Author: easyfilo

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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.)

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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.

Enlarge (credit: Thanko)

In the world of displays, no one size or shape fits all. Over the past few years, we’ve seen more laptop screens play with aspect ratios that provide more vertical height than more traditional 16:9 screens. But when it comes to everlasting newsfeeds, endless social media feeds, and those captivatingly long articles, something like the 5:16 Thanko TL Portrait Display really stands tall.

Released today and spotted by Tom’s Hardware via Japanese site PC Watch, the monitor from Thanko, a gadget brand owned by Sanko, is a 0.7 lb (334 g) portable display. The 7.9-inch screen has 400×1280 resolution, for a high pixel density of 169.75 pixels per inch.

Keeping a watchful eye on Twitter. (credit: Thanko)

Still, it’s unclear what sort of image quality you can expect from this ultra-tall display. The product page doesn’t provide information on things like panel type, contrast ratio, or brightness.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Twitter, long known for its slow and careful evolution of its core product, the tweet, is rolling out a worldwide test that would allow users to downvote replies, a feature that could significantly change how the service works. 

The concept of downvoting posts and comments has been a staple of the Internet for decades, appearing on sites such as Slashdot, Reddit, and Ars Technica. The concept is simple—users who find issue with a post can vote it down.

“We learned a lot about the types of replies you don’t find relevant and we’re expanding this test—more of you on web and soon iOS and Android will have the option to use reply downvoting,” Twitter said in a tweet.

Enlarge / It’s-a me, the long arm of the law. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Nintendo / Getty Images)

Federal prosecutors say a prominent member of the notorious Team Xecuter hacking group—known for the “SX OS” line of Switch hacking devices—should serve 60 months in prison after pleading guilty to piracy-related charges in November.

The significant sentence for Gary “GaryOPA” Bowser “would send a message that there are consequences for participating in a sustained effort to undermine the video game industry,” according to prosecutors. But Bowser’s defense is arguing for a shorter 19-month sentence that reflects the fact that he “was not the leader, was not in control of the [TeamXecuter] enterprise, and was not the manufacturer of the devices.”

Team Deterrence-ecuter

Bowser—a 52-year-old Canadian citizen who was arrested in the Dominican Republic and deported to the US in 2020—was the “public voice and principal salesperson” for Team Xecuter, according to federal prosecutors, promoting Switch hacking devices through sites such as maxconsole.com and illegal ROM downloads through sites like rom-bank.com. While Team Xecuter “attempted to hide its illegal activity under the homebrew enthusiast umbrella,” Bowser admitted in his November plea that the “predominant and primary design of the enterprise’s products was to allow purchasers to play pirated ROMs.”