Month: September 2023

French regulators halted iPhone 12 sales on Tuesday over concerns that the devices emit levels of radiation over the legal limits. The government’s Agency of National Frequencies (ANFR) said it will send agents to Apple stores to ensure the devices aren’t being sold, and threatened to recall all iPhone 12s in circulation if the company doesn’t address the problem. Apple said its phones comply with international radiation guidelines.

Hours before Apple announced the iPhone 15 at its “Wonderlust” event, France’s radiation watchdog announced that iPhone 12s were temporarily withdrawn from the French market “due to non-compliance of these devices with European regulations.” The ANFR said tests found that the phone’s “specific absorption rate,” which measures the level of electromagnetic waves absorbed by the human body, was over limits set by the European Union.

EU standards set allowable radiation levels lower than standards in Asia and North America out of an abundance of caution, in the typical consumer-friendly European regulatory mode. Barrot told Le Parisien the EU standard “is ten times lower than the level of emissions which, according to scientific studies, can have consequences for users,” (translated from French).

The ANFR found the iPhone 12’s specific absorption rate exceeds the legal limit at a distance of five millimeters, a test set to replicate the radiation exposure when a phone is in your hand or pants pocket. At a distance you’d expect for a phone in a jacket pocket or a bag, radiation from the iPhone 12 is within legal limits.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but told Reuters that the iPhone 12 was certified as compliant with global radiation standards by multiple international bodies.

It seems the problem isn’t inherent to the design of the device. Jean-Noel Barrot, France’s junior minister for the digital economy, who oversees the ANFR, reportedly told Reuters that a software update could fix the problem. “Apple is expected to respond within two weeks,” Barrot said. “If they fail to do so, I am prepared to order a recall of all iPhones 12 in circulation. The rule is the same for everyone, including the digital giants.” Barrot said he expects the ANFR’s finding would cause a “snowball effect” of similar action from other countries in the EU.

Before you dunk your iPhone in concrete, understand that most electronic devices emit radiation. The word “radiation” often brings images of mushroom clouds to mind, but radiation is the just name for energy that travels through space, and it isn’t necessarily dangerous. Not all radiation is “ionizing” radiation, the kind that can melt your skin off or alter your DNA at high levels. The heat given off by a candle is a form of radiation, for example, and it’s safe at a distance of a few inches.

Cell phones communicate using microwaves, the same frequencies used by WiFi and the microwave in your kitchen, as the name implies. (That explains the interference that makes your voice sound like a robot on phone calls sometimes, or causes the WiFi cuts out in some houses when you heat up a Hot Pocket.)

There’s a conspiracy theory — and a small amount of evidence-based medical debate — that suggests the radiation emitted by cell phones is dangerous. However, the current medical consensus is that cell phones are safe.

Recent Forza games have been trailblazers for upping the ante when it comes to accessibility. 2021’s Forza Horizon 5 came with in-game sign language for cinematics, and a time-slowing option for those with slower reaction times. Incredible stuff. This October’s Forza Motorsport is aiming to push the boundaries even further, introducing a mode designed for blind players, called Blind Drive Assist.

Steve Saylor, a blind games player, has recently tested it out, and tweeted to describe how the suite of audio cues and customizations work.

The ensemble of aural guidance appears to combine the co-driver spoken guidance more familiar to rally driving games, in which upcoming turns are described, along with what essentially boils down to sophisticated sonar. A collection of bleeps, bloops and tones that tell a player where their car is on a track relative to its sides and turns, and when they need to brake or accelerate.

Saylor was able to play a specific track in the unreleased car-tuning racing game, and described his first attempt to use the audio cues as “a cacophony of sound.” Then, after meticulously adjusting the volume meters and tone levels of all the different sounds to suit him, Saylor said his racing considerably improved. In the video above, he explains how fixing these settings, and getting familiar with the cues, eventually saw him winning a race.

There’s often a lot of confusion about what “blind” means, with many assuming it’s a term for seeing nothing whatsoever. This isn’t the case; rather, it describes visual impairment, where sight is affected to a degree that vision is seriously altered. Steve Saylor describes this eloquently, with excellent visual explanations, in this video.

With audible indicators informing a player where they are on a track using stereo sound, alongside sonar-like feedback for how close they are to barriers, accompanied by cues for when to brake or accelerate, Forza Motorsport becomes an aural experience with visuals to support. Which is, to our knowledge, a first for racing gaming.

Other accessibility options include removing car collisions for single-player gaming and turning AI cars into ghosts, along with audio descriptions for cutscenes and extremely specific volume options for every aspect of the game’s sounds.

Forza Motorsport, the eighth game in this branch of the Forza franchise, comes from the same studio that has developed every entry, Turn 10 Studios. The studio worked with accessibility consultant Brandon Cole to develop the Blind Drive Assist mode, along with support from Saylor. It’s due out October 10, with four-day early access for those who pay for the eye-wateringly expensive Premium Edition.

10 years in the making, Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG Starfield has finally landed, and while the game is only sold on Xbox and PC, those aren’t the only platforms where the game is playable right now. Thanks in part to Xbox Game Pass, Starfield is actually available across a wide variety of devices, so you don’t even need a console–let alone a beefy PC–to play the ambitious spacefaring game. You will, however, need a controller of some type to play Starfield.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers automatically get access to cloud gaming, which opens up a host possibilities for where and how they can play Starfield. This is all part of Microsoft’s ambition to think beyond the console as it looks to the future.

One benefit of playing Starfield over the cloud is that there is no local download required, and players are always updated to the latest version of the game. The game does not run locally but on outside servers, so Starfield can be played on the phone you might have in your pocket right now. And it should boot up near instantly, again, without any local download required.

Something to keep in mind, though, is that a strong and consistent internet connection is necessary for cloud gaming to be at its best. Also worth considering is whether or not you have a data cap because streaming takes up a good amount of bandwidth. Streaming might also not be the optimal experience for Starfield in terms of imagine quality and latency, in case those are important factors for you.

Starfield was reportedly originally in development for PlayStation and might have been exclusive to Sony’s console like Bethesda’s Ghostwire: Tokyo and Deathloop were at launch. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said when Microsoft caught wind that Starfield could be exclusive to PlayStation, this drove him to pursue an acquisition of ZeniMax and Bethesda.

Play Starfield on your phone or tablet

Anyone with an Android or iOS phone can play Starfield via the cloud. Players need the Xbox Game Pass mobile app on Android, and from there, they can play anything in the Game Pass catalog that supports cloud gaming. Android users need to run OS 6.0 or newer, and iOS must be updated to 14.4. The iOS version, meanwhile, brings you to a browser to stream Starfield and other games.

iPads are supported, too, provided they are updated to version 14.4 or newer. Android tablets work as well, as long as they’re updated to 6.0.

Play Starfield on your TV without an Xbox

Microsoft and Samsung have partnered up to allow Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to play Starfield through the Samsung Gaming Hub. This is supported on 2022 and 2023 Samsung TVs, as well as monitors and the Freestyle 2nd Gen portable projector.

2020 and 2021 Samsung TVs also support Starfield through the Xbox app. In fact, support for 2020 model Samsung TVs was just added today, September 6, for the launch of Starfield.

Samsung TVs support standard Xbox wireless controllers, as well as PlayStation’s DualSense and DualSense Edge gamepads. The Xbox Adaptive controller is supported as well, as is Amazon’s Luna controller, the Nvidia Shield controller, newer Logitech controllers, and many more. You can see a list of supported devices on Samsung’s website. Samsung also supports the Amazon Luna virtual controller, which is free to download.

Play Starfield on Steam Deck

Valve’s handheld device, the Steam Deck, supports Xbox cloud gaming, and that means it supports Starfield. It’s not the most intuitive to get started, however. You can read GameSpot’s in-depth, step-by-step guide for how to get Xbox Game Pass running on Steam Deck to play Starfield.

Play Starfield on PlayStation Portal?

Sony’s PlayStation Portal streaming device isn’t the the first device that comes to mind when you think about Starfield, but many are theorizing that Starfield might actually work on the device. The $200 device reportedly runs on a version of Android. While it might not be simple or straightforward–or even allowed in the terms of use–you can imagine modders might find a way to get Starfield running through the Game Pass app for Android. Again, nothing is confirmed here, but modders are known for simply… finding a way.

Now that Starfield is in the hands of players, people are making major discoveries, like how having sex every day is a good way to level up and how to print infinite money. It’s also been discovered that Starfield has really good potato physics. For more, check out GameSpot’s Starfield guides hub, and take a look at the gallery below to see Starfield’s best weapons and learn how to get them.

Hotfire testing of the new Ariane 6 rocket has been delayed due to problems with ground equipment. 

Test firing of the huge Ariane 6 rocket’s core stage did not take place as planned on Aug. 29 at Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, the European Space Agency announced via X (formerly known as Twitter) a day later. 

The cause was a technical issue affecting the control system that governs the rocket’s critical fluid operations, used for filling the launcher and the automated countdown. “Specialists are working on a solution. The next attempt is planned for 5 September 2023,” the ESA post read.

Related: See Europe’s powerful new Ariane 6 rocket on launch pad (photos)

The short hotfire test will see the rocket’s Vulcain 2.1 engine fire for a matter of seconds. A longer test firing is planned for Sept. 26, despite the delay, while the rocket’s upper stage will go through a third hot-firing test at the German aerospace agency DLR’s technical center in Lampoldshausen on Sept. 1, according to an Aug. 9 ESA statement.

Earlier this month the CEO of France-based company Arianespace confirmed that the inaugural launch of the new Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket will slip into 2024.

Ariane 6 was initially planned to begin flying in 2020 and replace the aging Ariane 5. That rocket has since retired, launching for the final time in July. This, coupled with the grounding of the Vega C rocket following a failure last year, means Europe is currently without independent access to space. 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

A new supersonic jet has completed further milestones on the runway toward its debut faster-than-sound flight. 

Aviation startup Boom Technology’s XB-1 demonstrator jet has moved from a hangar in Centennial, Colorado, to the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. At Mojave, the 71-foot-long (22 meters) carbon-composite jet has been undergoing extensive ground testing, the company said in a statement, including “taxi testing” this week. 

“The recent progress made toward XB-1’s first flight reflects the team’s collective efforts to build and safely fly the world’s first independently developed supersonic jet,” Boom Supersonic Founder and CEO Blake Scholl said in the statement.

The plane is designed to fly at Mach 2.2 — 2.2 times the speed of sound, or around 1,700 mph (2,700 kph). The first flight will occur over the Mojave desert in the same patch of airspace where, in October 1947, Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier  in the Bell X-1 experimental aircraft.

Related: NASA’s X-59 ‘quiet’ supersonic jet looks ready to fly in new photos

The XB-1 also recently took another important step toward its first flight, receiving an experimental airworthiness certificate from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after a detailed aircraft inspection.

Additionally, authorities have approved the use of airspace over the Mojave desert by XB-1, and Boom has letters of authorization to allow Chief Test Pilot Bill “Doc” Shoemaker and test pilot Tristan “Gepetto” Brandenburg to fly the supersonic jet during the test flight.

“It’s fitting that XB-1 is now progressing toward first flight at the Mojave Air and Space Port, home to more than 50 first flights and other significant aviation events,” Shoemaker said. “I’m looking forward to flying XB-1 here, building on the achievements of other talented engineers and pilots who inspire us every day to make supersonic travel mainstream.”

Both Boom test pilots have completed hundreds of hours in a simulator and a T-38 trainer jet to help them train for the flight.

According to Boom, the company brought together 60 years of airplane technology, including advancements in carbon fiber composites and advanced avionics, to create the carbon composite body and titanium fuselage of the XB-1.

The supersonic aircraft features a modified delta wing — a wing pairing in the form of a triangle, named for its resemblance to the uppercase Greek letter delta — that not only allows it to reach above Mach 2 but also enables safe takeoff and landing. Boom says that the XB-1 possesses three General Electric J85 engines that provide the jet with a combined thrust of up to 12,300 pounds.

Overtures toward commercial supersonic flight

The XB-1 represents a milestone in the development of Boom’s planned commercial airliner, called Overture, which Scholl said could soon make supersonic flight mainstream. 

Provided all goes well with XB-1 testing, Boom aims to roll out the Overture craft in 2026, with the first flight of the aircraft planned for no sooner than 2027. 

Overture will be a successor to the last commercial supersonic aircraft, the Concorde, which operated between 1969 and 2003. Concorde was grounded due to rising operating costs and falling ticket sales. That latter problem resulted primarily from two factors: the crash of Air France Flight 4590 in 2000, which killed all 109 passengers and crew as well as four people on the ground, and a general downturn in the aviation industry in late 2001 following the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Concorde’s last supersonic passenger flight was on Oct. 24, 2003, according to History.com, when it flew at twice the speed of sound between  John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Heathrow Airport in London carrying 100 passengers.

The 201-foot-long (61 m) long Overture will be capable of reaching a cruising speed of Mach 1.7, traveling over land 20% faster than current commercial aircraft and over water twice as fast as today’s fastest airliners. Overture will be capable of carrying between 64 and 80 passengers and will operate on 100% sustainable aviation fuel, Boom says.

According to the company, when operational, the plane should be able to travel between New York and Rome in just 4 hours and 45 minutes, a journey that currently takes around 8 hours, and between San Francisco and Seoul in just over 8 hours, instead of just over 12 hours.