Month: February 2022

Enlarge / The Windows Insider program’s new logo. (credit: Microsoft)

Windows 11 will be getting a significant new feature update sometime this month, and Microsoft is taking the opportunity to make some changes to its Windows Insider public beta program. The company outlined its plans in a blog post, along with a new logo (it looks like people but also hearts, neat).

Microsoft’s plans primarily impact the Dev channel, which will be “a place to incubate new ideas” but will more importantly be a place where Microsoft tests competing versions of features to see which one gets the best response. Some of the features might make it into the consumer version of Windows soon, some might make it eventually, and some may disappear never to be seen or heard from again.

For context, the Insider Preview program has three channels, each of which represents a different stage of Windows development. The Dev channel is updated frequently and previews not-always-stable, not-always-finished versions of new fixes and features, some of which are uncovered by external developers before Microsoft is ready to talk about them. The Beta channel is where near-final versions of features are tested before being tweaked for public release, and the Release Preview channel generally gets the exact same builds of Windows that are released to the general public a few days or weeks before everyone else.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

Apple has surprised iOS app developers by announcing a plan to charge 27 percent commissions on third-party payments—nearly as high as Apple’s standard in-app payment cut of 30 percent. While Apple is applying the 27 percent commission only to dating apps in the Netherlands in order to comply with a government order, critics worry that Apple will charge commissions in any country where it’s required to allow third-party payments unless such commissions are specifically forbidden.

In a new support document for developers, Apple said the 27 percent commission will apply even when a developer simply links to their own website. “To comply with an order from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), Apple allows developers distributing dating apps on the Netherlands App Store to choose to do one of the following: 1) continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system, 2) use a third-party payment system within the app, or 3) include an in-app link directing users to the developer’s website to complete a purchase,” the document’s introduction said.

Explaining that the 27 percent commission applies to options 2 and 3, the document said:

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

There’s a disconnect between when people want to use electricity and when solar tends to produce it. Most often, people use power during the evening or the early morning, when the Sun isn’t yet up.

“There is a mismatch between solar irradiation arriving on Earth and the time when you actually need the energy,” Carsten Streb, a researcher at Elm University, told Ars. “Typically, the energy demand—at least in Germany—is highest in the morning and the evening. Everyone switches on their appliances. But obviously, irradiation is strongest at mid-day.”

One option to handle this mismatch is to use solar power to produce hydrogen, which can then be used at a later time. But keeping the hydrogen around for later use can be a challenge. As Streb told Ars, “One of the big problems we’re seeing with hydrogen is the storage.”

Enlarge / Most people know they shouldn’t check their phones while driving, but it’s a hard habit to shake, particularly if you have a car fitted with an advanced driver assist that helps steer. (credit: Getty Images/miguelangelortega)

If you’re going to install an advanced driver assistance system to let the person behind the wheel go hands-free, then you really ought to include a camera-based driver-monitoring system.

That’s a key finding from a new study by the Automobile Association of America, which recently put a number of new cars to the test in order to find out whether monitoring systems are any good at preventing drivers from becoming disengaged. AAA also tested how easily those systems could be circumvented.

AAA tested four different cars fitted with an ADAS that qualified as “SAE level 2,” meaning that, when activated, the system would steer the car and maintain its speed (slowing if the car in front slows), with the human in the driver’s seat being required to provide situational awareness at all times. (Hence, the DMS to make sure that happens.)

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Training AIs remains very processor-intensive, in part because traditional processing architectures are poor matches for the sorts of neural networks that are widely used. This has led to the development of what has been termed neuromorphic computing hardware, which attempts to model the behavior of biological neurons in hardware.

But most neuromorphic hardware is implemented in silicon, which limits it to behaviors that are set at the hardware level. A group of US researchers is now reporting a type of non-silicon hardware that’s substantially more flexible. It works by controlling how much hydrogen is present in an alloy of nickel, with the precise amount of hydrogen switching a single device among four different behaviors, each of which is useful for performing neural-network operations.

Give it the gas

The material being used here is one of a class of compounds called perovskite nickelates. Perovskite is a general term for a specific arrangement of atoms in a crystalline structure; a wide variety of chemicals can form perovskites. In this case, the crystal is formed from a material that’s a mix of neodymium, nickel, and oxygen.

Enlarge / Google’s repair program shows how to disconnect the battery from a Chromebook. (credit: Google)

Hey kids! Want to help out your school and learn a bit about electronics repair at the same time? Google is launching a Chromebook repair program for schools. Chromebooks are wildly popular in schools due to their simple OS and easy management, but the hardware in any education environment really takes a beating. So why not learn to repair them yourself?

Google’s new repair site has a guide on setting up Chromebook repair facilities, recommending schools set up a dedicated space for repairs, a front desk for “customers” to drop off broken devices and describe issues, and a skill-tracker board for students.

Acer and Lenovo are the only two OEMs participating in the repair program, and Google has disassembly instructions up on the Chromebook repair site for select models. The repair guides are great, with tons of detailed pictures and drawings showing the location of every screw and cable and instructions for how to make a USB recovery stick. The guides also warn that you’ll be voiding your warranty if you attempt a repair, but you’re probably not doing self-repair if you still have a warranty.