Sega Is Resurrecting This Gigantic Flight Stick Controller for Its Mega Drive Mini 2 Console

Earlier this month, Sega Japan announced a follow-up to its game-filled Mega Drive mini console, but apparently the company’s got more in store for the day the Mega Drive Mini 2 is officially released and today revealed it’s also reviving a classic lap-busting flight stick controller along with it.

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An AI Learned to Play Minecraft, and It's Actually Pretty Good

Chess, Go, and now—Minecraft. Artificial intelligence models have added a new victory to their gaming kill list.

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How To Find Last-Minute Hotel Deals on the Web

Sometimes, advance planning just isn’t possible: you need a room in a hotel, and you need it as quickly as possible. Open up your web browser or smartphone and you’ve got a range of options for getting a place to lay your head in the next few days, without also paying over the odds to book it.

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Can You Believe Blade Runner and The Thing Premiered on the Same Day?

On June 25, 1982, a strange thing happened. Two movies, now considered to be masterpieces of their genres, premiered on the very same day… and tanked. Both received middling to genuinely harsh reviews, both failed to make a significant dent in the box office, and both seemed destined to be minor footnotes in the…

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‘American Idol’ Alum Says He Feels Guilt Over Deaths Of Stepdaughter, Mother

“I tend to beat myself up a lot over it,” Chris Daughtry said in a candid admission on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show.

The 10 Most Expensive Italian Sports Cars Ever Made

Italian sports car brands are known for being the best in the world — and some come with a price tag to match their unrivaled luxury.

Are Flying Cars Coming Sooner Than We Expected?

Flying cars at one point seemed like a pie-in-the-sky dream, but there are companies working toward making them a reality. Are flying cars on the horizon?

Is This Revolutionary 3D Printed Hybrid The Future Of Supercars?

The Czinger 21C is a futuristic supercar made with a system that forms 3D print-ready parts optimized by AI according to designer specifications.

The 15 Best Infiniti Cars Of All Time

Infiniti flies under the radar of many casual automotive fans, but the brand has actually released a collection of groundbreaking vehicles.

Mars Express orbiter finally gets a software upgrade, 19 years later

Think the computers at your office are overdue for an update? They probably don’t compare to one of the European Space Agency’s best-known spacecraft. The ESA is upgrading its Mars Express orbiter’s MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ioniospheric Sounding) software 19 years after its June 2003 launch. For context, the original code was created using a toolset built for Windows 98 — there are computers in museums that are newer than Microsoft’s OS.

The update promises to dramatically improve the Mars Express craft’s efficiency. The initial approach gathered large amounts of high-resolution data that quickly swamped memory. With the new software, scientists can toss out unnecessary data. This lets MARSIS run for five times longer than before, and cover much wider swaths of Mars and Phobos in a given pass.

The improvement should help explore the subsurface levels of Mars and Phobos in much greater detail. Researchers hope the extra resolution will let them quickly confirm signals hinting at liquid water near Mars’ south pole. In effect, the MARSIS revamp will make sure Mars Express can continue its mission. 

Mars Express is most famous for discovering previous signs of liquid water on the Red Planet, but it’s also known for capturing dramatic visuals of the martian landscape. While it won’t necessarily make similar headlines as a result of the update, it should remain relevant where it might have become obsolete.