Over the weekend, Elon Musk unveiled the first Starship prototype SpaceX has built. The company has set an ambitious test schedule for itself, with the vehicle possibly making a limited flight as early as November. The so-called Starship is actually the second stage of a two-stage rocket. The first stage is called Super Heavy. Combined, the two are known as BFR, or Big Falcon Rocket.
Image of the Mk 1 Starship engine, with three mounted Raptors. Credit: SpaceX
The 50-meter tall Starship, with its 9-meter payload fairing, is a significant step forward for SpaceX. Musk’s Starship is the vehicle he intends to use for Mars colonization and for pushing the boundaries of manned space exploration. Initial testing will be done with three Raptor engines, but the Starship vehicle is designed to mount up to six Raptors and may be tested with all of them depending on how the program evolves. The Mark 1 prototype unveiled over the weekend is not the only launch vehicle SpaceX is building; the Mk 2 prototype is already under construction in Florida.
Musk’s plans for Starship, if fully realized, would represent nothing less than a wholesale shift in how the human race approaches space travel. Starship is theoretically designed to hold up to 100 people, though Musk himself acknowledged that the life support systems required to support that many individuals in a trip to Mars do not yet exist. The rocket is designed to be reusable, and SpaceX wants to recover its prototype launch vehicles so it can conduct further testing on them over time, in order to better learn how to push the flight envelope and to improve the various landing and flight systems.
The prototype Starship. Image Credit: SpaceX
“This thing is going to take off, fly to 65,000 feet – about 20 km – and come back and land in about one to two months,” Musk said, in reference to the Mk 1 prototype. “So that giant thing, it’s gonna be pretty epic to see that thing take off and come back.”
The Starship has two steerable fins on its forward and aft sections, as well as four smaller fixed fins on the aft section, with two on each side. The tweet below contains an artist’s conception video of Starship taking off, with the first stage returning to Earth while the second stage approaches and docks with a Starship already in orbit. The maneuver is a demonstration of how fuel might be transferred between two craft; Musk has also drawn up plans for a Starship cargo vessel that would deliver fuel in this fashion. Refueling the Starship in space would allow the ship to fire its engines twice — once to reach orbit, and once to set its trajectory for Mars orbital injection (or whatever other location might be used).
Starship will be the most powerful rocket in history, capable of carrying humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond pic.twitter.com/LloN8AQdei
Starship will be lofted into orbit on the Super Heavy, which has up to 37 Raptor engines and an estimated payload capacity of 150,000 kg to LEO. This exceeds even the final expected Block 2 configuration of the Space Launch System (SLS), which is expected to be capable of 130,000 kg to LEO and won’t be ready until 2029. The first block version of the SLS should be ready to fly by late 2021. Starship may make its first test flight in November, with full testing in 2020.
While Starship is expected to fly in 2020, this doesn’t mean Elon Musk’s Mars colonization effort will be kicking off next year — substantial work remains to be done in designing life support systems, not to mention the research and development required to support colonization.
If you’re ready to do away with hard drives and switch to an all-SSD solution for your storage needs, then you may want to pick up one of Samsung’s 970 Evo 2TB SSDs. Not only does this drive offer a large storage capacity, but it also features a fast data transfer rate and a $200 discount.
Reading data at 3,500MB/s, this SSD hits the limits of what the M.2 interface is capable of when connected using PCI-E 3.0 lanes. With a total of 2TB of storage capacity, this drive removes the need to have a second drive to store files as it can hold more data than the average user typically needs. The drive was built using Samsung’s V-NAND 3-bit MLC NAND, which offers excellent performance. The drive is also rated to last for up to 1.5 million hours before failing. Right now you can get it from Amazon marked down from $599.99 to $399.99.
Dell upgraded this laptop with one of Intel’s new 10th generation Core i7-10510U processors that has four CPU cores clocked at up to 4.9GHz. The system also comes with a fast 512GB NVMe SSD storage device and a 1080p display. This model also comes loaded with a low-end Nvidia graphics processor, which will let you do a little low-end gaming after you’re finished with work. You can get it now from Dell marked down from $1,652.86 to $906.11.
AMD’s Ryzen 7 2700X comes with eight SMT enabled CPU cores with a max clock speed of 4.3GHz, which gives you exceptional performance for multitasking and running power-hungry applications. Currently, you can get it from Amazon marked down from $329.00 to $199.00.
LG’s high-end 27UL650-W display features a 3840×2160 IPS panel that supports 99 percent of the sRGB color spectrum. The monitor also comes with a versatile stand that allows the display to be used in portrait mode. You can pick one up from Amazon marked down from $549.99 to $379.99.
This helpful device is more than just a doorbell. It sends notifications to your Echo devices whenever the doorbell is rung, and it will allow you to see who is at your door and talk to them. This helps to keep you safe by making it easy to check who’s there. As a special deal, Amazon has bundled its Echo Show 5 with the Ring Video Doorbell Pro, which acts as a display for the camera. Right now it’s marked down from $338.99 to $249.00 from Amazon. Prime members can take advantage of an additional $50 discount that further drops the price down to $199.00.
Dell’s SE2419H doesn’t come with a robust feature set. In fact, it’s about as bland as a 24-inch 1080p IPS display can be. That said, it’s perfectly fine for essentially any task and it will work well for anyone that simply needs a new monitor or an extra one. It also happens to be an excellent deal at the moment, as it has been marked down from $169.99 to $109.99 at Walmart.
Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information.For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.
The 2020 Subaru Forester will likely not be the North American Car of the Year. (More probably the likes of the Audi e-Tron or Hyundai Palisade.) But for Subaru partisans who want safety, room for passengers and cargo, and rugged reliability, the Forester is the car of most every recent year. Even without 48-volt hybrid motors or active body control, the fifth-generation Forester brings a load of standard safety equipment that makes this the ideal small crossover/SUV for people who don’t a need a car to be their status symbol. It is fun to drive, feels safe in lousy weather (and is safe) thanks to the standard Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive system, and carries adults comfortably on long trips.
Even with a larger engine, acceleration is not the Forester’s strong point. Nor is trailer towing, and even with the $36K Forester Touring that is the top trim line, luxury is a relative term. On the flip side, most of the interior finishes on most of the trim lines are enhanced from earlier generations but don’t mind getting dirty. And they’re easy to clean up after that kayaking-and-camping weekend trip.
On the Road With the Forester
The newest Forester continues as a two-row, five-passenger compact SUV, roughly the same size as the top-selling Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V, and the best-in-class (our opinion) Mazda CX-5. It rides well and four adults are comfortable on long trips thanks to a relatively upright seating position. If you go off-road (not rock-climbing off-roading), you’ll appreciate the above-average ground clearance. Acceleration is easygoing, about 9 seconds 0-60 mph from the 2.5-liter four-cylinder, non-turbo, 182 hp engine (it replaced the last generation’s 2.0-liter turbo), but it pays off in highway mileage in the middle 30s. The continuously variable transmission has a Subaru Intelligent Drive (SI-DRIVE) knob on the console so you can choose between Intelligent for smoother acceleration and higher economy, and Sport (Sport Sharp on the Sport model).
Some other cars in its class are quieter on the highway. Even on the top trim line, the tires are reasonably tall, 60 or 55 series profile — more sidewall, less alloy-wheel than a, say, 50-series tire — and provide adequate pothole protection.
Forester multi-information display. Car icon lamps glow red when the car brakes.
The Forester has three displays: an 8.5- or 6.5-inch center stack display, a secondary display atop the center stack, and a multi-information display in the instrument panel that tries to cram a lot of information into a smallish space. Infotainment is easy to use if you skim that part of the manual. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto come standard. The audio systems have four, six, or with the Harman Kardon premium option, nine speakers.
Every Forester comes with a stereoscopic camera system called EyeSight that takes the place of radar-plus-single-camera systems on other cars. This EyeSight is significantly enhanced from the EyeSight system of the previous generation Forester that didn’t match radar-based systems for distance. EyeSight provides stop-and-go adaptive cruise control, lane centering assist (lane keep assist on 2019 Foresters), and forward collision warning/mitigation (emergency braking). Blind-spot detection is optional, not standard. The top-line Forester actively monitors driver distraction via the DriverFocus system that tracks what the driver is looking at, and if it’s not the road ahead, after a few seconds of inattention DriverFocus warns, then scolds. It may be that active monitoring — yes, what seems to be Big Brother technology — is what we need to reduce the number of accidents and fatal accidents that appear to have increased as texting and phone-gazing have gained popularity. There are currently no self-parking assists on the Forester.
Some of the switchgear and instrumentation takes getting used to, meaning it’s a bit different from what’s on other cars. I’ve been a fan, in the abstract, of putting more information on the multi-information display (MID), the one between the speedometer and tachometer. Why do you have to switch MID screens to see a digital speedometer, the odometer, the trip computer, and the outside temperature when it could be all on a single screen? The Forester MID packs in a lot of information and I found it almost too much information. It’s unclear if that was my initial reaction to the display, or whether a different presentation of the information or a larger MID would help. But it was nice to have the ability to place some information, such as EyeSight status, in the additional eyebrow display at the top of the center stack.
If you want massaging seats ventilated front seats, the latter of which are coming to mainstream SUVs such as the Mazda CX-5, they have not yet reached the Forester. Heated rears are on the Forester’s top trim line.
Front of the Subaru Forester Limited, one of two Foresters with leather trim, the only to offer Saddle Brown.
Subaru Forester Models
There are five trim lines or model variants. Every one includes Subaru EyeSight and LED headlamps. The fifth-generation Forester began with the 2019 model and the mostly modest changes for 2020 comprise an EyeSight upgrade (this one actually not so modest) that makes the lane-keep system self-centering, thus giving the car a measure of autonomous driving. Also for 2020, the tire pressure monitoring system tracks individual tire pressures, all trim lines get an LED license plate light, and there’s a rear-seat reminder so you don’t forget to take your kids out of the car at trip’s end. In acceleration, fuel economy, and driving/riding comfort, the 2019 and 2020 are the same: an excellent 26 mpg city, 33 mpg highway, 29 mpg combined on regular gas.
Forester Base ($25,505 including $1,010 freight). You’ll find the base model a little too modestly equipped and probably hard to find at the local dealer. The driver’s seat adjusts manually and neither front seat is heated, onboard telematics isn’t offered, the audio has just four speakers, and wheels are 17-inch steel. And you can’t get blind spot detection, even as an option. The only option is aluminum alloy wheels and roof rails. Bypass this model.
Forester Premium ($28,405). It gets alloy wheels standard along with many small touches such as a power not manual adjustable driver’s seat, power moonroof, heated front seats, a somewhat-reclining back seat, leather-wrapped steering wheel, keyless access, six audio speakers, telematics and a Wi-Fi hotspot, optional blind-spot detection, optional color screen for the MID, and the option of rear-seat USB jacks.
Forester Sport ($30,005). This is the sportiest trim line, Subaru says, and the seats have orange stitching accents. You get 18-inch wheels instead of 17s, fog lights using LED illumination, and a color MID. Sport and above have dual-function X-Mode that adds settings for snow, dirt, and mud.
Forester Limited ($32,105). Adaptive headlamps come standard, and this affords the trim line the highest IIHS safety rating. Leather upholstery is also available. While the price is more than the Sport, the fog lamps have been downgraded from LED to halogen. Go figure.
Forester Touring ($36,605). The $3,500 bump over the Limited, $10,100 over Forester Base, gets you Saddle Brown leather seating, 10-way driver / 8-way passenger power seats, and an all-weather package with heated rear as well as front seats. Most of all, it gets you (standard) the DriverFocus distraction mitigation system. And the fog lamps are back to LED illumination.
What you save on the car, you can put into a nicer house.
Should You Buy?
Subaru owners will happily talk your ear off about their cars. Word-of-mouth is part of Subaru’s success: JD Power’s first-ever US Automotive Brand Loyalty Study pegs Subaru No. 1 at 61.5 percent brand loyalty (buying the same brand again), ahead of Toyota (59.5 percent) and Honda (57.7 percent). (Interestingly, luxury buyers are more fickle. Top-ranked Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW are all in the mid- to high 40s.) Subaru loyalty has paid off in 93 months, almost eight years, of consecutive months of year-over-year sales gains. No other automaker has done that.
FWIW: The Forester rates near the very top of Consumer Reports’ rankings, receiving an overall score of 89 points, exceeded only by the Toyota Avalon (98, Avalon probably missing a perfect 10 on the Excitement segment), Subaru Ascent SUV (96) and Kia Telluride (90), and matched only by the BMW 2 Series and Lincoln Continental. It is the cheapest of the top half-dozen by $6,500 (Ascent)-$22,000 (Continental). One CR fave, the now-aged Tesla Model S, has slipped to 78.
The Forester’s strong points are ruggedness on the road and over the years (97 percent of Subarus sold in the last 10 years are still on the road, the company says), good interior space, good infotainment, an improved interior, standard all-wheel-drive, Eyesight being on every Forester sold, and high safety scores. Downsides are blind spot detection not being standard, so-so acceleration, the 1,500-pound towing capacity when some (a minority) of mainstream compacts tow up 3,500-4,000 pounds, and the sense that even with the top Touring trim, there ought to be one trim line beyond that really dazzles you with high-level cockpit furnishings. The only advantage to the 2020 Forester over the 2019 Forester is the higher-level lane-keeping feature.
The 2020 Subaru Outback: More of a raised wagon than an SUV, slightly larger with a V6, and $2K more expensive.
No matter what compact SUV you’re leaning toward, you should test-drive the Forester. Its main competition often is the sibling Subaru Outback. The two seem alike and have the same ground clearance. The Forester is a small SUV, while the Outback is a small station wagon wearing flood pants; that is, it’s raised more than the usual wagon. The Outback is slightly larger inside and out, has a V6 engine instead of the Forester’s four-cylinder, and costs about $2,000 more. Compared with the Subaru Crosstrek, the Crosstrek is cheaper, much shorter, has less passenger and cargo space, and is more hatchback than SUV.
Forester back seat (there is no third row) is quite comfortable for adults.
Outside the Subaru brand, the Honda CR-V most closely matches up to the Forester, including class-leading fuel economy. (Hybrid SUVs will be better.) Both have a lot of cargo space. Drivers will find the CR-V sportier and the infotainment system less pleasing because of the limited number of physical buttons and knobs (one total). The Honda Sensing safety system, equivalent to EyeSight, is not on the cheapest model. Like Forester, blind spot detection is optional. All-wheel-drive is optional. The Toyota RAV4, new as of the 2019 model, offers an affordable hybrid version that is barely $800 more than the equivalent gasoline model, drives smoothly on road, and AWD is optional (standard on the hybrid). Toyota added an off-road-focused Adventure model; like Forester Sport, it has bold upholstery stitching. The Toyota Safety Sense 2.0 suite is standard; blind-spot monitoring is optional on two entry trim lines, standard above that.
The current Nissan Rogue dates to the 2014 model year (with a 2017 refresh), has a great surround camera system (optional), so-so engine performance, and an aging infotainment system. But the interior is reasonably spacious, and driver assists comparable to Subaru’s come standard. The next-gen Rogue is a year away. Note the Rogue Sport is a subcompact. The Chevrolet Equinox is often aggressively priced, and when every SUV today is not bad, that’s a big factor. The next-generation, 2020 Ford Escape ships shortly and appears to be serious competition for other compact SUVs. Escape drivetrains include three- and four-cylinder turbos and a hybrid. Some models have a 12.3-inch digital instrument panel and if you change modes, the IP erupts to a vibrant or annoying (take your pick) animation.
The best compact SUV for most buyers is the Mazda CX-5, which represents half of Mazda’s US sales. The CX-5 is the sportiest on-road compact available and Mazda’s optional i-Activ intelligent all-wheel drive is at least a match for Subaru’s. Ground clearance, at 7.5 inches, is 1.2 inches less than the Forester’s and fuel economy isn’t as good. The rear cargo bay is less roomy than the Forester’s. The top trim lines, Touring and the turbocharged Signature ($38,000), are a class above the other mainstream SUVs, and reliability is rock solid based on recent Power and Consumer Reports ratings. If you’re doing a lot of driving on dirt roads, the Subaru is preferable but the Mazda will do okay. If you stick to paved roads and enjoy twisty back roads, or you want cabin treatments that compete against Audi for ten grand less, then go with Mazda.
A number of reviewers say the Forester Premium trim, one up from the entry model, has about all tech and safety gear you need. Maybe. It does integrate telematics when you get into an accident. But if you want max safety, especially if you have teens who text when they’re not supposed to, or you’re helping an aging parent buy, you want the top-line Forester Touring. DriverFocus is a powerful safety tool to reduce distracted driving, and the combination of brighter adaptive headlamps and LED fog lamps are only at the top. So if there’s a Forester flaw, it’s the lack of a midgrade trim like Sport, but instead of orange stitching and trim, it rolls every Subaru safety feature — DriverFocus, steerable headlamps, dual-function X-Mode — into a car that doesn’t also charge for leather upholstery, which you may not want, or navigation that you may need when you can connect your phone.
The bottom line on Subaru’s Forester is that if you buy it, you’ll probably love it.
Microsoft has invested heavily in AI and machine learning, but you wouldn’t know it from how little attention it gets compared with Google. Microsoft is using its machine learning technology to address something all long-term Windows users have experienced: faulty updates. Microsoft says that AI can help identify systems that will play nicely with updates, allowing the company to roll new versions out more quickly with fewer crashes.
It seems like we can’t get a single Windows update without hearing some stories of how it completely broke one type of system or another. You have to feel for Microsoft a little — the Windows ecosystem is maddeningly complex with uncountable hardware variants. Microsoft started using AI to evaluate computers with Windows 10, version 1803 (the April 2018 Update). It measured six PC health stats, assessed update outcomes, and loaded all the data into a machine learning algorithm. This tells Microsoft which computers are least likely to encounter problems with future updates.
By starting with the computers with the “best” update compatibility, Microsoft can push new features to most users in short order. With most OS rollouts, things move very slowly at first while companies remain vigilant for issues. PCs determined to have likely issues by the AI will get pushed down the update queue while Microsoft zeros in on the problems.
The ML models seem effective, even if Microsoft didn’t bother to label the Y-axis.
The first AI-powered employment was a success, with adoption rates higher than all previous Windows 10 updates. Microsoft expanded its original six PC metrics to a whopping 35 as of the Windows 1903 rollout (May 2019). The company claims this makes update targeting even more accurate. This does not guarantee perfect updates, though. Microsoft’s blog post glosses over 1809 update from late 2018. That rollout used AI technology, but you might recall the widespread file deletion bug that caused Microsoft to pause the release. AI might help determine compatibility, but it can’t account for unknown bugs like that.
Still, Microsoft is happy with the results from its machine learning deployments. According to the new blog post, systems chosen for updates by the algorithm have fewer than half as many system uninstalls, half as many kernel-mode crashes, and one-fifth as many post-update driver conflicts. Hopefully, you can look forward to fewer Windows update issues going forward, and you’ll have AI to thank.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is orbiting the Earth to search for alien worlds, but it spotted something much different recently. NASA says TESS observed a rare phenomenon known as a “tidal disruption event.” As TESS watched from a safe distance, a star spiraled toward a black hole before being torn to shreds.
TESS is a followup to the dearly departed Kepler Space Telescope. Whereas Kepler focused on small parts of the sky out to great distances, TESS aims to search for exoplanets across the entire sky out to a distance of about 300 light years. It uses the same transit method as Kepler for spotting exoplanets: when a planet passes in front of its host star, there’s a small dip in brightness. TESS watches for changes in brightness, and that’s how it spotted the tidal disruption event.
The data from TESS shows a distant object getting brighter over the course of several days in January 2019. A tidal disruption event like this occurs when a star passes too close to a black hole. It becomes trapped in the black hole’s gravity and spirals in toward the event horizon. In the process, the extreme gravity breaks the star apart into an elongated stream of gas. Some of the matter escapes into space, but most of it forms an accretion disk around the black hole and is eventually consumed.
TESS saw the first hint of the event now known as ASASSN-19bt on January 21st, 2019. It took place about 375 million light years away in a galaxy called 2MASX J07001137-6602251. The black hole is believed to be 6 million times as massive as the sun. Luckily, the break-up of the star was quite bright, and it happened in the satellite’s continuous viewing zone above the south pole.
TESS only transmits data to Earth every two weeks, and it needs to be processed at NASA’s Ames Research Center before anyone can evaluate it. So, no one knew TESS had seen ASASSN-19bt until March. The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) is a network of robotic telescopes designed to detect events like ASASSN-19bt. However, ASAS-SN didn’t see the event until a week after TESS. Astronomers were able to gather data from ASASSN-19bt with the ASAS-SN array as usual before they knew anything about TESS’s observation.
Having the data from TESS allows scientists to track how ASASSN-19bt behaved when it was still too dim for other instruments to see. The smooth increase in brightness detected by TESS also confirms this was a tidal disruption event and not another high-energy outbursts like a supernova. The TESS observational campaign is still ongoing, so there’s still time to spot some more tidal disruption events. We’re hoping for exoplanets, too.
Earlier this month, a box showed up at my door. Main Event Entertainment, a family entertainment company that operates businesses throughout the US providing various video and real-world games, including billiards, bowling, arcade titles, laser tag, and rock climbing, has recently added Beat Saber as a starring attraction for its facilities. The box contained an Oculus Quest preloaded with Beat Saber Arcade, the same version of the game that the company has rolled out in its entertainment centers.
Beat Saber, for those of you that haven’t played it, is a rhythm game. In it, you slash red and blue boxes that approach you at speed, in time to the music. There are a variety of ways to modify a song to increase or decrease the difficulty, a practice mode to run through a song at a slower (or faster) speed than normal, and a campaign mode for those who don’t want to run songs one by one.
I’ve had fun with Beat Saber when I’ve played it, but I’ve always used an Oculus Rift tied to a PC. The Oculus Quest is different from the Rift in several respects. It has four corner cameras for tracking your controller locations, so it isn’t tied to the cameras that the Rift uses. The headset is a little heavier (20.1 ounces versus 17), but it feels better to wear and is more balanced overall. Internally, games are rendered on a Snapdragon 835.
While the screen resolution is slightly higher than the Rift, at 1600×1440, I was afraid the overall experience might not be as good as on the Rift. I needn’t have worried. If I liked Beat Saber on the Rift, being able to play it on the Quest has been transformative. The device’s cameras will switch to displaying a view of the room around you if you step outside the Guardian area defined for play, which makes it much easier to move confidently with a bulky, view-obscuring camera strapped to your face.
I’ve made it clear in my various writing that I prefer PC-based VR, and I was a bit dismissive of Quest when it launched. I can’t speak to how the headset works in other titles beyond the Apollo Creed boxing demo and Beat Saber itself, but in my experience, this headset is phenomenal. I’ve had far more fun with it than I’ve had on the Rift, because I don’t have to contend with the bulk of the PC-connected cable. I’ve been using it for exercise on a regular basis. And while I’m no kind of Beat Saber god, I’ve definitely improved at the game during the few weeks I’ve played it. Even without headphones, the Quest’s audio is more than loud enough for a fulfilling experience.
I can’t speak to the experience of playing the game at a Main Event, because there isn’t one near me. From the images the company sent over, it looks like they use a setup with a fair bit of extra hardware:
Credit: Main Event.
Including a display for other people to see makes sense — watching someone wave their arms around in the air probably isn’t all that much fun otherwise — but there’s a substantial bit of stabilizing headgear at the top of the Oculus Quest and the controllers are clearly tethered to the rest of the hardware in some fashion. The experience looks different enough that I don’t want to assume they’re identical in that regard.
But as far as the base game is concerned? Definitely great. Beat Saber is the closest thing to a killer app for VR that I’ve seen yet, and while I wouldn’t recommend dropping $400 (the base price of the Oculus Quest) to play any single title, it’s worth checking out a Main Event if there’s one near you just to get a taste of what good VR gameplay can look like. The game is easy to pick up and play and the cost of a visit to ME is smaller than the Quest itself.
I’m glad to see companies adding VR options like this because it helps overcome a major problem with VR adoption. Like 3D before it, VR is difficult to demonstrate to people if they can’t put a headset on and see it for themselves. And few people are willing to drop $400 for a product if they haven’t spent time with it. This is eminently reasonable, but it creates a chicken-and-egg problem without an easy solution. Putting VR gear into entertainment venues makes sense as a means of exposing folks to it, and if you’ve been curious about the medium, Beat Saber is a genuinely great game.
(Image credit: Guillem Anglada-Escude—IEEC/Science-wave, using SpaceEngine.org (CC BY 4.0))
One of the ongoing puzzles in astronomy is that very few solar systems that we’ve examined to date look anything like ours. It’s common, for example, for solar systems to have so-called Hot Jupiters, planets the size of Jupiter that circle their host stars at a closer distance than Mercury circles our own Sun. Many solar systems have planets that fall in-between the size of Earth and Neptune, while we have no such worlds. In other solar systems, Super-Earths — rocky planets — are often found much closer to the Sun, while our largest and farthest planets are all gas giants.
These differences imply that our own theories of planetary formation and evolution may need tweaking to account for how our solar system appears to be odd, for lack of a better way of putting it. As if to reinforce that argument, astronomers have found a planet that appears to be much too large for the star it’s orbiting. Their work, published in Science, raises questions about how a system like this could form in the first place.
GJ 3512 b is a gas giant orbiting a tiny red dwarf, GJ 3512. The planet itself is in an eccentric, 204-day orbit around its star, but spends most of its time closer to its parent than Mercury is to Sol. GJ 3512, however, can only manage ~0.2 percent of our Sun’s solar output. But a planet the size of GJ 3512 b isn’t supposed to exist.
“The discovery was surprising because theoretical formation models suggest that low-mass stars typically host small planets, similar to Earth or small Neptunes,” said astrophysicist Juan Carlos Morales of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia, who led the research. “In this case, we have found a gas giant planet similar to Jupiter around a very small star,” Morales said.
To put this in perspective, GJ 3512 is only about 250 times the mass of GJ 3512 b, whereas the Sun is more than 1,000 times the mass of Jupiter.
Credit: C. Bickel/Science
According to their measurements, GJ 3512 is only about 35 percent larger than Jupiter, while the planet, GJ 3512 b, is at least 46 percent the size of Jupiter. Thus, we have a Jupiter-sized planet circling a very small star, where Jupiter-sized planets are not expected to form. Furthermore, GJ 3512 b isn’t the only planet orbiting GJ 3512; there’s a GJ 3512 c signal in the data as well. The standard model of planetary formation, in which pebbles accrete together until a core of at least 5-15 Earth masses exists followed by a relatively quick growth to gas giant size, does not fit the known circumstances in this case.
In order to form a gas giant, there has to be enough gas in a protoplanetary disk in the first place. As a solar system forms, the amount of gas within it is continually reduced by the wind of the nascent star and by other planetesimals and planets, which pull material into their own orbits. Around red dwarfs, the accretion process is typically too slow for gas giants to form this way before gas is lost to surrounding space. Giant planets only have a limited window to form around their host stars, typically estimated at 3-10 million years.
There is, however, an alternate theory of planetary formation known as gravitational disk instability. According to this theory, clumps of dust and gas may have differential temperatures, with cold areas becoming denser over time until the gas cloud collapses into a planet. Unlike theories of core or pebble accretion, this process could theoretically occur extremely rapidly, within a matter of some thousands of years as opposed to over millions of years.
Up until now, core accretion has been the favored explanation for how planets form, but GJ 3512 b is enough of an oddball that scientists don’t think our standard models can explain it. It may be an example of a planet that formed via gravitational disk instability, evidence that our existing models don’t account for all necessary variables in the process, or both. Either way, we now know there’s at least one other oddball solar system out there — even if it’s still completely different than our own.
Top image credit: Guillem Anglada-Escude—IEEC/Science-wave, using SpaceEngine.org (CC BY 4.0))
In the world of action cameras, DJI has made a name for itself as a top-tier brand, and while its equipment usually comes at top-tier prices, you can grab their Osmo 4K HDR camera for just $299 today, $50 off the usual price.
Featuring front and rear displays, this adventure-ready action cam lets you effortlessly capture your best moments in stunning 4K quality.
You’ll be able to frame yourself quickly and easily in any setting or environment using a vivid front screen, while a back screen delivers a crystal-clear image of your captures.
This ultra-durable camera can also survive the elements—making it perfect for frequent adventurers who need to constantly brave the outdoors—and you’ll be able to capture the action shake-free thanks to a series of custom settings.
The DJI Osmo Action 4K HDR Camera usually retails for $349, but you can get your own today for just $299.
When AMD launched Epyc, it made it clear that the server CPU would face a slow and cautious ramp into market rather than a full-on sprint. Prior to the launch of its 7nm Epyc CPUs, AMD’s total server market share had edged upwards to ~3.4 percent. Now that 7nm hardware is in-market, there are reports that AMD is gaining market share more rapidly.
DigiTimes reports that AMD is pulling roughly 5 percent market share today and could blow past 10 percent by the end of 2020. This would represent a significant short-term share gain for the company. Prior to the launch of Epyc, AMD’s server market share had fallen to ~0 percent, with Intel estimated to have more than 99 percent of the market. It took AMD roughly two years to grow to 3.4 percent, but that made sense, given the slow pace of servers and the conservative nature of the space. Moving from 3.4 percent to 10 percent in 12-18 months would represent a much faster gain.
Data by Dean McCarron, Mercury Research. Chart by ExtremeTech
The chart above shows gains through Q2 of 2019. All eyes will be on AMD’s Q3 results this year. AMD had Navi and Ryzen chips in-market for almost the entire quarter and it launched its Epyc 7nm chips early in August, which means the company’s 7nm hardware has been available for the majority of the time. AMD wasn’t sure how strong console demand would be in Q3, which may limit our ability to see into server sales — the company combines Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom reporting into the same business segment.
Slide: AMD. Benchmark results based on SPECrate 2017_int_base.
Outside of unit sales, the past few weeks have been strong for AMD. The company has unveiled a new, HPC-focused Epyc 7H12, announced dozens of new world records in tests conducted by third parties, and been making a serious play for attention across the HPC and server markets. Even Intel has acknowledged in its quarterly calls that AMD is now competitive across a range of markets that Intel had dominated for most of the past decade. In my own opinion, AMD is doing well enough to call this the second “Golden Age” of the company.
AMD hitting 10 percent of the server market by the end of 2020 seems like a fairly reasonable goal given how well the company is executing on 7nm. The one fly in the ointment may be the overall health of the server market itself. The space boomed sharply in the back half of 2018 but sales have been slower in the first half of the year. AMD might take 10 percent of the market but wind up making significantly less money than it might have during a period of higher sales. Then again, when you’ve previously had 0 percent of a space, any sales are better than the alternative.
It’s not fair or accurate to say that companies “haven’t been” paying attention to Epyc. They have. In some cases, customers that are now publicly announcing AMD availability are companies that have likely been testing Epyc for years. Server and HPC customers install hardware for significant periods of time, and it’s not unheard of for compute clusters to be upgraded as new chips become available. Even when installations aren’t updated, it’s beneficial to companies to know that they’ll be able to count on the same CPU vendor to deliver improved parts year-on-year. This reduces the amount of validation work that has to be performed on an ongoing basis.
If you look at where AMD has historically had trouble, it’s been in the transition from one node to the next or when rolling out a major architecture update. The Zen 3 CPU core is a significant update on Zen 2 and moving to 7nm at TSMC was a significant shift from 12/14nm at GlobalFoundries. AMD has had some supply issues that required it to push back the introduction of a 16-core chip, but the company appears to be selling every chip it can make. We’ll find out more about what sales have looked like in about a month when AMD announces quarterly results.
LG’s UltraFine 24MD4KL-B is a rather unique display. Obviously it’s a monitor, but it doesn’t have any HDMI, DisplayPort, or DVI jacks. LG designed it specifically as a solution for users of Apple devices, and as such, it was designed to accept video over USB Type-C. Clearly, the LG UltraFine 24MD4KL-B fills a specific niche in the market, but unless you own an iPad or MacBook, you should probably steer clear.
Design and Features
In addition to the unusual video connection options, this display is also rather unique in that it features a 24-inch 4K Nano IPS panel. Most 4K monitors on the market today use larger panels with 24-inch monitors such as this one being quite rare. The small physical size of the screen has a negative impact on desktop real estate, but it does give the LG UltraFine 24MD4KL-B a pixel density of 186 pixels per inch, which is unusually high for a desktop monitor.
The monitor has a modern set of ports consisting of three USB Type-C and two Thunderbolt 3 ports that also use the Type-C connector. The decision to build this monitor with just USB Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 connections for video reflects the growing influence of these solutions on the market today, but it still feels like a mistake that LG didn’t add at least one HDMI or DisplayPort. It’s also worth noting here that the display’s stand supports height and tilt adjustments, and the display can be removed from the stand and mounted on a wall using a 100mm VESA bracket.
Continuing the trend of odd features is this display’s controls, or lack thereof. This display doesn’t have a power button or indeed any buttons at all. Instead, the display powers up automatically when a compatible device is connected to one of the Type-C ports. If you are using a Mac, you will be able to access the display’s internal settings to adjust the display’s brightness, color, and various other options. While you can use this display with a non-Mac computer, you will be unable to make changes to the monitor’s settings on a Windows or Linux based system right out of the box.
The LG UltraFine 24MD4KL-B reportedly also has excellent color accuracy and brightness. In PCMag’s review of this display, the monitor was tested with a Klein K10-A colorimeter and the SpectraCal CalMAN5 software. These tools showed the display to have a max brightness of 538 nits and a contrast ratio of 1,350:1, both of which exceed LG’s official rating. LG also reports this display ships factory-calibrated to cover 98 percent of the DCI-P3 color spectrum, but PCMag’s tests showed the display slightly underperformed here with just 97.5 percent of the DCI-P3 color space covered.
The reviewer at PCMag also noted that the monitor’s built-in pair of 5W speakers had reasonable volume and sound quality for a monitor.
Conclusion
LG’s UltraFine 24MD4KL-B retails for $699.95 and all things considered, it appears to be a well-made display, but only if you use a Mac. LG’s decision to not add a single HDMI or DisplayPort jack to this monitor feels poorly thought out as it would have allowed the monitor to work for countless other devices as well as for Apple’s iPads and MacBooks. The lack of access to the display’s settings on non-Mac systems also limits its use, with the end result being that this display simply shouldn’t be used with non-Apple products.
