The Perseverance Rover has found evidence of organic compounds in the Jezero Crater on Mars. Although this isn’t the smoking gun proving once and for all that Mars once hosted life — these compounds could have also developed in nonbiological ways — the results hint at surprisingly complex organic conditions for the “key building blocks for life” on Earth’s neighbor. The study was published in Nature.

The Perseverance Rover, the first to explore the Jezero Crater, has been investigating the area since February 2021. Researchers believe the basin once housed an ancient lake, including a delta from a river that once flowed into it. It’s one of the most likely regions to reveal leftover signs of life on Mars.

Organic molecules like those observed in the Jezero Crater contain carbon and often hydrogen atoms. They’re the core components of life as we know it on Earth, although they can also develop abiologically. “They are an exciting clue for astrobiologists since they are often thought of as building blocks of life,” paper co-author Joseph Razzell Hollis, a postdoctoral fellow at London’s Natural History Museum, said toNewsweek. “Importantly, they can be created by processes not related to life as we know it, and so organic molecules are not evidence of life on their own without sufficient extra evidence that cannot be explained by nonbiological — or abiotic — processes.”

The rover observed the compounds using an instrument — the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) — that maps organic molecules and minerals on rock surfaces. Significantly, it found organic materials in all ten targets it observed on the crater floor. “Our results support observations by previous robotic missions to Mars that the Red Planet was once rich in organic material, compounds made primarily of carbon and hydrogen, and that some of that organic material can still be detected billions of years later,” co-author Joseph Razzell Hollis, a London-based astrobiologist, toldGizmodo. “Each detection, each observation, gives us a little bit more information that brings us closer to understanding the history of Mars and whether it could have supported life in the past.”

Now that the researchers have observed the molecules, they’ll need a better look at them in Earthbound labs to draw further conclusions about their origins. “If these samples are returned to terrestrial laboratories, a more diverse suite of tools can be used to study the samples, including at higher spatial resolution and with much greater specificity and sensitivity,” the authors wrote. They’ll have to wait for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, which isn’t expected to launch from Earth until at least the late 2020s. Still, the trip should be worth the wait. “So far, the only Martian rocks we’ve ever been able to study on Earth have been meteorites. Getting our hands on intact Mars rocks, carefully stored and protected from contamination, will be invaluable to planetary science,” Razzell Hollis told Newsweek.

Elon Musk has a new AI company. A website has appeared for xAI, which will embark on the self-described mission to “understand the true nature of the universe.” The announcement comes after filing documents revealed the existence of a company called “X.AI Corp” earlier this year. Musk also said in an April interview that he wanted to start a venture for “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe” that “hopefully does more good than harm.”

Not much else is known yet about Musk’s latest venture. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO and Twitter Chairman tweeted today, “Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality.” The company webpage notes that the team will host a Twitter Spaces chat on Friday, July 14th.

Musk’s previous comments about an AI startup were aimed at creating “a third option” to challenge ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Google. He reportedly bought thousands of GPUs earlier this year for a Twitter-related AI project. It isn’t yet clear whether the two projects are related.

The website lists veterans of DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla and the University of Toronto as working on the project. “Collectively we contributed some of the most widely used methods in the field, in particular the Adam optimizer, Batch Normalization, Layer Normalization, and the discovery of adversarial examples,” the xAI website reads. “We further introduced innovative techniques and analyses such as Transformer-XL, Autoformalization, the Memorizing Transformer, Batch Size Scaling, and μTransfer. We have worked on and led the development of some of the largest breakthroughs in the field including AlphaStar, AlphaCode, Inception, Minerva, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4.”

In addition to Musk, the listed team members include Igor Babuschkin, Manuel Kroiss, Yuhuai (Tony) Wu, Christian Szegedy, Jimmy Ba, Toby Pohlen, Ross Nordeen, Kyle Kosic, Greg Yang, Guodong Zhang and Zihang Dai.

Amazon Prime Day includes a sale on Switch games from some of Nintendo’s biggest franchises. Whether you want them for yourself or to keep kids entertained during summer break, you can snag half-off titles like Super Mario Odyssey or Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, and you can shave $18 off one of this year’s most beloved games, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Usually $60, Amazon offers Super Mario Odyssey for $30 as part of its Prime Day deals. One of the Switch’s tentpole titles, it has you saving Princess Peach (surprise!) with the help of Cappy, a sentient hat that you can fling like a boomerang and throw onto some enemies to possess them. This ability lets Mario become Goombas, Chain Chomps and even an imposing T-Rex. In classic Nintendo style, it adds a new gameplay wrinkle for a fresh perspective on classic Mario gameplay. The developer also tightened up controls and responsiveness compared to its previous 3D Mario games, making for one of the most delightful all-around adventures available on Nintendo’s six-year-old console.

If 2D side-scrolling Mario is more your thing, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is also half-off: You can pick it up for $30 compared to its suggested $60. A remake of an under-appreciated Wii U title, it takes the classic gameplay from old-school (NES and SNES) Mario classics and adds new power-ups like the Flying Squirrel suit.

Other half-off Switch games include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Mario Golf: Super Rush. In addition, Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe, the globular pink hero’s latest 2D adventure, is 25 percent off (down to $45 from its usual $60). And the “familiar but fresh” The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is nearly $20 off — for $52 compared to its $70 sticker price.

Although Switch games are the highlight of this sale, you can also take $10 off an Xbox digital gift card ($90 for a $100 card). The PS5 version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which only launched in April, is down to $44 (with a clipped coupon) from its usual $70. Finally, you can get Elden Ring for PS4 for $40 (typically $60).

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog’s car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Peacock launched a live-action Twisted Metal trailer today that provides a much clearer glimpse of the upcoming series than its teaser from earlier this year. Set to the beat of DMX’s “Party Up (Up In Here),” the campy clip has high-speed chases, guns and carjackings along with ample wisecracks and one maniacal clown — everything you’d expect from a live-action adaptation of the over-the-top franchise.

The two-minute trailer begins with star Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and The Winter Soldier) setting the tone as protagonist John Doe. “20 years ago, the world fell to shit,” he explains. “Cities put up walls to protect themselves and threw the criminals out so they could fight over what was left. But there are humble motherfuckers like me delivering cargo from one walled city to another. That’s where the cars and guns come in.” The series, which Peacock describes as a “high-octane action comedy,” appears to have a self-aware tone that relishes in the game’s extravagance with knowing winks to the audience (metaphorical or otherwise). Think Deadpool-style humor in a Mad Max post-apocalyptic wasteland.

In addition to Mackie, the series stars Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as a carjacking outlaw who hitches a ride with Mackie’s Doe at gunpoint. We also get a peek at Neve Campbell as Raven, who promises Doe a great reward to deliver a package, Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) as Agent Stone and wrestler Samoa Joe (performing movement) and Will Arnett (voice) as the killer clown Sweet Tooth. The series is written and developed by Michael Jonathan Smith.

Twisted Metal will include ten half-hour episodes. It premieres on July 27th, streaming exclusively on Peacock.

The Massachusetts state legislature is considering a bill that would ban the sale of users’ phone location data. If passed, the Location Shield Act would be the first such law in the nation as Congress stalls on comprehensive user privacy solutions on a national scale. The state’s proposed legislation would also require a warrant for law enforcement to access user location data from data brokers.

Today, The Wall Street Journalpublished a report with numerous details on the proposed legislation, following earlier discussions at the state house (as reported byThe Athol Daily News). Of course, the bill wouldn’t prevent Massachusetts residents from using their phone’s location services for things that directly benefit them — like Google Maps navigation, DoorDash deliveries or hailing an Uber. However, it would bar tech companies and data vendors from selling that data to third parties — a practice without any clear consumer benefit.

The Location Shield Act is backed by the ACLU and various progressive and pro-choice groups, who see a greater urgency to block the dissemination of user location in a post-Dobbs world. As red states increasingly criminalize abortion, concerns have grown over the transfer of user data to catch women traveling out of state to undergo the procedure or access medication. In addition, the bill’s backers raise concerns about national security and digital-stalking implications.

Opposing the legislation is the State Privacy & Security Coalition, a trade association representing the tech industry. “The definition of sale is extremely broad,” said Andrew Kingman, an association lawyer. He says the group supports heightened protections but would prefer giving consumers “the ability to opt-out of sale,” as other state laws have done, rather than imposing an outright ban. Of course, making it optional rather than a complete ban would likely be much better for data brokers’ bottom lines.

Requiring law enforcement to provide a warrant to access user location data could also help curtail the rising trend of law enforcement buying that information commercially. A 2022 ACLU investigation found that the Department of Homeland Security bought over 336,000 data points to essentially bypass the Fourth Amendment requirement for a search warrant. Although the US Supreme Court has said a warrant is usually needed for agencies to access location data from carriers, purchasing the data from private companies has served as a loophole.

The Massachusetts legislative session runs through next year, and the bill’s backers show optimism that it will pass. “I have every reason to be optimistic that something will be happening in this session,” MA Senate Majority Leader Cindy Creem (D), the bill’s sponsor, told the WSJ.

A disgruntled Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Seige gamer who called in a fake emergency to Ubisoft’s Montreal office was sentenced this week to three years of community service, according to The Montreal Gazette. Yanni Ouahioune, 22, was handed the sentence on Monday in Paris following his call to authorities about a fake hostage situation in November 2020.

Police say Ouahioune called in the hoax because he was angry he had been banned several times from Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. In response to the bogus call, a heavily armed squad of police officers surrounded the building. The officers secured the headquarters — and closed several nearby streets — before confirming there wasn’t an active threat. Ouahioune allegedly called from his parents’ house using Russian servers to mask his identity (unsuccessfully). After being charged, La Pressereported (viaPolygon) that Ouahioune pleaded for Ubisoft to unban his account. “Can you say that I am kindly asking the Ubisoft team to ‘unban’ my account please,” Ouahioune said. “I have put over $1,500 in cosmetic enhancements in my profile.”

The sentencing also includes Ouahioune’s alleged part in a DDoS attack against a French government office and making threats against Minecraft developers. The convicted hoaxer will reportedly be required to “compensate victims, undergo treatment for a mental health problem and either work or undergo training” in addition to the community service.

Magali Valence, Ubisoft director of external communication for Ubisoft Montreal, told The Montreal Gazette in an email that it acknowledges the court’s decision. “In this trial we were committed to representing the interests of our employees who were affected by this false hostage-taking alert at our Montreal studio. It was important for us to denounce this violent and unacceptable incident. Out of respect for our employees who were affected by this event, we will not comment further.”

Android users can soon get a sneak peek at upcoming features for Meta Threads, the new Twitter rival that may already have Elon Musk feeling the heat. A Meta engineer announced on the platform that “Android users who love to live on the cutting edge” can sign up for a beta version of the app, which launched this week and already attracted over 30 million sign-ups by Thursday morning. There isn’t yet any mention of an iOS beta program.

Although no beta builds of the Android app appear to be available yet, the program could be enticing since the platform still lacks a long list of requested features. These include hashtags, direct messages, a full web version, chronological feeds, a “following” feed, and the ability to delete your profile without also wiping your Instagram account.

Of course, beta software often comes with bugs — so only proceed if you’re comfortable with the associated risks. As Meta’s @0xjessel advised, “New features and bug fixes will come on here first, but you’ll also have to accept an increased risk of a more unstable build since [it’s] earlier.” In addition, Meta will harvest your data — perhaps more than usual. “Certain data on your use of the app will be collected and shared with the developer to help improve the app,” the invitation reads.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can sign up for beta access. Fortunately, there’s no waitlist: Anyone with an Android device can enter the program and try out future builds as they become available.

Casetify is launching a new series of accessories for Apple devices based on Neon Genesis Evangelion. The “Project-CSTF: Protection from Impact” collection lets you drape your iPhone, AirPods or Apple Watch in cases that show off your love of the acclaimed mid-90s anime series.

The likely highlight of the series is the limited-edition AirPods Pro case based on Evangelion’s Unit-01, transforming your Apple earphones case into a purple mecha head. Although it appears too big and unwieldy to slip into a pocket, Casetify says the outer case is “for ornamental purpose and not for harsh impact, scrapes or vigorous activities.” (In other words, it’s meant more for desktop display than everyday protection.) However, it also appears to include a standard on-the-go AirPods case (including an “EVA-01” logo) that fits inside the Unit-01 head. The Test Type-01 case will be available in AirPods Pro / AirPods 2 variants and will retail for $122 — nearly half the cost of the Apple’s latest true wireless earphones.

The lineup also includes MagSafe-compatible iPhone cases featuring Evangelion mechs (and $52 MagSafe chargers styled like the series’ Umbilical Cables) along with iPhone cases displaying the pilots’ likenesses. You can even order a limited-edition $122 wireless charging dock (including the MagSafe Umbilical Cable) that looks like the anime series’ ejection stands. Finally, the series will include Apple Watch bands emblazoned with the series’ logo.

The accessories officially arrive on July 20th at midnight Pacific Time. In the meantime, you can join a waitlist to order the new products. Meanwhile, those near Tokyo can visit an outdoor exhibit from July 20th to 25th (from 11:00-19:00 Japan Time) in Shinjuku Kabukicho Cine City Square.

2K announced today that NBA 2K24 will arrive on September 8th. The 25th-anniversary installment in the long-running basketball sim adds crossplay between PS5 and Xbox Series X/S — a first for the series — while celebrating one of the league’s greatest all-time shooting guards.

The game focuses heavily on the likeness of Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant, who died tragically in a helicopter crash in 2020 at age 41. Not only does Bryant appear on the upcoming game’s cover, but 2K added a “Mamba Moments” mode that’s a Kobe-fied version of NBA 2K23’s Jordan Challenge. Similar to the previous installment’s MJ mode, you’ll “recreate some of Kobe’s most captivating performances and progress through his transcendent journey from a young phenom to one of the greatest players of all time,” according to the developer.

NBA 2K24 also adds a new technical feature called ProPlay for current-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles that translates real-world NBA footage into the game engine. It “delivers animations and movements via on-court NBA action for a generational leap in authenticity on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S,” the description reads. 2K says it will tell us more about ProPlay and Mamba Moments “later this summer.”

The title will ship in three variants: the Kobe Bryant Edition (the standard version), the Black Mamba Edition and a 25th Anniversary Edition. The Kobe Bryant Edition will cost $70 for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S and $60 for Switch, PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The Black Mamba Edition adds virtual currency and a long list of digital collectibles for $100. Meanwhile, the $150 25th Anniversary Edition (only available through September 10th) adds everything from the Black Mamba Edition along with a 12-month subscription to NBA League Pass and other in-game collectibles and boosts.

Amazon has the Blink Mini for a mere $17.50 in an early Prime Day deal — half off the security camera’s $35 sticker price. The small plug-in device can give you extra peace of mind while you’re away from home, letting you check in remotely to ensure your space is free from intruders (or talk to your pets using its two-way audio). The lower price for Prime Day could make it easier to set up a fleet of them in your home without breaking the bank.

Unlike the more expensive Blink Indoor, the Blink Mini is a plug-in device, so make sure you have a nearby power outlet or can run an extension cord to the area where you’ll set it up. The Blink Mini offers 1080p capture, infrared night vision and optional phone alerts if it senses motion while armed. Setup is straightforward, only requiring a few minutes of following instructions in the Blink app to connect it to WiFi. However, the camera only works with Amazon Alexa, so you may want to look at competing products in Engadget’s Smart Home Guide if you rely on Siri or Google Assistant for voice control.

If you’re more interested in monitoring your yard or entrance, Amazon also has the Blink Outdoor for half off as part of the same early Prime Day deal. Usually $100, you can snag it today for $50. The “weather-resistant” wireless camera records in 1080p and can last up to an estimated two years on a pair of AA batteries. Remember that you’ll need a Blink Sync Module 2 and a Blink Subscription to save your recorded photos and videos to the cloud with this model.

Finally, this Blink Video Doorbell bundle — which includes the Sync Module 2 — is on sale for $47.49 (usually $95.) Like the other devices, it supports 1080p live video with nighttime infrared support and can run for up to two years on a couple of AA batteries. Amazon also describes it as weather-resistant, with a seal protecting it against water. Setup can vary, depending on whether you connect it wired or wirelessly, but either way, the Blink app will guide you through the steps. And if you opt for the simpler wireless setup, you can configure it to use a Blink Mini to play a chime indoors when someone visits.

Amazon has deals on several other Blink bundles as well. You can check out the entire sale for the full details.

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog’s car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.