Hasta La Gadget!

After three years of service, NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter has flown on Mars for the last time. Earlier this month, during its 72nd flight, Ingenuity stopped communicating with the Perseverance rover. Although NASA later reestablished contact with the helicopter, it emerged that at least one of Ingenuity’s carbon fiber rotor blades was damaged during a landing on January 18th. The helicopter is upright and is still in contact with ground controllers, but it’s no longer capable of flight.

Ingenuity far outlasted its original planned lifespan. NASA designed the helicopter to carry out up to five test flights over 30 days. But it stayed in service for over three years. Ingenuity flew over 14 times farther than originally anticipated and it had a total flight time of over two hours.

“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best — make the impossible, possible. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.”

After Ingenuity’s initial five flights, NASA decided to keep the helicopter running as an operations demonstration. It scouted ahead for Perseverance.

On January 18, the Ingenuity team planned a short vertical flight so they could pinpoint the helicopter’s location after it had to make an emergency landing on its previous jaunt. The chopper reached a height of 40 feet and hovered for 4.5 seconds before descending at a rate of 3.3 feet per second. However, it lost contact with Perseverance when it was about three feet above the surface.

It’s not clear how the rotor blade sustained damage. NASA’s looking into whether the blade struck the surface. Perseverance is too far away to take a look at Ingenuity itself. The chopper’s own camera spotted damage on the shadow of a rotor blade.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

The hardy helicopter endured tough terrain, a dead sensor, dust storms (after which was able to clean itself) and a winter on Mars. The Ingenuity team will wind down the helicopter’s operations after carrying out final tests and downloading the last data and imagery from its memory. After making history as the first aircraft from Earth to conduct a powered, controlled flight on another planet, all Ingenuity can do now is rest easy on the surface of Mars. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasas-ingenuity-helicopter-has-flown-on-mars-for-the-final-time-204004656.html?src=rss

Researchers at MIT have developed a rapid 3D-printing technique that uses liquid metal to allow for extremely fast prints. The process can manufacture large aluminum components in minutes, whereas many pre-existing techniques would take hours to finish the same build. The technology has already been used to create table legs, chair frames and related furniture parts.

It’s called liquid metal printing (LMP) and involves directing molten aluminum along a predefined path into a bed of tiny glass beads. These beads quickly harden into a 3D structure. Researchers say the new process is at least ten times faster than comparable metal manufacturing techniques.

However, there is one major caveat. This process sacrifices resolution for speed and scale. This is why the researchers have used it to create low-resolution items like chair legs and not, say, intricate parts with complex geometries. MIT researchers say this trade-off still makes the technology useful for creating “components of larger structures” that don’t require extremely fine details. This includes furniture parts, as mentioned above, but also components for construction and industrial design.

Despite the resolution downgrade, parts made using LMP are still durable and can withstand post-print machining, like drilling and boring. The folks behind this technology say the builds are much more durable than those built with wire arc additive manufacturing, which is a pre-existing metal printing method. This is because LMP keeps the material molten throughout the entire process, lessening the chances of cracking and warping.

The researchers recommend combining LMP with other techniques for jobs that require both speed and a high resolution. “Most of our built world — the things around us like tables, chairs, and buildings — doesn’t need extremely high resolution”, said Skylar Tibbits, a senior author of a paper that introduced the project.

It’s also worth noting that this printing method doesn’t require aluminum. It can work with other metals. The researchers chose aluminum due to its popularity in construction and the fact that it’s easily recycled.

The folks behind this tech hope to keep iterating on the concept to improve heating consistency, to prevent sticking, and allow for greater control over the molten metal. The team’s been having issues with larger nozzle diameters leading to irregular prints, which is something that needs to be worked out. Tibbits said the method could eventually become a “game-changer in metal manufacturing.”

Despite slightly falling out of favor in the commercial space, 3D printing has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years. Researchers have developed a tiny 3D printer that actually gets inserted into the body to repair and clean damaged tissue. Scientists also recently printed a working piece of the human heart.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mit-researchers-have-developed-a-rapid-3d-printing-technique-that-uses-liquid-metal-194113455.html?src=rss

Another former PlayStation 5 exclusive is coming to PC very soon. It’s been known for a while that Horizon Forbidden West would be Sony’s next title to make the leap, and now the company has revealed that the PC version of the game will drop on March 21.

This is the game’s Complete Edition, which includes last year’s Burning Shores expansion (which is next up on my list of things to play). It also has a bunch of additional features for PC, including ultra-widescreen support, unlocked frame rates, DirectStorage and NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR and Intel XeSS upscaling technologies.

Custom graphics options are at your disposal and you can set up mouse and keyboard controls however you wish. Players can expect support for a wide array of controllers, though if you have PlayStation’s DualSense at hand, you can take advantage of its adaptive triggers and haptic feedback functions.

Sony has brought several of its high-profile games to PC over the last few years as it chases more opportunities for extra revenue. Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, God of War, Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and The Last of Us Part 1 are among the titles that have landed on PC.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/horizon-forbidden-west-is-coming-to-pc-on-march-21-173643297.html?src=rss

Porsche just officially revealed the new all-electric Macan SUV, after giving us a little tease last year. Along with the reveal, the company dropped specs, pricing information and an approximate release date. 

This looks to be a direct rival to vehicles like Jaguar’s I-Pace and the Polestar 4. To that end, this is a well-equipped vehicle. First and foremost, the battery is on point, allowing for 381 miles before running out of power. That’s Miami to Jacksonville on a single charge, with some juice to spare. It’ll be available in two variants: the 397hp Macan 4 and 621hp Macan Turbo. The company promised 600 horsepower and it looks to have delivered, with the Turbo at least. It’s worth noting that the range here dwarfs the popular Porsche Taycan EV, though that model’s made for speed and not distance.

Porsche

On the interior, the EV Macan features three digital displays as part of a robust infotainment system. There’s a standard 12.6-inch curved instrument cluster and an 11-inch infotainment touchscreen. The vehicle also offers another 11-inch touchscreen for passengers, to allow them to stream content and adjust controls. The whole platform’s powered by Porsche’s proprietary voice assistant, which is built on top of the Android Automotive operating system. There’s even a dedicated app store, appropriately named the Porsche App Center.

You’ll also notice a streamlined exterior that looks exceptionally sleek when compared to earlier iterations of the Macan. The rear even boasts a retractable spoiler that automatically adjusts positioning to increase downforce. The front motor was developed by Bosch, but the rear motor was made in-house at Porsche’s manufacturing center in Zuffenhausen, Germany.

Porsche

There’s also a new electronically-controlled traction management system, which Porsche says is up to five times faster than the four-wheel drive system of the existing gas-powered Macan. The vehicle also includes Porsche’s Torque Vectoring Plus system, for enhanced steering behavior.

The Porsche Macan EV, which is no longer called the E-Macan, will be sold alongside the gas-powered version until next year, at which point the company will sunset the OG model. This is part of the company’s promise to transition 80 percent of global sales to electric vehicles by 2030.

Porsche should release the car by the end of the year, though it was originally supposed to show up in 2023, so we shall see. The EV Macan SUV will cost $88,600 for the standard model and a whopping $120,000 for the Turbo, according to Autocar.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/porsches-all-electric-macan-suv-boasts-a-381-mile-range-and-up-to-621hp-163940921.html?src=rss

We’re not even one month into 2024 and it’s already been another brutal year for workers in the video game industry. Microsoft is the latest company to announce a major round of layoffs in its gaming division as it’s cutting around 1,900 workers from its Xbox, Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax (aka Bethesda) teams. That brings the total number of video game layoffs this year to around 6,000 already. There were around 9,000 layoffs in the industry in all of 2023, according to some estimates. 

“As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. Together, we’ve set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we’re all aligned on the best opportunities for growth,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer told employees in a memo obtained by The Verge. “As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team.”

The majority of the cuts are said to be within Activision Blizzard, three months after Microsoft finally closed its $68.9 billion takeover over the publisher. Some positions on the Xbox and ZeniMax teams will be affected too. 

“The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they’ve accomplished here,” Spencer reportedly wrote. “We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws.”

Spencer added that Microsoft will “continue to invest in areas that will grow our business and support our strategy of bringing more games to more players around the world. Although this is a difficult moment for our team, I’m as confident as ever in your ability to create and nurture the games, stories and worlds that bring players together.”

The cuts equate to around eight percent of Microsoft’s gaming division. Engadget has contacted the company for comment.

Among those leaving the company is Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, who is reportedly exiting of his own accord. “I want to thank everyone who is impacted today for their meaningful contributions to their teams, to Blizzard, and to players’ lives. It’s an incredibly hard day and my energy and support will be focused on all those amazing individuals impacted — this is in no way a reflection on your amazing work,” Ybarra wrote on X.

“To the Blizzard community: I also want to let you all know today is my last day at Blizzard. Leading Blizzard through an incredible time and being part of the team, shaping it for the future ahead, was an absolute honor,” Ybarra continued. “Having already spent 20+ years at Microsoft and with the acquisition of Activision Blizzard behind us, it’s time for me to (once again) become Blizzard’s biggest fan from the outside.”

Microsoft’s game content and studios president Matt Booty is said to have told staff that the company plans to appoint a new Blizzard president next week. 

One other major consequence of this reorganization, according to The Verge, is that Blizzard’s untitled survival game has been cancelled. That would have marked Blizzard’s entry into a new genre, but it did not reveal any other details about the project since announcing it two years ago. Some of the developers who were working on the survival game are being moved over to “one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development,” Booty reportedly wrote.

Layoffs are commonplace following major mergers, especially once higher-ups pinpoint areas of overlap. Oftentimes, that’s seen in positions on the corporate side, such as marketing and human resources. 

This is the largest single slate of layoffs in the gaming industry so far this year, outstripping the 1,800 workers that Unity is letting go. Twitch and Discord are also laying off hundreds of people each. This week, Riot Games said it was reducing its headcount by around 530 people. Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive, Tiny Tina’s Wonderland developer Lost Boys Interactive and Outriders maker People Can Fly are also among the many gaming companies to have conducted layoffs so far in 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-slashes-1900-jobs-across-xbox-and-activision-blizzard-145304693.html?src=rss