Opportunity passes Lunokhod Crater on its trip to Marathon Valley. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

Before the big publicity splash made by the Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity, the big stars on Mars were the two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The pair of 400 lb (185 kg) semi-autonomous machines were dropped onto Mars in January 2004 and were initially designed with an operational lifespan of 90 sols (a sol is a Martian day, equivalent to about 24 hours and 39.5 minutes), but they managed to drastically exceed that lifespan through careful piloting and resource management. In fact, although Spirit fell silent in March 2010, Opportunity continues to be responsive—and as of yesterday, it has traveled 25.01 miles (40.25 km) across the Martian surface, setting a new record for off-world travel.

Distances driven by other off-world vehicles. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The previous record dates back to 1974 when the Soviet Lunokhod 2 rover zipped across about 24.2 miles (39 km) of dusty lunar terrain in about four months. Opportunity’s progress has been much slower, due to a combination of a low travel speed (usually about 10 mm per second, with a top speed of 50 mm per second, about 600 feet per hour) and regular stops to perform observations.

In the ten years that Opportunity has cruised the Martian craters and valleys, the faithful robot has contributed tremendously to our understanding of the composition and history of Mars, including transmitting back data that provides significant support to the idea that Mars once had oceans of liquid water.

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The British Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has started to replace advertising on copyright-infringing websites with official warnings telling users that the site is under criminal investigation.

The sites in question are those that have been identified as hosting copyright-infringing content and reported to PIPCU by rights holders. Officers from the unit evaluate the sites to verify that they are infringing copyright. They then contact the site owner to give them the opportunity to "correct their behavior" and operate legitimately. If that fails, PIPCU can get the site taken down by contacting the domain registrar, replacing the site's ads with the scary warnings, or adding the sites to the infringing website list. When a site is added to that list, the information is fed back to a group of 60 marketing agencies, advertising technology companies, and brands responsible for placing ads, and they are then asked to stop placing ads on those sites.

In order to get PIPCU's banners onto the copyright infringing sites, the police have partnered with content verification company Project Sunblock. Project Sunblock maintains the list of infringing websites and then makes sure that when clients' advertisements are going to be delivered to one of those sites, the police banners are served as a replacement. Neither Project Sunblock nor the police pay for this ad placement; they simply serve an alternative ad. Project Sunblock then reports back to the client which ads have been blocked and on how many occasions.

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The 2013 Retina MacBook Pro is getting a minor refresh. Andrew Cunningham

2014 has been a lackluster year for new Mac hardware refreshes—the year is half gone, and all we've gotten is a MacBook Air that's a little cheaper and a tiny bit faster and an iMac that's a little cheaper and a lot slower. Now the Retina MacBook Pro line is getting in on the kind-of-refreshed fun with some mild spec bumps that don't radically change the models released back in 2013.

Let's begin with the 15-inch models. The base prices remain the same across the board for these, but you now get the maximum 16GB of RAM standard with the 15-inch MBP instead of as a $200 add-on. The CPU in the $1,999 model also gets a small bump, from a 2.0GHz (3.2GHz Turbo) quad-core Core i7-4750HQ to a 2.2GHz (3.4GHz Turbo) i7-4770HQ. These CPUs are identical save for their clock speeds—the latter chip is part of Intel's mid-cycle "Haswell refresh" line, which gives OEMs an extra 100 or 200MHz without raising the price.

The higher-tier model doesn't get as substantial a boost as the entry-level model, but you do get a small price cut from $2,599 to $2,499. You get the same computer as before, except with a 2.5GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) i7-4870HQ instead of a 2.3GHz (3.5GHz Turbo) i7-4850HQ. For another $200 on top of that, you'll get a 2.8GHz (4.0GHz Turbo) i7-4980HQ instead of a 2.4GHz (3.6GHz Turbo) i7-4950HQ. These are decent clock speed bumps, though if you were on the fence about upgrading to the previous 2013 models, they don't really alter the equation.

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Android minus the Google Apps. We've got some work to do. Ron Amadeo

Android is a Google product—it's designed and built from the ground up to integrate with Google services and be a cloud-powered OS. A lot of Android is open source, though, and there's nothing that says you have to use it the way that Google would prefer. With some work, it’s possible to turn a modern Android smartphone into a Google-less, completely open device—so we wanted to try just that. After dusting off the Nexus 4 and grabbing a copy of the open source parts of Android, we jumped off the grid and dumped all the proprietary Google and cloud-based services you'd normally use on Android. Instead, this experiment runs entirely on open source alternatives. FOSS or bust!

Before we begin, we have a few slight notes. FOSS stands for "free and open source software," and when we say "free" we don't mean free of cost, but free of restrictions. It's software that we can do whatever we want to, including copy, modify, and redistribute.

But, wait... did we say we'd dump "all" services? Not going to happen. Almost instantly, we had to compromise our open source ideals due to hardware. The SoC in the Nexus 4 is made by Qualcomm, and many of the drivers for it are closed source (this is the case with nearly all smartphones, not just our sacrificial Nexus 4). The firmware and drivers for the cellular modem, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, NFC, and camera are closed source, too. The CyanogenMod repository has a list of closed source drivers in each device branch called "proprietary-blobs.txt." You can see the list for our Nexus 4 here, which is 184 items long.

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While I talked about this in the launch article, the SHIELD Tablet is very much the culmination of lessons learned from 2013. While the Tegra Note 7 was a decent tablet, it had to eke out a profit through hardware sales against competition that was willing to sell their tablets with no profit on hardware. While the SHIELD portable was a good portable gaming device, it was far too specialized to be anything but a gaming device. Without an established gaming ecosystem, NVIDIA struggled against established competitors.

As a result, NVIDIA is the first to launch a serious gaming tablet running Android. While gaming tablets have been done before, they’ve been few and far between. It’s always been technically possible to take a high end tablet and make it usable for gaming, but for the most part these attempts are marred by either the need for root or an application that requires extensive work on the part of the user to create proper control profiles for each game. In addition, the SoC in the tablet is often underequipped for intensive 3D gaming.

That’s where the SHIELD tablet comes in. With Tegra K1, a dedicated controller, 2x2 WiFi, and a huge amount of custom software, there’s definitely a lot of ground to cover. Once again, while the SHIELD tablet is a gaming device, it must also be a good tablet. To that end, NVIDIA has tried to differentiate this tablet with DirectStylus 2 and dual front facing speakers/bass reflex ports. To find out how this device does, read on for the full review.

A slide from next week's Black Hat talk titled Android Fake ID vulnerability. Bluebox Security

The majority of devices running Google's Android operating system are susceptible to hacks that allow malicious apps to bypass a key security sandbox so they can steal user credentials, read e-mail, and access payment histories and other sensitive data, researchers have warned.

The high-impact vulnerability has existed in Android since the release of version 2.1 in early 2010, researchers from Bluebox Security said. They dubbed the bug Fake ID, because, like a fraudulent driver's license an underage person might use to sneak into a bar, it grants malicious apps special access to Android resources that are typically off-limits. Google developers have introduced changes that limit some of the damage that malicious apps can do in Android 4.4, but the underlying bug remains unpatched, even in the Android L preview.

The Fake ID vulnerability stems from the failure of Android to verify the validity of cryptographic certificates that accompany each app installed on a device. The OS relies on the credentials when allocating special privileges that allow a handful of apps to bypass Android sandboxing. Under normal conditions, the sandbox prevents programs from accessing data belonging to other apps or to sensitive parts of the OS. Select apps, however, are permitted to break out of the sandbox. Adobe Flash in all but version 4.4, for instance, is permitted to act as a plugin for any other app installed on the phone, presumably to allow it to add animation and graphics support. Similarly, Google Wallet is permitted to access Near Field Communication hardware that processes payment information.

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Earlier this month Intel introduced new models in their lineup of Haswell mobile CPUs. With the Haswell manufacturing process having matured since its initial launch, Intel was able to bump clock speeds by 200MHz on a handful of their laptop CPUs and those chips have found their way into a refreshed lineup of Macbook Pro laptops from Apple. This update brings CPU speed boosts, and more RAM in the base 13" and 15" models. The new CPU and memory specifications for Apple's new lineup are shown below.

MacBook Pro with Retina Display Lineup Model 13-inch (base and mid-tier) 13-inch (flagship) 15-inch (base) 15-inch (flagship) Old CPU 2.4GHz Core i5-4258U 2.6GHz Core i5-4288U 2.0GHz Core i7-4750HQ 2.3GHz Core i7-4850HQ New CPU 2.6GHz Core i5-4278U 2.8GHz Core i5-4308U 2.2GHz Core i7-4770HQ 2.5GHz Core i7-4870HQ Old Memory 4GB DDR3L 8GB DDR3L 8GB DDR3L 16GB DDR3L New Memory 8GB DDR3L 8GB DDR3L 16GB DDR3L 16GB DDR3L

The first thing to make note of is that the CPU speed has been increased by 200MHz across the board. The highest end CTO (configure-to-order) 15" model which is not shown now comes with Intel's Core i7-4980HQ with a base clock of 2.8GHz and max turbo clock of 4.0GHz. The other important thing to note is that the amount of RAM in the entry-level models has been doubled from 4GB to 8GB on the 13", and from 8GB to 16GB on the 15". This is a change that is nice to see brought to the 13" Macbook Pro with Retina display. Originally the entire 13" line had 8GB of RAM and the 4GB model was introduced to reach a lower price point during Apple's Haswell refresh. Now the entry level model once again has 8GB of RAM like the higher end versions.

The new models are available to purchase now on Apple's website for the same prices as the previous generation and are all available to ship within 24 hours.

While AMD's Kaveri APUs initially launched on the desktop at the beginning of the year, for many the APUs looked like a better fit for laptops and notebooks. In early June, we were able to preview the performance of the first mobile Kaveri APUs in the form of a prototype laptop running the FX-7600P. Nearly two months later, laptops with Kaveri are starting to show up online. Interestingly, several of the first laptops to use Kaveri aren't consumer devices but instead target business users and in most cases opt for the PRO series of Kaveri APUs.

If you missed our coverage, the PRO series of APUs is essentially the same as the consumer models, only they're guaranteed to be available for a longer period of time so that businesses in particular don't have to worry about validating new processors or platforms. There are three PRO APUs, the PRO A6-7050B, the PRO A8-7150B, and the PRO A10-7350B. Note that all three parts are Ultra-Low Voltage models (17W for the A6 and 19W for the A8 and A10), and their intended competition is Intel's Core i3 and i5 ULV parts. Along with the PRO APUs, the first consumer laptops are showing up as well. All of the Kaveri laptops at present are using ULV APUs, which we haven't had a chance to test yet, but the improved Boost clocks should make them fairly competitive, and if you happen to use software that can leverage the GPU portion of the APU then Kaveri could prove a compelling option.

For those mostly looking at Kaveri as a decent budget laptop, let's start with the consumer models as prices are quite a bit lower. I couldn't find anything with the entry-level A6-7000, but there are a few options with the A8-7300. HP's ProBook 455 G2 (covered in more detail below) is priced at $572 with 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, 1366x768 LCD. Acer has a 15.6" E5-551-89TN with 6GB RAM and a 1TB HDD starting at $480, which is the best price for a Kaveri laptop so far, though Amazon has a 4GB RAM/500GB HDD version listed for pre-order at $399. A10-7300 laptops include the Lenovo Z50, a 15.6-inch model with 1366x768 LCD, 8GB RAM, and 1TB HDD starting at $570, while Amazon has two more Acer models available for preorder: the E5-551-T5SV starts at $500 (4GB RAM and 500GB HDD with 1366x768 LCD) and the E5-551G-T0JN has 8GB RAM, a 1TB HDD, and Dual Graphics with a Radeon R7 M265 for only $600. That last one is certainly going to be the highest performing option, and the inclusion of a discrete GPU means even better gaming potential.

Sadly, while there are quite a few budget laptops with Kaveri now shipping (or shipping in the very near future), at present I have not been able to find any models with the new FX APUs. The 35W standard voltage (SV) Kaveri APUs are also missing right now, which is interesting as in the past it was often the SV parts that launched first with the ULV parts following a few months later. Both AMD and Intel seem to now be focusing more on ULV parts, which isn't a bad thing. That said, none of the laptops listed above appear to be going after long battery life; most are claiming five hours of battery life, but they're also doing that with 3- and 4-cell batteries. It would be good to see a few models with 6-cell batteries and 8+ hours of battery life, so hopefully someone will provide an appropriate model in the future.

As for the laptops that are shipping with the PRO APUs, let's quickly run through the current options. At present there are four offerings from HP using two of the PRO APUs. At the low-end of the pricing spectrum is the HP ProBook 455 G2, equipped with the PRO A6-7050B, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, and a 15.6" 1366x768 display with a price of $476. The one clear concession to the business class of laptops is the presence of a fingerprint scanner on all of these laptops (it's optional, but most of the models for sale at Newegg appear to include the fingerprint scanner). The price isn't too bad, but obviously the lack of RAM and the relatively large display mean this one isn't going to win any performance or portability competitions. The next step up in terms of price is the EliteBook 755 G2 with the same A6-7050B APU but sporting 4GB of RAM and running Windows 7 Professional, priced at $737.

Moving on to the HP models with the A10-7350B, there are three options: the same EliteBook 755 G2 is available with either 4GB RAM and a 1366x768 LCD for $843, or if you want a 1080p touchscreen and 8GB RAM the price jumps to $1091. A 14-inch version is the next option, with the EliteBook 745 G2 listed in three varieties (all with the A10-7350B): 4GB RAM and 1366x768 display priced at $820, 8GB RAM and 1600x900 display will set you back $906, or there's a third model listed at $1090, but some specs are missing so it's not clear why it costs so much more (it likely has an SSD, and a 1080p touchscreen is also a possibility). Last is the 12.5-inch EliteBook 725 G2, again in three variants: 4GB RAM and 1366x768 for $898, ditch the 500GB HDD for a 180GB SSD for $1100, or add a 1080p touchscreen for $1196. Pricing on all of these laptops is obviously quite a bit higher than what consumers would consider reasonable for the hardware, but for businesses the laptops might make sense.

Of the currently shipping Kaveri laptops, if you're itching to get your hands on one I'd say the Lenovo Z50 looks to be the best of the bunch. I like the styling more than some of the other offerings, and while I really would prefer an SSD, at least you do get 8GB of RAM and a large 1TB hard drive at a reasonable price of $570. If you're not in a rush, however, holding out for one of the Acer Kaveri-based laptop will get you a lower price. For those that don't really need a faster GPU, the $400 A8-7100 E5-551-86R8 will certainly suffice, while the A10-7300 mostly improves the GPU performance by increasing the number of GPU cores from 256 to 384 (with a slight boost in GPU clock speed as well). Spending $100 more to go from an A8-7100 to the A10-7300 is a bit much, and if you need more GPU performance at that point you might want to just go for the $600 Acer E5-551G instead. Regardless, it's good to see quite a few Kaveri laptops now shipping, and keeping the prices of the A8 and A10 models well under $600 will certainly help with sales.

Gallery: AMD Kaveri Laptops Sighted

Atari: Game Over trailer.

On Friday, Xbox Entertainment Studios (XES) released a trailer for Atari: Game Over, a feature-length documentary about Atari's downfall after the 1983 North American video game crash. In April, Xbox dug up a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where video game lore suggested that hundreds of thousands of video games—specifically E.T. The Extra Terrestrial cartridges—were buried after E.T.'s fatal flop.

As you may have remembered from Ars' on-the-scene coverage, the rumor was proven to be more than just urban legend. Although the documentary's producer Jonathan Chinn admitted that Game Over would have gone forward whether the excavators found the cartridges or not, the companies behind the film had researched the area copiously and were confident the Atari refuse would be down there. They were right, and a few hours into the dig, a team of archaeologists and filmmakers pulled up a handful of barely tarnished E.T. and Centipede games among other Atari paraphernalia.

Although it seems like the documentary makers may have shown their hand too early (yep, everyone knows the games were down there by now), the excavators pulled up buckets and buckets of artifacts that press was not allowed to peruse. We'd be curious to hear more from people like archaeologist Andrew Reinhard, who was on the team that examined the contents of the landfill in-depth.

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The latest round of upcoming games for the Games with Gold program have been announced today, and unlike last month, there are no carryover games on the list. As seems to be the norm, Xbox One owners with Xbox Live Gold subscriptions will receive two games available for a free purchase for the entire month of August, while Xbox 360 owners get two games split over two weeks each. Hopefully this will get changed soon so that all games are available for the entire month.

Xbox One Crimson Dragon

“Available Aug. 1-31, Crimson Dragon, originally an Xbox One launch title, and acts as a spiritual successor to the much-beloved Panzer Dragoon saga. It’s a fast-paced rail shooter set in a beautiful fantasy world, where you can join with up to three other players for online co-op battles. You have a half-dozen majestic draconian steeds to choose from, and they level up as you progress through the game’s epic story. Crimson Dragon also features a killer soundtrack, courtesy of Panzer Dragoon composer Saori Kobayashi.”

The game is set in a science fiction universe where humans have recently colonized a planet inhabited by dragons, which can be befriended and controlled. The game is a spiritual successor to the Panzer Dragoon series, however critical and user reviews of the game have been mixed. The game scores a 56/100 on Metacritic and 6.6 for the User score. Crimson Dragon normally sells for $19.99.

Strike Suite Zero: Director’s Cut

“Also available Aug. 1-31, Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut has its origins in crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and was the first title from the ID@Xbox program. You take on the role of a pilot of the titular suit, flying it against aggressors in epic space battles. One of the key hooks is that you are only a small part of these battles, with huge ships duking it out around you, and your objectives within them clearly defined – but it’s up to you to accomplish them as you see fit. With fantastic ship design, gigantic battles, and plenty of weapons and enemies to deal with, Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut gives space-sim fans on Xbox One plenty to chew on.”

Strike Suit Zero is from the independent game developer Born Ready Games, and was originally a Kickstarter project. Strike Suit Zero was originally released on the PC in January 2013, with Mac and Linux versions coming out in August. The game is a space flight combat game where you play a fighter pilot for the United Nations of Earth. It scored slightly higher than Crimson Dragon in both critical reviews and user scores, with a 68/100 and 6.9 User score on Metacritic. Strike Suit Zero normally sells for $19.99.

Xbox 360 Motocross Madness

“Available Aug. 1-15, back on earth Xbox 360 gamers get to tool around the dirt tracks and mud pits of their imaginations with Motocross Madness, an off-road motorcycle racing game. Racing against the clock (or other racers) is just a small part of this one, as you’ll be able to perform tricks, run through obstacle courses, or just motor around big maps and explore as you please. Asynchronous multiplayer via social networks means you can involve your friends, even if they’re off doing something else while you’re playing. Unlimited potential!”

Bongfish GmbH is the developer for the first of the Xbox 360 games, Motocross Madness. This off-road motorcycle racing game has been well received by both fans and critics alike, scoring a 73 Metascore for critics reviews, and 8.3 as a User score. Motocross Madness normally retails for $9.99 in the Xbox 360 store.

Dishonored

“Finally, available Aug. 16-31, Xbox 360 owners get to experience Dishonored, an award-winning steampunk stealth/action title. You play Corvo, erstwhile bodyguard of the Empress, turned assassin. Your job is to protect the princess, take out the bad guys who are trying to take over the Empire, and do it all undetected. You have an arsenal of gadgets, weapons, and magical powers to help you, but the most important is your own brain. Challenges in Dishonored often have multiple solutions, so lateral thinking is more important than a quick trigger finger. You can blast your way through, too, to be sure – there’s something for everyone here – but cleverness is rewarded more than aggression.”

The second game for the Xbox 360 is Dishonored by Arkane Studios. Dishonored, which normally sells for $19.99, originally came out in October 2012. This is a stealth based action-adventure game which received numerous awards including the 2012 Spike Video Game award for Best Action-Adventure Game and the 2013 BAFTA award for Best Game. It received a 91/100 Metascore on Metacritic and a 8.3 User Score.

This month’s Games with Gold seems to favor the Xbox 360 as far as the overall reception of the games. That’s not a huge surprise considering the much larger catalog. In case you missed it, last month’s games can still be had until July 31, so check them out if you missed them.

The Nexus line is definitely not dead. Over the weekend, a report from Android Police claimed Google and the soon-to-be Lenovo-owned Motorola are working together on a 5.9-inch Nexus phone. Today, a separate report from The Information (subscription required) corroborates the earlier report and provides additional details.

Android Police pointed out the existence of a new Nexus device in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code base, code-named "Shamu." As we went over before I/O, Nexus devices are always named after fish. The Nexus 5 is called "Hammerhead," and the 2013 Nexus 7 is called "Razor." The devices discovered before I/O were "Molly," which ended up being the Android TV developer kit, and "Flounder," which hasn't surfaced yet but is believed to be a 4:3 Nexus tablet made by HTC. (In the Material Design documents and promotional materials, Google frequently shows a 4:3 Android tablet next to other Nexus devices.)

Being in AOSP and having a fish codename means the device is definitely a Google-made Android device. The report, which was labeled a "rumor," says Shamu is a 5.9-inch device that will be manufactured by Motorola. It also mentioned the possibility of a fingerprint sensor and a November release. The name "Shamu" would certainly fit the theme of a large device.

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The Federal Communications Commission just started taking public comments on whether it should preempt state laws that limit the growth of municipal broadband in Tennessee and North Carolina.

Twenty states have passed such limits, which protect private Internet service providers from having to compete against cities and towns that seek to provide Internet, TV, and phone service to residents. After FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he intends to use the commission's authority to preempt the state laws, the commission received petitions from two public entities that want to expand broadband offerings.

"On July 24, 2014, the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the City of Wilson, North Carolina filed separate petitions asking that the Commission act pursuant to section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to preempt portions of Tennessee and North Carolina state statutes that restrict their ability to provide broadband services," the FCC said today. "The Electric Power Board is an independent board of the City of Chattanooga that provides electric and broadband service in the Chattanooga area. The City of Wilson provides electric service in six counties in eastern North Carolina and broadband service in Wilson County. Both Petitioners allege that state laws restrict their ability to expand their broadband service offerings to surrounding areas where customers have expressed interest in these services, and they request that the Commission preempt such laws."

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Officials from China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) made surprise visits to four Microsoft offices today as part of what is described by the Financial Times as an antitrust probe. Offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu were inspected by SAIC officials.

The nature of the investigation is currently unclear, with neither Microsoft nor SAIC offering any details. So far, the regulator has made no formal complaint against the company.

Microsoft is already in the Chinese government's crosshairs, with the government issuing a ban on the use of Windows 8 on government PCs due to security concerns. In June, the state-run broadcaster called into question the security of the operating system and cited experts claiming that the company was working with the US government to spy online.

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Sharks Cove. Microsoft

Even Microsoft wants a piece of the development board market made famous by Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

Microsoft has teamed up with Intel and hardware maker CircuitCo to design the $300 "Sharks Cove," now available for pre-order. Described as a "development board that you can use to develop hardware and drivers for Windows and Android," it contains an Intel Atom Z3735G, a quad-core chip with speeds of 1.33GHz to 1.83GHz. It has 1GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage, and a MicroSD slot.

Microsoft made its pitch in a blog post this past weekend:

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If you want to use a safe-for-work photo in an article about Hustler, a word to the wise: Stick to its casino offshoots. Laurie Avocado

Hustler Magazine founder Larry Flynt has begun making the interview rounds to promote the pornography magazine's 40th anniversary, but in a Monday interview with Bloomberg TV, the incendiary publisher spoiled the birthday party by predicting a short lifespan for his print edition.

"I don't think Hustler's going to be around very much longer," Flynt said. "Most people are getting their information from the Internet. It's a technology evolution that brings a lot with it and takes a lot away." When asked if he knew when the magazine would cease publication, Flynt said that it will remain so long as it continues to make money, adding "but we can see the handwriting on the wall."

While other major publishers have gone to great lengths to bemoan the modern media landscape, Flynt proved level-headed in the interview. In fact, he pointed out that his company's print portfolio only makes up ten percent of its revenue. "Our company has diversified so much," he said, noting bustling Internet success along with cable and satellite TV revenue throughout Europe, Latin America, and Asia (with the notable exception of censorship-heavy China, which Flynt mentioned before reminding viewers of his Supreme Court victory in 1988).

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Argonne National Lab

The energy storage density of batteries has made remarkable strides in the last few decades, but people will always be happy with further improvements. The more charge you can stuff into a limited space, the longer cellphones will last and the farther electric cars will drive.

Right now, the anodes of lithium-ion batteries contain material that stores lithium in its structure. It would be more efficient to simply make the anode out of lithium metal itself, but early attempts to do so haven't worked out especially well, as the metal forms structures that rapidly degrade performance of the battery. Now, researchers have figured out how to put a carbon cap on top of the metal, keeping the lithium in its place and greatly enhancing the anode's stability.

The researchers behind the new paper, who are based at Stanford, nicely describe the problems with some of the previous work on lithium metal electrodes. To begin with, as charge moves in and out of the electrodes, they will necessarily grow and shrink with the changes in the amount of lithium present. This strains any electrolyte they're in contact with, frequently causing defects to appear at the electrode-electrolyte interface. Once these defects form, lithium metal will preferentially be added at these sites, causing extremely uneven growth.

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Marine experts have said a dolphin spotted in the River Severn in Gloucestershire will make its own way back to the sea.

Happy Anniversary.

Microsoft started running ads making fun of Siri last year to promote Windows 8 tablets. However, the Windows devices in those commercials were always mute—until now, Microsoft didn't have a virtual personal assistant of its own to answer back to Apple's service.

With this Windows Phone 8.1 ad, all that changes. The commercial pitches an iPhone 5S against a Lumia 635, and it shows off Microsoft's virtual assistant Cortana. The ad highlights something that Siri can't presently do: give clever reminders that are triggered by events (talking to a particular person, being near a particular store) rather than presenting mere dates and times.

The comparison is a little strange, however. The Lumia 635 and iPhone 5s are at opposite ends of the price spectrum, and it's a little unlikely that any putative buyers are actually directly comparing the two.

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GameStop has always been barely a single step up from a pawn shop with its practice of buying used games at low prices and selling them at ridiculous markups. Now, reports suggest that the massive brick-and-mortar game retailer is planning to enter another shady financial area by offering store-linked credit cards to customers at its thousands of locations.

Destructoid reports that it has "obtained photographs" of a purported brochure advertising a credit card tied to the retailer's existing PowerUp Rewards program. Signing up for the card nets customers anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 PowerUp Rewards Points (worth roughly $5 to $15 in value), according to the images, as well as benefits like "special financing offers." We'd expect that having a GameStop credit card would also provide Rewards Points for everyday purchases, but there's no mention of such a benefit in the report.

Destructoid's images show a healthy 26.99 percent APR for the card. That's well above the nationwide average of 13 to 16 percent, and it's also above the higher-than-normal rates charged by many other store-linked credit cards, which hover around the 22 percent range. And while Destructoid's sources say that "all PowerUp Rewards members are already pre-approved for the card," the materials themselves say that the card issuance is "subject to credit approval." Not that we suspect many people will be turned down for a card with such exorbitant interest charges.

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Mozilla in Europe

On Monday, the Mozilla Corporation announced that its last-minute April hire for interim CEO, Chris Beard, has been permanently appointed to the position. Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker confirmed the news in a blog post, stating that "the board has reviewed many internal and external candidates—and no one we met was a better fit."

Beard's Mozilla tenure began in 2004 and saw him eventually rise to chief innovation and chief marketing officer. He left the company in 2013 to become an "executive in residence" at Greylock Partners, an investment firm with a heavy focus on tech companies. His return to Mozilla in April came on the heels of Brendan Eich's controversial hire to the CEO position, which ended with Eich's resignation that month.

While both recent CEO hires came in the form of company veterans as opposed to outside hires, Beard's work included a wider spectrum of marketing and leadership roles, along with prior work with companies like Hewlett-Packard and Linuxcare. That's in contrast to Eich's engineer-first resume (lengthy and impressive as it is). Beard already has his hands full thanks to the company's increasing focus on Firefox OS as a viable smartphone alternative.

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