Solar panels have a love-hate relationship with nature.They need to be placed in exposed locations that get a lot of sunlight, but cloudy weather obviously reduces their production. Less obviously, more extreme weather—from snowstorms to hurricanes—can damage or even break solar hardware altogether. New research performed by Sandia National Laboratories and published in Applied Energy showcases how weather events can reduce the amount of energy produced by the United States’ solar farms.
To study this relationship, the researchers deployed a machine-learning algorithm on large sets of data from private solar farms. “This was a huge, collaborative effort,” Thushara Gunda, one of the paper’s authors and a researcher with Sandia, told Ars. Going forward, Gunda wants to expand this research to look into other extreme weather events and renewables such as wind, geothermal, and marine energy. Her team is in the early stages of this work, she said.
The team hopes that this research could be used to inform decisions about solar operations in the future. This is particularly true as climate change increases the frequency of extreme weather events, potentially causing more issues that impact solar production. “We do recognize that with the shift to renewable energy, there is an increased dependence on local environmental conditions,” Gunda said.
Tox is a peer-to-peer instant-messaging and video-calling protocol that offers end-to-end encryption. The stated goal of the project is to provide secure yet easily accessible communication.
Today Apple held its fall 2021 iPhone launch event, and we’ve gotten 4 new iPhones from the new iPhone 13 series: the iPhone 13 mini, the iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max.
At a wildlife park in eastern India, tigers feature a variety of coat fashions. Most notably, some of the cats have very thick black stripes. Now, a team of geneticists in India and the United States have identified a genetic mutation in the tiger troupe that explains why some of them are so dark.
Activision Blizzard is facing still more legal action over its labor practices. As Game Developerreports, Activision Blizzard workers and the Communication Workers of America have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the game developer of using coercion (such as threats) and interrogation. While the filing doesn’t detail the behavior, the employee group ABetterABK claimed Activision Blizzard tried to intimidate staff talking about forced arbitration for disputes.
Companies sometimes include employment clauses requiring arbitration in place of lawsuits. The approach typically favors businesses as arbitrations are often quicker than lawsuits, deny access to class actions and, most importantly, keep matters private. Work disputes are less likely to reach the public eye and prompt systemic change. Tech firms like Microsoft have ended arbitration for sexual harassment claims precisely to make sure those disputes are transparent and prevent harassers from going unchecked.
It’s not clear how Activision Blizzard intends to respond. We’ve asked the company about the complaint. The NLRB has yet to say if it will take up the case.
The gaming giant has taken some action in response to California’s sexual harassment lawsuit, dismissing three senior designers and a Blizzard president after they were referenced in the case. It has so far been reluctant to discuss structural changes, though. The NLRB complaint might intensify the pressure for reform, and certainly won’t help Activision Blizzard’s image.
If the NLRB rules in our favor, the ruling will be retroactive and we will set a precedent that no worker in the US can be intimidated out of talking about forced arbitration.
Officials with the Washington State Department of Agriculture have eradicated their second Asian giant hornet nest of the year, but a third nest was spotted nearby. Which, uh oh.
Halloween season is approaching, and as the days get shorter, our thoughts inevitably turn to all things spooky. With that in mind, io9 knew we wanted to speak with Marc Hartzman, author of the brand-new nonfiction release Chasing Ghosts: A Tour of Our Fascination With Spirits and the Supernatural.
We all know the feeling: We’ve blazed through a productive morning, banged out a few important items on our to-do list, enjoyed the benefits of some post-lunchtime energy—and then boom. Sometime around three o’clock we begin to move with the speed and mental acuity of a tranquilized hippopotamus. Drooping eyelids,…
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: The latest version of Radeon Software adds an unusual (and welcome) new twist: The ability to automatically overclock your Ryzen processor if you’re rocking an all-AMD gaming desktop. Yes, your GPU software can speed up your CPU now, too — and it can do it all with a single click. […] The addition of Ryzen auto-overclocking in Radeon Software 21.9.1 continues the theme, and might just allow you to ditch AMD’s separate Ryzen Master tool if you’re running a Team Red graphics card. They’ll need to be newer hardware, though, as the feature currently only supports AMD’s latest Ryzen 5000 CPUs and Radeon RX 6000 GPUs.
AMD’s blog describes how to use the new tool: “To access this easy-to-use feature, open up Radeon Software using the hotkey ‘ALT’ + ‘R’, navigate to the ‘Performance’ tab found at the top of the window, and select ‘Tuning’ in the sub tab directly below it. If you have the latest generation of AMD Ryzen and Radeon product installed on your system, a ‘Tuning Control’ section should appear for your system, allowing you to select ‘Auto Overclock’ to increase performance on both your processor and graphics card. We also have a new tuning section for CPUs, allowing you to overclock just your CPU. When the feature is selected, the system will ask for a restart and once you are back in Windows, you will be good to go!” “Radeon Software 21.9.1 also adds official Windows 11 support and the ability for Radeon RX 5000-series GPUs to tap into Smart Access Memory,” adds PCWorld. “AMD also took the time to tout FidelityFX Super Resolution’s rapid uptake. The DLSS rival is now supported in 27 games, with Arkane’s awesome-looking Deathloop set to launch this week with native FSR support in place.”
The iPhone 13 family isn’t the only big news from Apple today; the company also announced the Apple Watch Series 7. The Apple Watch family has been around since Spring 2015 and has maintained the same overall design ever since. Sure, the displays have become a smidge larger, and the bezels have shrunk slightly over the years, but the same
Another Apple event, and another set of Pro-styled phones to tempt you, now with Super Retina XDR screens and Pro Motion. But the company doesn’t command the larger-display market, facing off against Android stalwarts like the Galaxy S21 Ultra and OnePlus 9 Pro. Below you’ll find the specs of these four phones all lined up for your perusal, though to get a full review you’ll need check back here at Engadget later this fall.
For younger millennials or Gen-Zers who want to live on their own for the first time, it’s not always easy to figure how much money you’ll need to live comfortably. There are all sorts of expenses to consider, and they often vary based on where you want to live. Fortunately, a new tool calculates these costs and…
After installing a Linux distro into a VirtualBox virtual machine, you may be wondering how to share files between the host operating syste and the virtual machine itself. One of the easiest and most convenient ways to provide this function is by setting up a VirtualBox shared folder.
Despite what the Marvel Cinematic Universe had previously made us believe, the Disney+ animated show What If? made it clear Steve Rogers wasn’t the only person who could become a hero with that mythic super serum. In an alternate timeline, it was Peggy Carter, not Rogers, that took the serum and became not Captain…
Apple kicked off its hardware event today by revealing two updated iPads that improve upon existing models. The base, 10.2-inch iPad may look the same as the previous version, but it packs better performance and a more advanced camera. The new iPad mini, on the other hand, has been completely redesigned to look like a smaller iPad Pro. Here’s how you can pre-order both the new 10.2-inch iPad and the new iPad mini.
10.2-inch iPad
Apple
The updated 10.2-inch iPad is available to pre-order today from Apple starting at $329 and will be widely available on September 24.
Similarly to last year, Apple focused on updating the internals of this iPad rather than its design. Inside is a A13 Bionic chipset with neural engine, which the company claims will provide 20 percent better performance than the previous tablet. The other major update is the new 12MP ultra wide, front-facing camera that supports Apple’s Center Stage feature. This allows the camera to automatically pan and zoom to keep you in focus during video calls even as you move around. Apple debuted this feature on the latest iPad Pros and now even those opting for the most budget-friendly iPad can get that advanced feature.
The base iPad still has 10.2-inch Retina display but it now supports TrueTone, which will make it easier on the eyes. It still has a physical Home button on its bottom edge and it still supports the first-generation Apple Pencil for those that want to doodle and take notes with the tablet. Notably, the base configuration comes with double the storage than the previous model — 64GB instead of 32GB — which was a much-needed update.
iPad mini
Apple
The updated iPad mini is available to pre-order today from Apple starting at $499 and will be widely available on September 24.
Apple needed to give the iPad mini some love. The company’s smallest tablet received a minor update two years ago, and hadn’t received a big update for three years before that. So the 2021 iPad mini represents the biggest change for the compact tablet in roughly five years, and Apple essentially made it look like a tiny version of its iPad Pros. It has an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display that extends almost edge-to-edge, and that means the physical Home button is gone. Apple move its TouchID technology to the top button on this tablet, which makes it similar to the iPad Air. It also supports the second-generation Apple Pencil and the accessory can magnetically attach to the mini’s side, just as it does with the iPad Pros.
The new iPad mini also has the 12MP ultra wide, front-facing camera found on the base iPad, which means Center Stage calls will be available on this device, too. The rear camera is a new 12MP shooter with Focus Pixels, True Tone flash and the ability to take Smart HDR photos.
Inside the iPad mini is the A15 Bionic chip, which has a six-core CPU and a five-core GPU, and Apple promises 40 percent better performance out of this slab than the previous version. It also has the neural engine which makes for more efficient machine-learning experiences. It’ll come in WiFi and WiFi + Cellular versions and it now supports WiFi 6 and 5G connectivity. Another small yet important change is in the iPad mini’s charging method — gone is the old Lightning port, as it’s been replaced with a USB-C port for faster, more efficient charging.
By this time most kids have gone back to school and, here at Engadget, it’s time to get back to the phone grind. First up on the slate of fall announcements is Apple with the latest iteration of the iPhone, and this time around it’s got A15 Bionic and a bigger batter to tempt you to upgrade. But for dedicated Android users, are those enough to make the switch? We’ve squared off the specs of the iPhone 13 against Samsung’s Galaxy S20 and the OnePlus 9, though you’ll have to wait for our full review in a few weeks for the final verdict.
Apple has announced its all-new iPad Mini. It features a new enclosure with narrower bezels and rounded corners. From a report: The big news is that it’s larger than the iPad Mini 5 with an 8.3-inch display (up from its predecessor’s 7.9-inch panel), making the device even more viable as a driver for multitasking or schoolwork. Apple says the screen can reach 500 nits of brightness. The iPad Mini is currently Apple’s smallest tablet, even with the bump in size. Apple was rumored to have been considering a Mini LED display on the new iPad, similar to that of its largest iPad Pro. Those appear to have missed the mark; the new Mini sports a regular Liquid Retina display. The new iPad Mini is up for preorder today and will be available next week starting at $499.
You can safely assume that motherboard makers will not be caught flat-footed when Intel’s 12th Gen Core desktop processors based on Alder Lake arrive. There’s plenty of work that goes on behind the scenes between CPU and motherboard players. Especially so with Alder Lake, I imagine, given all the new technologies. So I tend to believe a recent
Tim Cook discusses the new iPhones at Apple’s event on September 14, 2021. (credit: Nathan Mattise)
The next major release of the operating system for iPhones, iOS 15, will arrive on September 20, Apple announced at its product event on Tuesday. iPadOS 15 will hit compatible tablets the same day, and watchOS 8 will be available for the Apple Watch.
iOS and iPadOS 15 bring several new features and design changes to the iPhone and iPad. iPadOS 15 lets widgets reside on the home screen instead of being relegated to their own dedicated screen. New multitasking controls make it easier to launch and control multiple concurrent apps. Notifications have been redesigned, and a new notification summary view attempts to show notifications that are most relevant at a given time.
The new features tie in closely with Focus, which gives you the ability to create profiles for work, family time, gaming, or other categories. You’ll see different apps and notifications in each Focus view, and your currently selected Focus is synced across devices.
