The Morning After: A first clear look at Martian sunbeams
Curiosity rover turns up another gem.
It’s easy to be cynical about a lot of things, but then you see a picture of clouds taken from the soil of another planet, and you remember what a great gift human ingenuity can be. For the first time, a Mars probe has taken a clear image of sunbeams seen from the Martian surface. Curiosity rover, during a survey of twilight cloud formations, took a shot clearly showing crepuscular rays emerging from the heavens.
Researchers say this cloud formation is higher in the atmosphere than normal, and is made of dry ice rather than water ice. Other treats from Curiosity’s current survey include sight of an iridescent cloud shaped like a feather. This, too, is helping teams here on Earth get a better sense of the Martian atmosphere, not to mention giving us a lovely stream of new desktop backgrounds.
– Dan Cooper
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'Starfield' has been delayed to September 6th
We’ll learn more about the ambitious RPG in June.
Starfield, Bethesda Studios’ ambitious sci-fi RPG, has once again been delayed, this time to September 6th. That may be a pain to fans who’ve been waiting since the last pledged release date of November 11th, 2022, to get their hands on the title. In compensation, the studio will release a lengthy deep-dive on June 11th, immediately after Microsoft and Bethesda’s own Xbox summer showcase ahead of E3.
VW's connected emergency service is free for 5 years after botched carjacking response
It refused police requests to activate dormant tracking features to help save a child.
Volkswagen is offering its Car-Net connected emergency service free to a number of 2020 to 2023 vehicles after a high-profile bungle. An Atlas SUV was carjacked, with the thief not realizing a child was still inside, but VW staff refused requests made by police officers to activate remote tracking. Mercifully, the child was found safe and well, but as part of a high-profile mea culpa, VW will offer five years’ service free to all qualifying models.
Ring’s latest doorbell offers head-to-toe views of your visitor
The Battery Doorbell Plus is the first battery-powered machine to get the feature.
Ring’s brought one of the best features from its Pro 2 video doorbell to its range of battery powered units. The new Battery Doorbell Plus gets the same 150 x 150-degree field of vision and 1536p video as the flagship. That gives you a proper view of your doorstep, letting you keep an eye on packages dumped there when you’re out.
Google One's VPN will soon be available to all subscribers
That includes base-tier subscribers paying as little as $2 per month.
Google’s One subscription plan offers cloud storage and backup, extra support and better offers on Google products. It also has a VPN, but that’s only on offer to people paying for the Premium tier with 2TB of storage. Now, however, the search giant is opening up its VPN for all users and will even bring the feature to base-tier users paying as little as $2 a month.
Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 review: Excellent sound only goes so far
The whole package lacks polish, especially at this sort of price.
Our audio expert Billy Steele has reviewed Bowers & Wilkins’ new Pi7 S2 true wireless earbuds, and it makes for great reading. Unless you’re Bowers or Wilkins. He takes the company to task for not pairing the admittedly great sound with a package to match it. Lackluster noise cancellation, poor battery life and limited customization paired with a price far in excess of its better, cheaper competitors means you might be better off looking elsewhere for your next pair of earbuds.
