KFC Launches 4K, 240FPS Gaming Console With a Built-In Chicken Warmer

KFC unveiled what they’re calling the KFConsole — a VR-ready high-end gaming PC that comes with a built-in chicken warmer. GamesRadar reports: Back in June, just after the PS5 reveal, KFC released a ridiculous trailer for the KFConsole, but everyone just figured they were joking. Turns out, they were dead serious. KFC, the chicken place, has teamed up with Cooler Master…

Google Kills Android Things, a Smart Home OS That Never Took Off

Google plans to shut down Android Things, a stripped-down version of Android designed for smart home devices. The OS never really got off the ground, so this isn’t all that much of a loss, but it is yet another entry in Google’s expansive graveyard of shut-down projects. The Verge reports: The smart home project got its start in 2015 under the…

Why Google’s Big ‘Four Year’ Android Update Promise Is a Little Misleading

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Android Police: Today, Google and Qualcomm announced what seemed like a big improvement to updates for Android smartphones. The headlines (ours included! We were confused, too) largely read as though Android phones with Qualcomm chipsets would now receive “four years” of Android updates, an additional year on top of what manufacturers like Google and…

CloudLinux To Invest More Than a Million Dollars a Year Into CentOS Clone

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: When Red Hat, CentOS’s Linux parent company, announced it was “shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release,” it lost a lot of friends. CentOS co-founder, Gregory Kurtzer, immediately announced he’d create his own RHEL clone…

Third Monolith Reappears, Fourth and Fifth Monoliths Discovered

“People taking a stroll on Sunday morning stumbled upon another mysterious monolith,” reports Insider.com. “This one was found in a northern province of the Netherlands.”
The monolith was covered in ice and surrounded by a small pool of water, according to local reports. The hikers told the Dutch paper Algemeen Dagblad that they’re not sure how the monolith got there. They said…

Python’s Steering Council Assesses the After-Guido Era

47 of Python’s core developers participated in this year’s Core Development Sprint, according to this report — “but what’s more important is the very real and necessary community building that seemed to have taken place…” It’s an especially critical time for Python, which switched to a steering council model in February of 2019, after Guido van Rossum had stepped down as…

Curiosity rover spots signs of ancient megafloods on Mars

We already know that Gale Crater on Mars used to hold a lake or series of lakes a few billion years ago. Now, NASA’s Curiosity rover has found evidence for ancient giant floods that washed through the region as well. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/megafloods-gale-crater-mars-life-curiosity-rover…

Iron Powder Passes First Industrial Test As Renewable, Carbon Dioxide-Free Fuel

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: While setting fire to an iron ingot is probably more trouble than it’s worth, fine iron powder mixed with air is highly combustible. When you burn this mixture, you’re oxidizing the iron. Whereas a carbon fuel oxidizes into CO2, an iron fuel oxidizes into Fe2O3, which is just rust. The nice thing…

What is a supernova?

A supernova is a star’s colossal explosion at the end of its life, potentially outshining its entire galaxy. Read about the causes and types of supernovae here. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/definition-what-is-a-supernova…