While scientists have found plenty of exoplanets over the years, they've yet to spot to moons orbiting those worlds outside our solar system. Now, a group of astronomers has discovered (PDF) what's believed to be a region with exomoons-in-the-making for the first time. Myriam Benisty and team from the University of Grenoble found the disk of dust — the moon-forming region — around a young exoplanet in a star system dubbed PDS 70 located 370 light years from Earth. 

The team found the first protoplanet (PDS 70b) in the system back in 2018 using European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. A year later, they found another young gas giant (PDS 70c) using the same equipment. The astronomers believe based on the data they have that the star system is only 10 million years old and that both gas giants are several times bigger than Jupiter. To know more about the system, they focused all other possible instruments on it, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. ALMA is made up of 66 short-wavelength radio dishes, and its observations made it possible to spot the dust around PDS 70c.

The disk of dust spans a distance slightly wider than that between Earth and the Sun, and there's enough mass in there for three moons the same size as ours. Benisty says the moons may have already formed, but there's no conclusive proof yet because they can't be seen with ALMA. According to Science, the Extremely Large Telescope, which will be the world's largest optical telescope when it's built, may have the power to see if the moons have already formed around the protoplanet. The telescope is still under construction, though, and scientific operations won't start until 2027 at the earliest. 

Having conquered phone displays, Corning is bringing Gorilla Glass to handset cameras. The company's DX and DX+ range of damage-resistant glass will next be available for mobile camera lens covers, starting with Samsung devices. Alongside the added protection, Corning claims its tech can improve the optical performance of smartphone cameras. 

According to the company, DX glass essentially results in less light being reflected by the camera cover lens. Currently, even with the use of an anti-reflective coating, around 92 percent of transmitted light enters a smartphone camera. Corning says that with DX/DX+ on the outside a camera lens can capture 98 percent of light, helping to reduce optical issues like ghosting. These reflections are usually caused by a bright light source during daylight or in low-light conditions. Lens hoods and coatings applied to lens surfaces can help to suppress ghosting, also known as ghost reflections. 

Some smartphone makers are already working with specialist suppliers to address the problem. Both Sony and Vivo use a Zeiss coating to boost light transmission while reducing flares, ghosting and reflections on their high-end phones.

But, Corning also offers the added benefit of durability and has strong ties with the biggest smartphone makers in the field. The company says its DX glass is scratch resistant and that DX+ approaches the resistance of Sapphire, which is used in high-end watches thanks to its Grade 9 on the Mohs scale — a system for rating the hardness of various minerals. It could even allow you to finally ditch that smartphone case.

Gorilla Glass is now featured on 8 billion devices by more than 45 major brands, according to Corning. While Gorilla Glass DX is also available on more than 30 million wearables. Recognizing its integral role as a supplier, Apple poured $450 million into the company as part of two separate investments in 2017 and 2019.

Back on July 2nd, Russia-linked ransomware group REvil staged what ended up as a massive attack on IT management software giant Kaseya, as well as its clients and their customers. The group took advantage of vulnerabilities in the Kaseya software companies use to send out updates to computer networks, allowing it to distribute ransomware to as many as 1,500 businesses and organizations worldwide. Most of them are just small businesses, and some of the victims in New Zealand are schools, which aren't your typical ransomware targets. Now, Kaseya has announced that it has obtained a universal decryptor and will help those "impacted by the incident."

REvil originally demanded a payment of $70 million for a universal decryptor that will unlock the data owned by victims of the July 2nd attack. In mid-July, however, the group suddenly fell off the face of the internet. The critical sites it uses to communicate with victims vanished shortly after President Biden revealed that he talked to Russian President Vladimir Putin about ransomware attacks originating from his country. It's still unclear if the group disappeared from the internet as a result of that talk, of an offensive cyber operation conducted by US authorities or of something else entirely. 

In its announcement, Kaseya said it "obtained the tool from a third party" and that it worked with software company Emsisoft to confirm that it can unlock victims' data. It also said that it formed teams to actively help "customers affected by the ransomware to restore their environments" and that its representatives will contact clients who haven't heard from the company yet.

When BleepingComputer asked Kaseya if it paid the ransom to obtain the key, the company replied that it "can't confirm or deny that." The publication also asked the FBI if it was involved in obtaining the decryption key, but the agency refused to comment on an ongoing investigation. That means that key's origin is still a mystery, though we doubt its source matters for the victims that just want to access their locked data.

NASA's InSight lander arrived on Mars in 2018 to learn about its interior by monitoring "marsquakes," and now the project is starting to really pay off. NASA has announced that researchers have mapped the red planet's interior and discovered some big surprises and major differences with Earth. 

The map is the first ever of the interior of another planet. Compared to Earth, Mars has a thicker crust, thinner mantle layer and a bigger, less dense and more liquid core than expected. That in turn suggests that Mars may have formed millions of years before our planet, when the sun itself was still not fully formed. 

"It gives us our first sample of the inside of another rocky planet like Earth, built out of the same materials but very, very different," University of Cambridge seismologist Sanne Cottaar (who wasn't involved in the project) told the Wall Street Journal. “It is impressive.”

Constructing a map from the limited data provided by InSight was no easy feat. The probe only recorded quakes from one location and has just a single seismometer, for one thing. And Mars — while seismically active — didn't have any quakes larger than around 4 on the Richter scale. 

Science

Still, taking that data, along with planet's magnetism and orbital wobbles, scientists were able to create a detailed map. The planet's innermost core was found to have a diameter of around 2,275 miles, larger than previously thought. Given the mass of the planet as a whole, that implies that the iron/nickel core likely contains lighter elements like sulfur, oxygen and carbon. 

The crust, meanwhile, was found to be very old. It was also thicker in Mars' southern highlands and thinner in the northern lowlands, which may have hosted oceans long ago. On average, it's between 15 and 45 miles thick and split into several layers of volcanic rock.

The mantle between the crust and core extends roughly 970 miles below the surface. It's thinner than Earth's and has a different composition which suggests the two planets arose from different materials when they formed. This “might be the simple explanation why we don’t see plate tectonics on Mars,” ETH Zurich geophysicist and study co-author Amir Khan told the New York Times. 

The results has given scientists new insight into not just the inside of Mars, but how rocky planets form in general. That will help them develop new theories about planet formation that could become particularly valuable in the near future, when new instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope will allow astronomers to scan exoplanets around the galaxy. NASA will reveal more about its findings in a live event later today. 

Tesla has launched a new program that will allow Powerwall owners to kick power back to the grid in times of high usage. The "Tesla Virtual Power Plant" is now entering a beta phase, letting customers sign up, albeit without any compensation for the time being. 

When it first announced the program last week, Tesla noted that "the California grid operator forecasts a continued need for Californians to support the grid through 2021." That could be a big understatement, as the grid is expected to be heavily stressed over the rest of the summer because of record high temperatures boosting demand, along with a severe drought that could reduce output from hydroelectric plants. 

Enrollment is now open for "PG&E, SDG&E and SCE customers who own Powerwall and solar," Tesla said in a news release. "Enrolling requires the Tesla app 3.10.14 and a new Powerwall firmware version which will be released soon."

Tesla

So how will it work? Tesla gave an example showing that the app will give you a push notification warning a few hours ahead of any grid stress events. It will also show the time period that the event will impact your Powerwall usage, as shown above.

"Depending on the forecasted severity of the event, your Powerwall may prioritize charging from your solar system in advance of the event to help shift your home’s grid use to earlier in the day," Tesla explained. "If Powerwall fully charges before an event, your solar system will resume powering your home and export any excess power to the grid."

Tesla noted that customers will not be compensated for contributing to the Virtual Power Plant, though it encouraged users to join up for what it called a "public good." However, customers already on net metering programs will be compensated for any power sent back to the grid as usual, Electrek noted. 

Beginning the first quarter of next year, GM will make its advanced semi-autonomous driving assistant, Super Cruise, available on six more Cadillac models including the Escalade, CT4,CT5, Silverado, Hummer EV, and Sierra. 

"We’re excited to expand Super Cruise to even more new models with additional capabilities to provide our customers with even more opportunities to go hands-free,” Mario Maiorana, Super Cruise chief engineer, said in a prepared statement. “The additional Super Cruise-enabled vehicles and new features are an important step toward our goal of enabling hands-free driving 95 percent of time and getting people more comfortable with letting go of the wheel.”

These vehicles will also enjoy a number of additional features that the current generation of Super Cruise users do. These include Trailering capability which enables drivers to engage the system even if they're towing a load behind them, Automatic lane change, and Enhanced navigation display, which will highlight Super Cruise-compatible routes and roads along the way to your driving destination. Now, if you already own a Super Cruise enabled vehicle and want to upgrade to the more advanced system, you are in luck assuming you bought your GM SUV in 2021 as that is the only model year getting an upgrade. If you bought between 1997, when Super Cruise was first introduced, and 2020, sorry but no dice, you'll have to change your own lanes like a schmuck.  

Apple has recently updated its Music app for Android, but it left out a couple of new features you may have been waiting for: support for lossless streaming and spatial audio. Engadget has confirmed that the tech giant has started rolling out the new high-quality streaming options, even though they aren't specifically mentioned in the Android app's release notes. 

The company first announced that it's making the streaming options available to subscribers at no extra charge back in May, promising immersive experiences similar to what Tidal HiFi and Amazon Music HD offer. Both options arrived for Apple users back in June, but they're limited to certain albums. Apple promised to make Dolby Atmos content easy to find with curated playlists and special badges, though, and it said lossless streaming will eventually come to its entire catalog with 75 million tracks.

You will need to use compatible speakers or headphones to be able to enjoy these new immersive listening experiences, though. Apple previously said that AirPods and Beats earbuds and headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, as well as the speakers on the latest iPhones, iPads and Macs will work with Dolby's spatial audio. You'd have to look up your device's features to make sure it can also access spatial audio streaming. Meanwhile, lossless audio requires a wired connection and won't work with wireless audio devices. 

Instagram is testing a new feature called “Limits” that allows users to lock their accounts and limit any potential interactions when they feel they’re the target of harassment. In introducing the tool, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, referenced the recent Euro 2020 final, which saw three Black players on the English National team face a flood of harassment after England lost to Italy when the match went to a penalty shootout.

“Racism and hate speech have no place on Instagram,” Mosseri said in a video he shared on Thursday. “It is not only honestly fucked up to see people treated that way, but it breaks how Instagram works.”

In trying to curb harassment on the platform, Mosseri said Instagram plans to try to reduce hate speech to “as close to zero as we possibly can.” However, knowing that it will likely be impossible to completely eradicate all forms of racism from the app, the company also plans to give people new tools that will allow them “to take some power back.” That’s where Limits fits in. “We know that people sometimes are in temporary moments of real risk and pain, and we need to give them tools to protect,” Mosseri said of the feature.

Ahead of wide rollout, Instagram is currently testing Limits in select countries across the world. In the meantime, Mosseri promised the company would have more to share on how it plans to tackle racism on Instagram in the coming months.

Electronic Arts held its EA Play Live 2021 event today. During the approximately 40-minute presentation, we got a first look at Grid Legends, a new entry in Codemasters' ongoing racing franchise that will feature a single-player story with live-action performances. Lost in Random, the upcoming Tim Burton-inspired action-adventure game from Fe developer Zoink Games, also got a release date. It's coming out on September 10th on current and last-generation consoles, as well as PC. For Battlefield fans, EA offered a look at 2042's new Portal mode that will allow fans to create their own custom match types that they can share with the game's community.       

But EA saved the best news for last. In a short teaser, the publisher confirmed Motive Studios is working on a remake of Dead Space for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S. In addition to more modern graphics courtesy of Dice's Frostbite engine, EA promised gameplay improvements, as well as new story and character elements. 

Snapchat is enjoying its highest user growth in years, according to its latest earnings report. Daily active users have increased to 293 million, which is a 23 percent growth from this time last year. That’s the best Snap Inc has seen in a while; it tops the company’s prior best of 22 percent, which happened four years ago. The number even tops Twitter’s, which recently reported 206 million daily users in the second quarter.

Overall revenue also increased by a very impressive 116 percent to $982 million, which is its strongest growth rate yet. That’s faster than even that of Twitter and Facebook, at least right now.

The company also said that Spotlight, its TikTok-like feature that pays users for clips, has grown in popularity. Daily active users of Spotlight grew by 49 percent, and average daily content submissions have more than tripled.

Much of this growth can be attributed to pandemic lockdowns ending, as well as a much-improved Android app. In a prior earnings statement, CEO Evan Spiegel said that “as things began to open up in the United States in late February, we saw inflection points in key behaviors like Story posting and engagement with the Snap Map.”

Additionally, Spiegel is hopeful that the development of the app’s augmented reality platform will drive engagement even further. “We are pleased by the progress our team is making with the development of our augmented reality platform, and we are energized by the many opportunities to grow our community and business around the world,” he said.

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