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- Perseverance Is About to Drill Its First Hole in Mars
NASA's $2.7 billion rover is set to attempt its first rock core sample in Jezero Crater within days, using the percussive drill on its 7-foot arm.
- Why You Still Can't Buy a Reasonably Priced GPU
Chip shortages and crypto-mining demand keep RTX 30-series and RX 6000-series cards selling for double or triple MSRP.
- Is GitHub Copilot Actually Going to Change How We Write Code?
GitHub's AI pair programmer is autocompleting whole functions in VS Code, and developers are split on what that means for the craft.
- The Month Space Got Weird (In a Good Way)
A look back at July 2021's dense run of space milestones, from Tiangong's first spacewalk to Ingenuity's new altitude record.
- PS5 and Xbox Restocks Are Still a Scalper Bot Free-for-All
Nine months after launch, PS5 and Xbox Series X restocks still vanish in minutes, and AMD says the underlying chip shortage will likely run into 2022.
- Meet the Borgs: Giant DNA Elements That Might Be Rewriting Microbial Genomes
Berkeley researchers describe huge extrachromosomal DNA structures in marshland microbes that appear to assimilate genes from their surroundings.
- Apple's $81.4B Quarter Shows the Chip Shortage Isn't Slowing Everyone Down
Apple posted a record fiscal Q3 with $81.4B in revenue, but warned supply constraints will bite harder next quarter.
- ZTE's Axon 30 Might Be the Truest 'Full Screen' Phone Yet
ZTE's new Axon 30 packs a second-gen under-display selfie camera, pushing the industry closer to a phone screen with zero interruptions.
- Webb Slips Again — Now Eyeing a December Launch
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has slid to a November-December launch window, the latest delay in a saga that's been going on for years.
- Kaseya Finally Gets Its Decryptor — Three Weeks Late
Kaseya says a "trusted third party" handed it a universal REvil decryption key, three weeks after the ransomware attack locked out roughly 1,000 businesses.
- Ingenuity Just Flew Higher and Smarter Than Ever on Mars
NASA's Mars helicopter hit a record 40-foot altitude on its 10th flight, hitting 10 waypoints while scouting the Raised Ridges region.
- DeepMind Just Gave Away 350,000 Protein Structures for Free
DeepMind and EMBL-EBI opened a public database of AlphaFold-predicted structures covering nearly half the human proteome.
- OnePlus Nord 2 5G: A Mid-Ranger With Real Ambition
OnePlus's new Nord 2 5G pairs a MediaTek Dimensity 1200-AI chip with a Hasselblad-tuned 50MP camera and 65W charging to take on Xiaomi and Samsung's A-series.
- A Judge Just Gave Facebook a Big Antitrust Win — With an Asterisk
Judge Boasberg dismissed the FTC's and 46 states' antitrust suits against Facebook, though the FTC gets another shot at an amended complaint.
- Jeff Bezos Just Flew to Space, and the Flight Had No Pilot
Blue Origin's NS-16 mission carried Bezos, his brother, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen past the Kármán line on a fully autonomous flight.
- GitHub Copilot Is Great at Autocomplete. Whose Code Is It Actually Using?
Weeks into Copilot's preview, developers are asking hard questions about training an AI coder on public repos, including copyleft-licensed code.
- Under-Display Cameras Are (Almost) Here — Is the Notch Finally Dying?
ZTE's second-gen under-display camera on the upcoming Axon 30 hides the selfie camera with no cutout at all, and the pressure on Samsung and Apple is mounting.
- Starlink's Beta Is About to Get a Lot Bigger
SpaceX is nearing completion of its first satellite shell, setting up a major Starlink beta expansion later this year.
- RoseTTAFold Just Put Protein Folding on Your Gaming PC
The Baker Lab's RoseTTAFold predicts protein structure in minutes on consumer hardware, landing days after DeepMind's AlphaFold2 paper.
- The Smartwatch Wars Are About to Heat Up
Google and Samsung's Wear OS/Tizen merger and early Apple Watch Series 7 leaks are setting up a busy second half of 2021 for wrist wear.
- Windows 365 Wants to Turn Your Desktop Into a Browser Tab
Microsoft's new Cloud PC service streams a full Windows desktop to any device, and it's the clearest sign yet the OS is going remote.
- A New Look at M87's Black Hole — Now With Its Jet
The team behind the first black hole photo has published a new image showing M87*'s particle jet alongside its event horizon shadow.
- AMD's Ryzen 5000G APUs Might Be the Sanest GPU-Shortage Purchase You Can Make
AMD's Zen 3 Ryzen 5000G APUs land August 5 with respectable Vega graphics baked in, offering a real 1080p gaming option while discrete GPUs stay scarce and overpriced.
- Branson Beat Bezos to the Edge of Space, and the Billionaire Space Race Is Officially On
Richard Branson flew aboard VSS Unity to 86 km, edging out Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin flight by nine days.
- Python 3.10 Beta 4 Closes the Book on New Features
Python 3.10.0 beta 4 arrived July 10, marking the last beta before feature freeze and the road to October's final release.
- Where Does Space Actually Begin? Depends Who You Ask
The Kármán line sits at 100 km, but the US has long used 50 miles for astronaut wings — and that gap is suddenly very relevant.
- OnePlus Locks In July 22 for the Nord 2 5G
OnePlus confirms a July 22 unveiling for the Nord 2 5G, with early teasers pointing to a Dimensity 1200 chip and Hasselblad-tuned cameras — but no US launch.
- Four Months In: Perseverance and Ingenuity Are Still Going Strong
A check-in on NASA's Mars 2020 mission as Perseverance eyes its first rock-coring attempt and Ingenuity keeps flying well past its planned lifespan.
- Nintendo's New Switch Has a Screen Upgrade, Not a Power Upgrade
Nintendo unveiled the Switch OLED Model with a bigger 7-inch screen, 64GB storage, and a LAN-equipped dock, launching October 8 for $349.99.
- Bezos Hands Amazon to Jassy, Right on the Anniversary
Jeff Bezos officially stepped down as Amazon CEO today, handing the reins to longtime AWS chief Andy Jassy on the company's 27th anniversary.