The powertrain for the Arosa is hybrid-electric.

It features a gas engine providing electricity for three electric motors controlling fans providing thrust and direction. The manufacturer says Arosa can operate on grass, gravel, tarmac, sand, water, and other surfaces.

The company is offering any performance specifications on the Arosa at this time. It will build 60 examples selling for $75,000 a piece.

It’s been 50 years since the patent for the airbag was filed. Now, the humble safety equipment has been turned into a fashion statement by Mercedes-Benz. The supplemental restraint devices can now be worn as jackets, bags, and what can only be described as a huge, puffy shower cap.

To create the clothing, Mercedes collaborated with Heron Preston, described as a fashion designer, sustainability advocate and DJ. Preston used recycled airbags to create the outfits, adding patterns and color that evoke automotive safety. Some of the pieces, for example, contain the red, orange, and black markings and text found on crash test cars and dummies, such as the circles divided into contrasting color quarters. Come to think of it, they look quite similar to the logo of another German automaker.

The airbag was patented in October 1971. Mercedes claims to be the first car company to employ the safety device 10 years later, with the 1981 S-Class. Indeed, some of the photos in the fashion shoot by Thibaut Grevet include a W126 500 SEL safety car painted in contrasting silvers, blacks, and oranges. A new S-Class painted in a similar color scheme is posed next to it as well.

As for the clothes themselves, we’re clearly not the target demo. While we can see the usefulness and conversation-piece factor in an airbag bag, for instance, we’re clearly not cool enough to pull off an inflated hoodie that makes you look like you’re about to clear a contaminated site of radiation, or a junior officer aboard the Spaceball One. If you can, though, these one-off pieces will be available on internet hypebeast trading post Goat starting September 10. Before that happens, though, they’ll be shown Sept. 6-8 at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Berlin.

As the Perseverance rover drilled into a rock on Wednesday to collect a sample from Jezero Crater on Mars, Justin Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, felt both nervous and excited. He has the honor of serving as the “sample shepherd,” leading the effort from millions of miles away, but the pressure’s on. “These samples not only will allow us to understand the geology of the crater, but also minerals likely related to the history of water there,” he said yesterday.

But first, the rover had to actually capture a chunk of rock in a test tube-sized container. An initial attempt in early August had come up empty. That first rock, nicknamed “Roubion,” simply crumbled to dust as the drill bored into it, and none of those bits made it into the container.

Simon can now breathe a sigh of relief. Perseverance’s second try, with a different rock, appears to have successfully extracted a Martian core slightly thicker than a pencil.

“We got that image of just a spectacular-looking core, a fantastic-looking cylinder, broken off cleanly. It looks geologically very interesting, something scientists of the future will enjoy working on,” says Ken Farley, a Caltech geochemist and project scientist of the Perseverance mission, which is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

But the analysis of the new sample is going to take a while, because NASA scientists haven’t been able to get clear photographs due to low lighting conditions, which makes the images tough to interpret. To add more drama for the scientists, when Perseverance did a “percuss-to-ingest” procedure—shaking the sample to make sure the tube’s not overfilled, which would make the system jam when it’s stored—one image appeared to show an empty sample tube. (They’re pretty sure they got the sample, but they’re going to try taking more images in better light over the next couple days.)

Perseverance’s first drill attempt, which essentially pulverized the sample, wasn’t a complete failure, as it yielded evidence suggesting the rock had been weathered, worn down by a river flowing into the lake crater billions of years ago. “It always had been possible that this lake was a transient event, like maybe a comet, rich in water, hit Mars and made lakes, and then it boiled away or froze within tens of years. But that would not produce the weathering we see,” said Farley in an interview earlier this week.

Since that rock was too powdery, the scientists then piloted the rover to a new area, looking for a different kind of rock to sample, using the Ingenuity copter to scout ahead. Perseverance trundled slightly to the west, where on a ridgeline the researchers found a larger, boulder-like rock, which they nicknamed “Rochette,” and which seemed less likely to disintegrate when the rover deployed its tools on it. “It looks like a rock that, if you could throw it, would clank down on the ground. A good, healthy rock,” Farley said.

Before each sampling attempt, Perseverance performs reconnaissance by snapping a bunch of photos of a candidate rock. Last weekend, it also performed an abrasion test to see if Rochette was durable enough to sample. The rover is equipped with a rotary percussive drill (with extra drill bits) that both spins and hammers into the rock. This tool helps clear away dust and chip through the weathered outer layer. The abrasion was spectacularly successful, according to Farley, so the scientists decided to go ahead with grabbing a sample. Perseverance extended its 7-foot-long robotic arm, fired up the drill, and carefully extracted a core sample. Then it rotated the arm’s “hand” so that the sample tube could be inspected.

On the Friday heading into Memorial Day weekend this year, it was meat processing giant JBS. On the Friday before the Fourth of July, it was an IT management software company and, by extension, over a thousand businesses of varying size. It remains to be seen whether Labor Day will see a high-profile ransomware meltdown as well, but one thing is clear: Hackers love holidays.

Really, ransomware hackers love regular weekends, too. But a long one? When everyone’s off carousing with family and friends and studiously avoiding anything remotely office-related? That’s the good stuff. And while the trend isn’t new, a joint warning issued this week by the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency underscores how serious the threat has become.

The appeal to attackers is pretty straightforward. Ransomware can take time to propagate throughout a network, as hackers work to escalate privileges for maximum control over the most systems. The longer it takes for anyone to notice, the more damage they can do. “Generally speaking, the threat actors deploy their ransomware when there is less likelihood of people being around to start pulling plugs,” says Brett Callow, threat analyst at antivirus company Emsisoft. “The less chance of the attack being detected and interrupted.”

Even if it is caught relatively soon, many of the people in charge of dealing with it are potentially poolside, or at the very least harder to get ahold of than they would be on a normal Tuesday afternoon. “Intuitively, it makes sense that defenders may be less attentive during holidays, in large part because of decrease in staff,” says Katie Nickels, director of intelligence at security firm Red Canary. “If a major incident occurs during a holiday, it may be more difficult for defenders to bring in necessary personnel to respond quickly.”

It’s those major incidents that likely caught the FBI and CISA’s attention; in addition to the JBS and Kaseya incidents, the devastating Colonial Pipeline attack took place over Mother’s Day weekend. (Not a three-day weekend, but still timed for maximal inconvenience.) The agencies said they don’t have any “specific threat reporting” that a similar attack will take place over Labor Day weekend, but it shouldn’t come as any sort of surprise if one does.

It’s important to remember also that ransomware is a constant threat, and for every headline-grabbing gasoline shortage there are dozens of small businesses at any given time scrambling to send bitcoins to cybercriminals. Victims reported 2,474 ransomware incidents to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2020, a 20 percent increase over the previous year. Hacker demands tripled in that same timeframe, according to IC3 data. Those attacks weren’t all concentrated around three-day weekends and Hallmark holidays.

In fact, as CISA and the FBI acknowledge, weekends generally tend to be popular with crooks. Callow notes that submissions to ID Ransomware—a service created by security researcher Michael Gillespie that lets you upload ransom notes or encrypted files to figure out what exactly hit you—tend to spike on Mondays, when victims have returned to their offices to find their data encrypted.

Strategic timing on the part of hackers takes other forms, as well. Attacks against schools drop precipitously in the late spring and summer, Callow says, because there’s much less urgency associated with recovery then. When they stole $81 million from Bangladesh Bank, North Korea’s Lazarus Group timed the heist to take advantage not only of differences between Bangladeshi and US weekends—in the former, it’s Friday and Saturday—but also the Lunar New Year, a holiday throughout much of Asia.

New reports have claimed that Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles will be added to the Nintendo Switch Online library soon. The news first broke this week on the Nate the Hate podcast during a discussion on potential handheld games coming to the Switch as part of its online subscription offerings, which were then further corroborated by Nintendo Life and Eurogamer’s sources.

Switch Online currently has a library of over 80 NES games and 50 SNES games, with numbers varying depending on the region in which the service is available. Nintendo Switch Online launched in 2018, and September 2021 marks the third anniversary of the subscription service which began life by offering a small number of NES games originally.

In the years since then, NES and SNES games have slowly trickled out of Nintendo’s vault and onto the Switch. Back in 2019, a data mine discovered the existence of not only SNES games before they were officially announced but also the presence of other emulators that were hidden behind codenames such as Kachikachi and Canoe.

The last time Game Boy games were available on a Nintendo system was during the 3DS era through the virtual console, which allowed for dozens of Nintendo’s greatest handheld hits to find a second life on its dual-screen system.

Several Pokemon games, The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey King Land were just some of the games added to that library during the Nintendo 3DS’s run.

GameSpot has contacted Nintendo for further comment, and we’ll update the story when we receive a response.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Over at the PlayStation Blog today, Sony detailed the many different versions of Horizon Forbidden West now available for pre-order. Which version you order depends on several factors. Do you need PS4, PS5, or both? Do you want a physical disc? How about a $260 box with both versions, no disc, and a statue of a robot mammoth? You’d think they could make this a little less complicated.

Let’s start off with the most basic versions of the game. There are two different basic digital editions, one for the PlayStation 4 and one for the PlayStation 5. The PS4 version costs $60 and the PS5 is $70. If you purchase the PS4 versions there is no upgrade path to the PS5 version, or at least not yet.

The basic retail version of Horizon Forbidden West is called the Launch Edition. There is one for the PS4 and one for the PS5, $60 and $70 respectively. For $10 more there’s the Special Edition for the PS4 or PS5, which comes packaged in a steelbook with a mini art book and a voucher for the game’s digital pre-order bonuses.

Note that the six different editions we’ve gone over so far are platform-specific. And you can play the PS4 version of Horizon Forbidden West on the PS5 via backward compatibility, but not the other way around.

Buying both versions begins with the $80 Digital Deluxe version. It comes with both PS4 and PS5 games, as well as a bunch of digital goodies like a downloadable soundtrack and digital art book. I imagine this means that there might be a $20 upgrade from PS4 to PS5 somewhere down the line, but nothing’s been announced yet.

Now we get fancy. The $200 Collector’s Edition is the version you want if you need a giant mammoth statue. It comes packed with a steelbook case, the mini art book, and the aforementioned mammoth, plus a slew of digital goodies. The Collector’s Edition comes with vouchers for both PS4 and PS5 versions of the game, but no discs. Why is there a steelbook case if there is no disc? Who knows?

Finally we have the most expensive version of them all, the $260 Regalia Edition. It comes with not just a mammoth statue, but a mammoth statue that’s different from the other mammoth statue. There are also a couple of art cards, Sunwing and Clawstrider machine physical strike pieces, a canvas map, and a replica Focus (Aloy’s ear thing) with stand. The Regalia Edition of Horizon Forbidden West also includes digital downloads for both the PS4 and PS5, plus a steelbook for the disc that does not come with it.

Let’s review. To get a game disc you have to choose PS4 or PS5. If you want both versions digitally you have to either get the Digital Deluxe Edition or one of the two super-expensive versions. If you want both versions on disc, you’ll have to buy two copies. And if you absolutely need both versions of the robot mammoth statue, may God have mercy on your soul.

Firefly Aerospace plans to launch its first-ever orbital mission tonight (Sept. 2), and you can watch the action live.

Firefly’s 95-foot-tall (29 meters) Alpha rocket is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California this evening, during a four-hour launch window that opens at 9 p.m. EDT (6 p.m. local California time; 0100 GMT on Sept. 3). 

You’ll be able to watch the test flight live on this page and the Space.com homepage, courtesy of “Everyday Astronaut” Tim Dodd, who will webcast the launch and provide commentary on YouTube for Firefly Aerospace. You can also watch directly via the Everyday Astronaut YouTube channel.  

Video: Watch Firefly Aerospace use a rocket engine to light birthday candles

Texas-based Firefly aims to secure a large share of the small-satellite launch market with Alpha. The two-stage rocket is capable of lofting 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) of payload to low Earth orbit per  mission, each of which will cost customers a total of $15 million, according to Firefly’s specifications page. 

Tonight’s test flight will be the first orbital launch for Alpha and for Firefly, so success is far from guaranteed. The rocket is carrying a payload called DREAM (“Dedicated Research and Education Accelerator Mission”), which consists of mementoes submitted by schools and other educational institutions.

DREAM aims “to capture humanity’s dreams of the future of space and to inspire people around the globe to dream big and reach for the stars,” Firefly representatives said via Twitter on Tuesday (Aug. 31).

Tonight’s flight will also test components of Firefly’s forthcoming Space Utility Vehicle (SUV), SpaceNews reported last week. The SUV is a space tug designed to deliver payloads to a variety of orbits using efficient solar-electric propulsion.

Firefly is developing a number of other vehicles in addition to Alpha and the SUV. The company is working on a bigger rocket called Beta, for example, and intends to build a space plane known as Gamma as well. Firefly is also developing a robotic lunar lander called Blue Ghost, which is scheduled to deliver payloads to the moon’s surface for NASA in 2023.

Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

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