Lifeboat Foundation

Even our precious PC Gamer hardware team rigs have been beset by issues.

It’s time to recalibrate the navigation systems on ships, airplanes, and (given the time of year) Santa’s sleigh: the position of the magnetic North Pole is officially being changed, continuing its shift away from Canada and towards Siberia.

Experts from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the British Geological Survey (BGS) have joined forces – as they do every five years – to produce a new, more accurate World Magnetic Model (WMM).

While the geographical North Pole stays fixed in place (at the very summit of the Earth’s rotational axis), the WMM pinpoints the magnetic North Pole – where Earth’s magnetic field points straight down, a perfectly vertical magnetic field.

In-plane magnetic fields are responsible for inducing anomalous Hall effect in EuCd₂Sb₂ films, report researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo. By studying how these fields change electronic structures, the team discovered a large in-plane anomalous Hall effect.

These findings, published in Physical Review Letters on December 3, 2024, pave the way for new strategies for controlling electronic transport under magnetic fields, potentially advancing applications in magnetic sensors.

The Hall effect is a fundamental phenomenon in material science. It occurs when a material carrying an electric current is exposed to a magnetic field, producing a voltage perpendicular to both the current and the magnetic field. This effect has been extensively studied in materials under out-of-plane magnetic fields. However, research on how in-plane magnetic fields induce this phenomenon has been very limited.

Enjoyment, thrill of pursuit motivate growers of colossal pumpkins, even though it’s a very expensive hobby.’‘

One thing’s for sure: If the tech works the way its inventor hopes, the world will never be the same.

From smart textiles to self-driving cars: Empa researchers are developing new types of detectors for infrared radiation that are more sustainable, flexible and cost-effective than conventional technologies. The key to success is not (only) the composition of the material, but also its size.

Grenergy, a Spanish independent power producer focused on the development of PV, wind, and energy storage projects, has announced the arrival of 105 BYD batteries at the port of Iquique, Chile.

Grenergy said that the Chipol Guangan cargo ship, arriving after a 42-day journey from Dachan, China, has delivered 1,050 MC Cube ESS battery modules with a total storage capacity of 600 MWh. The modules will support the Oasis de Atacama solar-plus-storage project in Chile.

NASAs SPHEREx observatory will lend insight into what happened after the Big Bang, measure the glow of galaxies near and far, and search the Milky Way for building blocks of life.

NASA and SpaceX are planning to launch the SPHEREx astrophysics observatory in late February 2025. SPHEREx, which stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer, will lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Roughly the size of a subcompact car, SPHEREx will enter a polar orbit around Earth. From there, it will map the entire sky in 3D by capturing images in every direction, similar to scanning the inside of a globe. The resulting map will feature hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies, displayed in 102 distinct colors, each representing a unique wavelength of light.

For those unaware, Whisk3D (original name Blendersito) is Dante’s Symbian-powered version of Blender, which he has been developing since late 2022. The app allows users to upload and model 3D characters on the phone, design game level assets, extrude vertices and edges, create planes, and even connect the phone to a monitor and keyboard for more convenient use.

In a true Blender fashion, Dante’s Whisk3D is open-source and can be accessed via the creator’s GitHub page. You can also support Dante here and check out more jaw-dropping experiments with Nokia-ran Blender over here.