8BitDo announced a new version of its all-button Arcade Controller that debuted a little over a year ago. The new Arcade Controller Pro looks similar to 8BitDo's original with a leverless (or Hitbox) design that replaces joysticks with buttons for improved precision and responsiveness. The new Pro version comes with upgrades that include an even thinner 16mm design, an additional programmable button, and a small screen allowing you to customize button mapping and other settings without having to open 8BitDo's Ultimate Software V2 app on another device - although that's supported, too.
Pricing, availability, and preorder timing for the Arcad …
Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Amazon, unveiled a new look for its boxy, bidirectional robotaxi, calling it the "next evolution" of the vehicle intended for mass production. The company is currently operating a free robotaxi service in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Austin, and Miami while it waits for the federal government to approve its request for an exemption from safety rules that require production vehicles to have traditional controls, like steering wheels and pedals.
While other robotaxi operators have typically relied on vehicles with familiar nameplates for their fleets, Zoox is unique in its embrace of a purpose-built …
OpenAI has just revealed a new "intelligence processor" chip for AI servers made in partnership with Broadcom. The chip, called Jalapeño, is designed to power current and future large language models, according to an announcement on Wednesday.
Jalapeño is an ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit), meaning it's designed for a specific purpose: AI inference. With AI inference, models process a user's request to run an agent like Codex or offer a response from ChatGPT, while AI training involves a model consuming vast amounts of data to inform its responses.
Toyota will not move forward with the Lexus LF-ZC. While the flagship EV has been canceled, the next-gen technology that it was set to use, including new batteries, a dedicated platform, and gigacasting, is ready. A company executive confirmed that a successor is in the works.
Hue’s latest smart bulbs will be able to run Zigbee and Thread concurrently. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Philips Hue has announced a connectivity upgrade for its Matter-over-Thread-enabled smart bulbs that will allow them to run both Thread and Zigbee at the same time. The change means you can connect compatible Hue bulbs and fixtures directly to a Matter ecosystem - Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, or Google Home - while keeping them linked to a Hue Bridge and the Hue ecosystem.
"Today you cannot have Zigbee and Thread running at the same time, so when you commission it, you have to choose," Philips Hue CTO George Yianni told The Verge. "If you want to then later switch, you have to reset it."
California filed a “notice of intent to sue” over the Department of the Interior’s moves to block wind power projects, two of which were planned off the central coast of California.
Commercial space station company Vast announced June 24 the addition of several companies and organizations to its network of partners for microgravity research and manufacturing.
The family of a 76-year-old woman killed when a Tesla Model 3 crashed into her Katy, Texas, home has sued Tesla and the driver, alleging the company’s “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” systems are defectively designed.
The wrongful death suit lands just days after the crash — and it leans on the same argument that produced last year’s landmark $243 million Autopilot verdict against Tesla in Florida.
The fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the exploits of the first team of private astronauts to cross the Kármán line is finally being told.
A newly released documentary film, “Beyond Blue Sky: The Untold Story of the First Private Astronauts,” now available on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, reveals the award-winning accomplishment and includes firsthand testimony from the pilots and engineers who made the inaugural private astronaut space flights possible.
The film also includes one of the two record-setting astronauts, U.S. Navy combat veteran Brian Binnie, sharing an unusual, life-altering experience for the first time on screen, an event that he credits for inspiring him to continue after a crushing setback almost ended his dreams of flying to space.
A Private Astronaut’s Failure and a UAP Encounter
In an email to The Debrief, documentary filmmaker Kevin Curran noted that his Emmy-nominated crew, “with a proven space pedigree,” including chronicling milestones of Blue Origin, SpaceX, Astrobotic, and NASA, was able to capture “razor’s-edge supersonic test flight footage” to reveal the story of the first team of private astronauts to join the small group of humans to have ventured into space.
Along the way, the documentary depicts the team’s successes and failures in their pursuit of reaching space for the first time—and then doing so two more times with extra ballast—to win a $10 million prize.
Although Binnie, a Princeton-educated aeronautical engineer and 20-year Navy pilot, would typically seem like the obvious choice for the award-winning space attempt, a difficult crash landing on the first rocket-powered test flight of the program had Binnie doubting whether he would get another opportunity to pilot SpaceShipOne for the remaining five test flights.
Image Credit: Beyond Blue Sky, Kevin Curran
As incredible as the team’s historic accomplishments were, Curran told The Debrief that the story took an unexpected, but inspiring turn when Binnie revealed an out-of-this-world encounter that he credited with inspiring him to recover from that setback and ultimately make the historic flight.
“The rest of the documentary is pretty incredible/riveting, I think, but [Binnie’s] story makes it so topical right now with the Pentagon’s release of UAP files,” Curran told The Debrief.
“I Turned Around Expecting to See Them Behind Me”
According to Curran, his team had no idea about Binnie’s encounter when they started filming. As the ebullient filmmaker noted, the team was about six weeks into production on a film that he says “we thought would simply be an untold, feel-good story involving perseverance and redemption within the birth of private spaceflight.” Then, while the cameras rolled, Binnie made his revelation.
Although Curran notes that the pilot had previously confided in “dozens of people within the aerospace and test flight world over the years about his extreme close encounter,” this was the first time the veteran of 33 combat missions had “courageously” shared his experience on-screen.
Documentary film director Kevin Curran has taken protecting Brian Binnie’s legacy personally. Image Credit: Kevin Curran.
“Like any good story, it simply became more fascinating the more we pulled on the thread,” Curran told The Debrief.
The tale began on December 17, 2003, when Binnie successfully piloted SpaceShipOne to nearly 68,000 feet on its first rocket-powered test flight, a critical early accomplishment that made him the first pilot to go supersonic in a privately funded vehicle. However, the flight ended in an extremely rough landing that damaged the craft’s landing gear, wing, and fuselage, putting Binnie’s future as one of three test pilots of SpaceShipOne in doubt.
“After the crash, the 47-year-old Binnie faced the reality that he may never fly the spaceship again on the remaining five test flights of the program,” a summary emailed to The Debrief explains.
Six days after the hard landing, Binnie was awake one morning at around 4 a.m., unable to sleep comfortably in his bed. Then, according to the astronaut’s account, he noticed that “bright lights were coming through my window blinds. I rose, opened the window blinds to find that daylight had manifested in my backyard.” The decorated Navy veteran noted that while his backyard was illuminated, everything else he looked at was dark.
Binnie (above) is shown at his home. Image Credit: Focus on the Signal LLC, Kevin Curran.
The next part of Binnie’s story details the presence of around a dozen translucent, glowing “orbs” he said he could perceive within the lit area. However, the pilot recalled, the orbs did not seem bright enough to account for the inordinately bright light illuminating his backyard. During his on-screen recollection, the award-winning pilot also details the movement of the orbs, including two of them approaching him from approximately 50 feet away, passing through his bedroom window, and entering his chest.
“I turned around expecting to see them behind me, but they weren’t there,” he said.
Binnie described the pre-dawn experience as “the most incredible thing I ever witnessed.”
The Impact on Binnie and the Documentary Crew
When discussing the impact that the unusual experience had on him, Binnie told Curran’s team that he initially searched for a conventional explanation. With advanced engineering degrees and a 20-year Navy career that led him to become both a test pilot and manager of the SpaceShipOne program, he was well accustomed to evaluating unusual observations. However, after exhausting all prosaic possibilities, the trained scientist, pilot, and observer ultimately concluded that the mysterious glowing orbs represented an intelligent phenomenon that had somehow allowed him to perceive them.
“It gave me hope that I had a purpose, and that purpose was to not simply take defeat, but was to pick myself up and continue,” Binnie told the documentarian.
After what the team calls “a bizarre series of events” that offered Binnie a second chance to pilot SpaceShipOne, the newly reinvigorated aviator boarded the craft’s final flight on October 4, 2004. During the launch phase, when the pilot and craft are hauled to a high latitude by the mothership, White Knight, Binnie said he once again reflected on the apparent UAP experience, including how he felt the orbs had given him an intangible drive to complete his mission and make history.
White Knight prepares to carry SpaceShipOne to space. Image Credit: Dave Moore.
By the time the flight was complete, winning both the Collier and Ansari XPRIZE, Curran said the accomplishment proved that a team of “renegade geniuses” could achieve a NASA-level feat for a fraction of the space agency’s typical cost. As far as the late pilot’s unusual UAP encounter, Curran credits Binnie’s courage for sharing his experience with UAPs, while also noting the effect the man’s retelling had on him and his crew.
Brian Confided in Colleagues for Years, But This is His First Filmed Account
“One thing I wish to clarify, in the event it matters, is that I believe Brian’s story,” Curran told The Debrief, while once again citing the combat veteran’s impressive credentials.
The documentarian also noted that there has been a stigma around the UAP subject for a long time, and that Binnie “was really brave to come out to me in 2020 before any of the House Oversight Committee testimonies or recent releases by the Pentagon.”
Brian confided in only a few aerospace colleagues about the experience for many years, and even learned of another astronaut with a similar experience, but the story’s inclusion in the film was the first time he shared it on record before passing away.
“I simply want to protect Brian Binnie’s memory and surviving family, as he was always kind to me, inspiring, and I’m proud to have called him a friend,” Curran concluded.
The project “is dedicated to the memory of test pilots Brian Binnie and Mike Melvill, the first two private astronauts who had the courage to fly stick-and-rudder to space,” the documentary team states.
“Thankfully, they shared their extraordinary stories on camera before they were lost forever in the Mojave sand,” the team concludes.
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
A “cursed” ancient Roman tablet, intended to invoke divine and demonic wrath upon one’s enemies, has been deciphered by researchers at Heidelberg University in Germany.
The magical lead tablet, originally discovered by Dutch archaeologists in the Netherlands, was crafted in the second century AD. Strangely, it is written in ancient Greek, although in an Egyptian style, rather than the Latin that would be expected for what was then a Roman province of Lower Germania.
Today, the excavation site within the city of Heerlen in the southeast of the Netherlands, near the German border, is home to the country’s largest ancient Roman ruins.
Curse Tablets
The object is not entirely unique, as it belongs to a category of curse tablets called katadesmoi in Greek and defixiones in Latin. The Greeks and Romans believed that cold, heavy iron was especially useful in binding supernatural entities, making it the go-to material for crafting such objects.
As this artifact’s material was both cold and heavy, it reminded ancient people of the bleak underworld. Additionally, lead is also easy to work with in practice, as it is both inexpensive and easy to inscribe.
These small tablets were typically inscribed with curses and then buried, with the intention of bringing misfortune upon rivals in matters of sport, law, or love.
At the time the tablet was created, Heerlen was a Roman military settlement known as Coriovallum. Dutch archaeologists unearthed the 9.3-by-4.8-centimeter katadesmos from a pit beneath the former town square.
Deciphering an Ancient Curse
Researchers at the University of Heidelberg’s Institute for Papyrology used reflectance transformation imaging, a technique that combines photographs taken under different lighting conditions to enhance subtle surface details. Their analysis revealed three distinct types of characters within the inscription.
The combination of Egyptian-style invocations of deities and demons written in ancient Greek is highly unusual for a region where Latin was the dominant written language. Also notable are three symbols known as “Characteres”—magical symbols believed to facilitate communication with supernatural entities—along with two male and two female names.
Dr. Rodney Ast, Academic Director of the Institute for Papyrology, suggests that these four individuals were either the targets of the curse or those on whose behalf it was created. However, Dr. Julia Lougovaya, a research associate at the institute, notes that the male names are Latin while the female names are Greek, a distinction that may hold additional significance.
“It cannot be ruled out that one of the two women was the author of the inscription and had brought the supposed ability to communicate with divine powers through such curses with her from Roman Egypt,” said Dr. Lougovaya.
Ancient Magical Practices
Magic played an important role in Egyptian society, where rituals aimed at healing and protection formed a visible part of religious life, while malicious spells were typically practiced more discreetly.
“In the early centuries A.D., Near Eastern, Egyptian, Jewish, and sometimes even Christian traditions increasingly merged and spread throughout the entire Roman Empire of that time – a development that the discovery from Heerlen impressively underscores,” explained Prof. Joachim Quack, Director of the Institute for Egyptology at Heidelberg University.
A forthcoming scholarly publication will provide the full transcription of the inscription and details of the analysis. The tablet is also scheduled to go on display at a museum in Heerlen in the future.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
Slate Auto, the EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos, finally revealed pricing for its bare-bones electric truck today: $24,950 to start. The company opened preorders the same day.
Slate also boosted the base model’s estimated range from 150 miles to around 205 miles, making the price look even better against a US new-car market where almost nothing starts under $30,000.
WASHINGTON — York Space Systems said June 24 that a satellite it built for the U.S. Space Force successfully demonstrated two-way tactical communications using ultra-high-frequency (UHF) links from low Earth […]
It’s been a big month for Orange EV – the all electric terminal truck brand followed news of its record-setting 600-unit order with not one but two major milestone announcements: 2,000 yard hostlers delivered to customers, and 33 million electric miles driven!
WASHINGTON — Vantor has chosen BAE Systems to build its next generation of high-resolution imaging satellites. The selection reunites Vantor with the former Ball Aerospace business that helped develop DigitalGlobe’s […]
A massive stone, deliberately laid on its side and buried within the walls of an ancientJudean home, may provide physical evidence consistent with interpretations of King Hezekiah’s reported religious reforms.
The Hebrew Bible describes the events of Hezekiah’s reforms, including the tearing down of shrines, the destruction of sacred pillars, and the relocation of religious practice from the countryside into royal control in Jerusalem. For decades, archaeologists have searched for evidence of these changes, mostly by studying temples and public worship sites.
The study focuses on a massebah, a cultic standing stone about 4.6 feet tall and weighing 750 kilograms, found at Tel ‘Eton in the Judean Lowlands. The stone was originally located inside Building 101, a large residence sometimes referred to as the Governor’s Residency. Archaeologists found it placed in the largest room, directly opposite the entrance, where it functioned as a central feature for anyone entering the building.
Scholars have documented that standing stones of this type throughout the ancient Near East have ritual significance. This particular stone does not appear to have had a clear structural or practical function. “The location of the stone suggests that it played an important role in the lives of the building’s occupants,” Faust said.
Decommissioned, Not Destroyed
Sometime before the Assyrian destruction of Tel ‘Eton at the end of the eighth century BCE, during the period of Hezekiah’s reign, the stone’s status changed. Rather than leaving it upright and visible, the builders laid it on its side and incorporated it into a stone platform. The people responsible did not smash or desecrate the stone. They carefully removed it from use without destroying it.
“Those responsible for changing religious practices may have wished to eliminate the stone’s ritual function, and perhaps wanted the old ritual objects desecrated, but the people who carried out the change seem to have treated it with respect,” Faust said. “They removed it from use without destroying it, effectively neutralizing its cultic significance while preserving the object itself.”
Rare Domestic Evidence
Most searches for evidence of the events of Hezekiah’s reforms have focused on public worship sites, such as the temple at Arad and the dismantled altar at Beersheba. Researchers consider these sites significant, but competing interpretations persist, partly because so few examples exist.
Domestic religious practice presents a different challenge. When a household abandoned a religious object, people often removed or discarded it, leaving no trace for archaeologists to find centuries later. Since ordinary homes do not receive the same archaeological attention as temples and traditional sites of worship, evidence of religious practice located within these residences often disappears rather than being properly preserved or studied. This makes the Tel ‘Eton stone unusual in the archaeological record. People left it in place, buried it, and sealed it inside a platform, where it remained undisturbed for nearly 3,000 years.
An Open Question
Faust does not overstate the discovery. The study does not claim that Hezekiah’s policies directly led to the stone’s decommissioning. The dating places the event only within his reign, but not as a definite result of them. Still, the timing, the method of removal, and the care taken to preserve the object all match a period when religious practice across Judah appears to have been changing.
Scholars still debate whether Hezekiah’s reforms happened as described in the Bible or instead reflect later religious ideas. Either way, this discovery adds a rare example of domestic evidence to a debate usually focused on public religious sites.
Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.
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