Check out these delicious 3D X-ray scans of some classic Easter treats

Aside from Halloween, no holiday is more associated with chocolate than Easter. From chocolate bunnies to cream-filled eggs, Easter is one of the sweetest holidays around. But have you ever wondered what those tasty treats look like at the micrometer level? Well, wonder no more, because a team of researchers at the University of Manchester have created 3D renderings of what some of Easter’s most tantalizing treats look like under X-Ray.

Some of the results have revealed some interesting things about our favorite treats. For example, just over half of a Kit Kat bar is made up of chocolate. The biscuit and wafer portions compose 47 percent of the bar. Additionally, Dr. Tristan Lowe revealed that his studies into Kit Kats could have some practical benefits in regards to how we analyze rocks for natural resources. This is due to the similar structure between the Kit Kat bar and certain rocks.

‘The interesting part of the Kit Kat bar is the fine wafer structure that can be analysed using a network model similar to that used to understand how the porosity in rocks is connected and this has implications for extraction,” Lowe said. “In the video the visualised network shows that the wafer is a complex interconnected structure that is fairly uniform in shape.”

Most of us aren’t going to be doing much research on geology. However, that doesn’t mean Lowe’s work is without practical benefits to the average person. Feeling a bit disappointed over the ratio of chocolate to biscuit in Kit Kat bars? Well, in that case, you’ll be glad to know that Lowe has also provided us with some information regarding which of the tested candy bars is the most dense. The winner is the  Yorkie Bar which, incidentally, bears some resemblance to sheets of metal made by 3D printers.

While this is certainly an interesting and amusing way to look at Easter candies, we do have to admit that it is a bit odd see such in-depth images of chocolate rabbits and Kit Kat bars. Of course, that doesn’t make them any less delicious and if you can check them out for yourself on the university’s YouTube page.

This research comes at an opportune time as we head into Easter weekend, but it also coincides with April Fools Day. We rounded up our favorite gags here.

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Smugglers used aerial drones to sneak $80 million in iPhones into China

Legal Daily

Chinese authorities have arrested 26 people who were part of an iPhone smuggling operation between Hong Kong and the mainland city of Shenzhen. The criminals used aerial drones to connect two 660-foot cables between two high-rise buildings, and then passed as many as 15,000 iPhones per night across the border.

According to Reuters, the state-owned Legal Daily reports that it was the latest escalation in smuggling operations that have been going on for years. “It’s the first case found in China that drones were being used in cross-border smuggling crimes,” customs officials said.

The arrests were made in February as part of a joint anti-smuggling effort between authorities in the two cities.

It’s unclear from the reports exactly which drones were used, but Drone Life speculates that at least one was a modified DJI Phantom 4, judging from the images released by Chinese media. Ironically, the drone may even have been manufactured in Shenzhen, which is a Chinese tech hub and home to a DJI plant.

Once the cable was attached between the buildings, the smugglers sent individual packages of 10 iPhones across. Working in the dead of night, they were able to pass as many as 15,000 phones per night across the border. Over a six-month period, that added up to 500 million yuan ($79.8 million) in refurbished iPhones.

Although the majority of iPhone manufacturing is done in China, taxes and fees make it prohibitively expensive to own one, and there’s a thriving black market for smugglers. An iPhone that costs $1,000 in the U.S. may run upwards of $3,000 in China. One woman was recently caught at the Chinese border with more than a hundred phones and 75 luxury watches strapped to her body. Other enterprising criminals have used Twinkie boxes, coffee tins, and toothpaste containers.

Drones have also been used to smuggle contraband into prisons. A gang in Britain used a quadcopter to deliver goods to inmates inside, and another drone laden with drugs dropped its payload into an Ohio prison yard, resulting in a near-riot among inmates.

Legal Daily reports that Chinese authorities will step up their efforts to combat drone smuggling by — you guessed it — using their own drones equipped with high-resolution cameras.

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Smugglers used aerial drones to sneak $80 million in iPhones into China

Legal Daily

Chinese authorities have arrested 26 people who were part of an iPhone smuggling operation between Hong Kong and the mainland city of Shenzhen. The criminals used aerial drones to connect two 660-foot cables between two high-rise buildings, and then passed as many as 15,000 iPhones per night across the border.

According to Reuters, the state-owned Legal Daily reports that it was the latest escalation in smuggling operations that have been going on for years. “It’s the first case found in China that drones were being used in cross-border smuggling crimes,” customs officials said.

The arrests were made in February as part of a joint anti-smuggling effort between authorities in the two cities.

It’s unclear from the reports exactly which drones were used, but Drone Life speculates that at least one was a modified DJI Phantom 4, judging from the images released by Chinese media. Ironically, the drone may even have been manufactured in Shenzhen, which is a Chinese tech hub and home to a DJI plant.

Once the cable was attached between the buildings, the smugglers sent individual packages of 10 iPhones across. Working in the dead of night, they were able to pass as many as 15,000 phones per night across the border. Over a six-month period, that added up to 500 million yuan ($79.8 million) in refurbished iPhones.

Although the majority of iPhone manufacturing is done in China, taxes and fees make it prohibitively expensive to own one, and there’s a thriving black market for smugglers. An iPhone that costs $1,000 in the U.S. may run upwards of $3,000 in China. One woman was recently caught at the Chinese border with more than a hundred phones and 75 luxury watches strapped to her body. Other enterprising criminals have used Twinkie boxes, coffee tins, and toothpaste containers.

Drones have also been used to smuggle contraband into prisons. A gang in Britain used a quadcopter to deliver goods to inmates inside, and another drone laden with drugs dropped its payload into an Ohio prison yard, resulting in a near-riot among inmates.

Legal Daily reports that Chinese authorities will step up their efforts to combat drone smuggling by — you guessed it — using their own drones equipped with high-resolution cameras.

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• Switzerland’s new air traffic control system to put drones, planes in same skies

China’s defunct space station comes to a fiery end over the South Pacific

Fraunhofer

You can sleep easy tonight. China’s Tiangong-1 space station will not land on your head.

The U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC) confirmed in a statement that the school-bus-sized space lab mostly broke apart and burned up when it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere above the South Pacific Ocean at 8:16 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 1 (0016 GMT on Monday).

The JFSCC said it used the Space Surveillance Network sensors and their orbital analysis system to confirm the satellite’s re-entry, and also worked with data supplied by counterparts in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, posted an image showing where the main part of the station is believed to have come down. It appears to be around 2,500 miles south of Hawaii and some 2,800 miles northeast of Auckland, New Zealand. In his tweet, McDowell references the so-called “spacecraft graveyard” where many decommissioned satellites have met their end.

“NW of Tahiti — it managed to miss the ‘spacecraft graveyard’ which is further south!” McDowell tweeted.

NW of Tahiti – it managed to miss the ‘spacecraft graveyard’ which is further south! pic.twitter.com/Sj4e42O7Dc

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) April 2, 2018

The chances of debris landing on a densely populated area were always small, and initial reports suggests any parts that survived the burn-up will have landed in the sea, as expected. But it’ll be sensible to wait until we receive confirmation that any debris that reached the Earth’s surface cleared the South Pacific’s tens of thousands of tiny islands.

More than 10 meters long and weighing 8.75 tons, the Tiangong-1 (translated as “Heavenly Palace”) satellite was launched by the Chinese in 2011 and decommissioned five years later. The demise of the out-of-control satellite had been highly anticipated by millions of people around the world, though considering its large size and the fact that it could have landed pretty much anywhere, it was hardly surprising.

Powell later offered up some more thoughts linked to the now non-existent satellite, suggesting you should “always bet on the Pacific” when it comes to defunct space machinery falling to Earth.

Lessons you should take away:
1) Science isn’t about predicting things precisely. It’s about knowing how big your uncertainty is.
2). The Pacific Ocean is big. Always bet on the Pacific.

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) April 2, 2018

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Siri: Apple is on a hiring spree to make its digital assistant smarter

Apple appears to be focusing in a big way on Siri, evidenced by a major hiring spree aimed at enhancing its oft–criticized digital assistant.

According to data-tracker firm Thinknum, the tech giant has recently ramped up efforts to expand its team of Siri engineers, culminating in a posting one day last week that listed 161 Siri-related positions.

Apple launched its digital assistant for the iPhone in 2011 before taking it to other Apple products, including the iPad, Mac computers, AirPods, and the recently launched HomePod smart speaker. But Siri’s limited skill set — especially when compared to Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant — and occasional inability to understand spoken instructions has left some users frustrated, an annoyance brought to the fore with the recently launched HomePod, which places Siri front and center.

Apple clearly hopes to fix all that with an injection of new engineers.

Hiring spike

Thinknum’s Joshua Fruhlinger pointed out that the number of Siri-related positions posted by Apple has accelerated in recent weeks, with a jump occurring in the first half of February.

“The hiring trend has been on an upward trajectory since summer 2016, but only recently did the openings spike so acutely,” Fruhlinger noted in a blog post.

Of the 161 positions, 125 are at Apple’s HQ in Cupertino, while 10 will be based in Cambridge, England. The rest are divided among San Francisco and Seattle, with four in Shanghai, and one in each of several cities, including Ottawa, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, Munich, and Madrid.

The vast majority — 154 to be precise — are for software engineers, with the others focusing on Siri design and product management.

“It’s easy to see that this is a concerted effort by Apple to make Siri smart, or at least, smarter than she has been,” Fruhlinger writes. He adds that while the other assistants are regularly receiving new skills, “Siri is still struggling to take notes and turn off lights. When Apple released the long-awaited HomePod, critics praised the speaker’s sound quality but unanimously called it crippled by Siri’s lack of smarts.”

News of Apple’s hiring spree comes just weeks after Forbes reported on how Amazon is hiring a whopping 1,147 people to work on Alexa, “more than Google is hiring for product and technical roles across the entire Alphabet conglomerate, including YouTube, Waymo, Google Fiber, and — of course — the main money maker in the Alphabet empire: the original Google,” Forbes said.

Provided Apple can attract the talent and fill all the posts that it’s advertising, hopefully Siri users won’t have to wait too long to see some concrete improvements with Apple’s digital assistant.

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University of Michigan hopes new drone facility pushes students to great heights

Up until recently, the University of Michigan’s aerospace engineering students could only test their drones in an atrium of one of the university’s buildings, and the flying machines had to remain tethered at all times.

The less-than-ideal conditions have led to the establishment of M-Air, a new outdoor lab that offers a much freer environment for students to test their aerial machines.

M-Air is a simple yet effective solution comprising a netted complex with 9,600 square feet of space that allows students to push their drones to the limit, whether they’re testing new algorithms, mechanisms, sensors, or any other system aimed at advancing drone technology.

The netting plays several important roles. First, it allows students to expose their drones to all kinds of weather conditions, thereby offering a realistic environment for testing. Second, it offers a safe space for testing new designs and systems that could, during their development, result in many flyaway incidents or crashes. Without the netting, the university would have to find a remote location, perhaps far from the university, to test their machines outside. And they’d need permission from the authorities to do so, too.

As you can see in the video above, M-Air also includes a sheltered pavilion that acts as a kind of workshop area where up to 25 students and teachers can prepare their machines for flight as well as tweak existing setups during a flying session.

‘It really lets us push the boundaries’

Student Matthew Romano says M-Air allows them to test a drone system “as much as we want, without fear of it breaking or hurting other people, and it really lets us push the boundaries and allows us to really move quickly on iterating and developing the system and testing our algorithms.”

Drone technology is advancing rapidly, with the machines being developed for use in a wide range of industries. We’ve heard much about plans for package delivery from the likes of Amazon, but there are also plans to use much bigger drones for commercial transport, while others are being developed for search and rescue missions that could one day see them lifting people to safety. They’re also being used to inspect and clean infrastructure like bridges and wind turbines, and can gather environmental and atmospheric data, too.

Dimitrios Zekkos, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michigan, is helping students develop a specialized drone to survey and 3D-map areas hit by natural disasters. “This work can inform risk assessment studies, urban planning, and other critical decisions and processes. It could also lead to better design procedures and, eventually, safer structures,” Zekkos told the university’s news center.

The university says M-Air is currently the only engineering school in the country with access to cutting-edge robotic test facilities for land, air, sea, and space, operating as it does alongside Mcity for autonomous vehicles, the Marine Hydrodynamics Lab for testing robotic and conventional watercraft, and the Space Physics Research lab that focuses on the development of robotic spacecraft.

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Acer’s stylish new all-in-one PC packs a built-in Qi wireless charging station

On Monday, April 2, Acer introduced its thinnest all-in-one Windows 10 PC to date: The Aspire S24. The device boasts a 23.8-inch screen that is just 0.235 inches “thin” and sports 0.106-inch bezels to provide customers with more screen and less frame. The PC is based on the latest eighth-generation Intel Core i5 processor, a weird 12GB of system memory, and 1TB of storage that is likely based on a hard drive, given the all-in-one’s price tag. 

Here is what we have: 

Screen size: 

23.8 inches 

Screen type: 

In-plane switching 

Screen resolution: 

1,920 × 1,080 

Screen thickness: 

0.235 inches 

Screen bezel: 

0.106 inches 

Processor: 

Eighth-generation Intel Core i5 

Graphics: 

Integrated 

Memory: 

12GB DDR4 @ 2,400MHz 

Storage: 

1TB 

Audio: 

2× two-watt 2.1 channel speakers
1× Subwoofer
Acer TrueHarmony
Dolby Audio Premium 

Connectivity: 

Wireless AC (2×2)
Bluetooth 4.2 

Ports: 

1× Gigabit Ethernet
1× USB-C 3.1 Gen1
3× USB-A 3.1 Gen1
1× USB-A 2.0
1× HDMI
1× SD card reader 

Extras: 

Built-in Qi wireless charging station 

Price: 

$879 

 Acer’s Aspire S24 is set feature-wise: You won’t see variants or customization options. At the heart are Intel’s latest Core i5 processor and integrated graphics backing an IPS screen with a decent full-HD resolution. It’s not meant to be a gaming machine, but a productive tool that also looks extremely snazzy on your desk. 

“Built with a dual focus on design and premium functionality, it makes a stylish, yet practical addition to any room,” the company boasts. “A black and matte gold color scheme lends the ultra-slim S24 a luxurious appeal.” 

What is interesting about this all-in-one is that it sports a built-in wireless charging station for Qi-enabled devices. Even if your smartphone doesn’t support Qi wireless charging, you can always jump on Amazon and purchase an adapter for around $10 that connects to the Micro USB port and sits flat against the back of your device like a flexible credit card. 

The all-in-one’s connectivity arsenal includes a handful of normal USB ports along with a slimmer USB-C port for adding a third display (the second would use the HDMI port), charging devices, and so on. Meanwhile, the Wireless AC component is your standard two-by-two setup where the hardware supports data speeds of up to 867Mbps. Bluetooth 4.2 covers Xbox One controllers, smartphones, audio headphones, and so on. 

According to Acer, the company designed the screen for easy tilting between negative-5 and 25 degrees using just one hand. Other screen-focused features include BluelightShield to protect your brain’s Melatonin level, Flickerless technology to reduce eye-strain-inducing flickers, and ExaColor that increases color and saturation. Unfortunately, the company didn’t provide any actual facts regarding the screen’s brightness, contrast ratio, and so on prior to the official launch. 

“Two two-watt 2.1 channel speakers with a subwoofer design enhanced with Acer TrueHarmony and Dolby Audio Premium infuse entertainment with deep bass as well as excellent clarity and volume,” the company adds. 

Acer’s stylish new all-in-one, officially listed as the Aspire S24-880-UR12, will be made available in North America sometime during April for a set $880. 

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Huawei P20 Pro vs. Apple iPhone X: Which smartphone is better?

Boasting the first triple lens camera in a smartphone, alongside cutting edge specs, the Huawei P20 Pro has been attracting a lot of attention. It’s an impressive Android smartphone from a Chinese manufacturer that has shown a flair for high-end devices. Can it compete with Apple’s stylish flagship? Which is better: The P20 Pro or the iPhone X? That’s what we’re here to find out.

Specs

Huawei P20 Pro
Apple iPhone X

Size
155 x 73.9 x 7.8 mm (6.1 x 2.9 x 0.3 inches)
143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7 mm (5.65 x 2.79 x 0.30 inches)

Weight
174 grams (6.14 ounces)
174 grams (6.14 ounces)

Screen size
6.1-inch OLED display
5.8-inch Super Retina AMOLED display

Screen resolution
2,240 x 1,080 pixels (408 pixels-per-inch)
2,436 x 1,125 pixels (458 ppi)

Operating system
Emotion UI 8.1 (over Android 8.1 Oreo)
iOS 11

Storage space
128GB
64GB, 256GB

MicroSD card slot
No
No

Tap-to-pay services
Google Pay
Apple Pay

Processor
Kirin 970
A11 Bionic

RAM
6GB
3GB

Camera
Triple lens 40MP, 20MP, & 8MP rear, 24MP front
Dual 12 MP rear, 7MP FaceTime HD front

Video
2160p at 30 frames per second, 1080p at 30fps, 720p at 960fps
2160p at 60 fps, 1080p at 240 fps

Bluetoothversion
Bluetooth 4.2
Bluetooth 5

Ports
USB-C
Lightning

Fingerprint sensor
Yes
No

Water resistance
IP67
IP67

Battery
4,000mAh
2,716mAh

App marketplace
Google Play Store
Apple App Store

Network support
T-Mobile, AT&T
AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint

Colors
Black, Blue, Pink Gold, Twilight
Space Gray, Silver

Price
899 euros (around $1,100)
$1,000

Where to buy it
Huawei

AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Apple

Review score
Hands-on review
4.5 out of 5 stars

Performance, battery life and charging

The P20 Pro has Huawei’s Kirin 970 processor inside. It also boasts a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which deals with artificial intelligence (A.I.) tasks so the processor can get on with whatever it’s doing. This is backed up by 6GB of RAM. Apple’s iPhone X has its A11 Bionic chip inside, backed by just 3GB of RAM. In most benchmarks, and in real world use, the iPhone X is faster. You can argue about how much RAM a smartphone needs, but Android and iOS handle memory management differently, so directly comparing them here doesn’t tell us anything.

The Huawei P20 Pro offers 128GB of storage, and there’s no MicroSD card slot for expansion. The iPhone X comes in 64GB or 256GB varieties, and once again, there’s no room for a MicroSD card.

Dipping into battery life, the P20 Pro has a 4,000mAh battery, while the battery in the iPhone X is only rated at 2,716mAh. We need to spend some time testing the P20 Pro to be sure, but we’ll be surprised if it doesn’t have more stamina than the iPhone X. Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging support for the P20 Pro, though it does offer Huawei’s SuperCharge fast charging via a cable. The iPhone X does support wireless charging and it can charge quickly, but you’ll need to buy a charger and cable capable of fast charging, whereas you get one in the box with your P20 Pro.

Winner: Apple iPhone X

Design and durability

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

We love the curved glass design of the P20 Pro, particularly the twilight finish, with its mix of green, blue, and purple. Huawei has chosen to put the fingerprint sensors on the front, in the old traditional spot beneath the screen, but the thing you immediately notice about the front is the notch. We’re not convinced about the notch trend right now — it’s not the only viable design, especially if you have space for a fingerprint sensor at the bottom. It will inevitably invite comparison, but the notch in the P20 Pro is much smaller than the iPhone X’s notch.

In the iPhone X the screen extends all the way to the bottom and is only broken by the notch at the top, which houses the Face ID cameras. There’s no fingerprint sensor at all. The back is also finished in glass, though the colors are less adventurous than the P20 Pro. The camera modules are pretty similar. Interestingly, both phones weigh exactly the same, but the iPhone X is significantly smaller in hand.

There’s nothing to divide these phones on the durability front, as they both score an IP67 rating. That means they can be submerged in up to a meter of water for up to half an hour.

Overall we prefer the look of the iPhone X, particularly from the front, but the P20 Pro is definitely the sort of phone that will draw admiring glances.

Winner: Apple iPhone X

Display

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

The Huawei P20 Pro boasts a 6.1-inch OLED screen with a 2,240 x 1,080 pixel screen resolution. The Apple iPhone X has a 5.8-inch AMOLED with a resolution of 2,436 x 1,125 pixels. They’re both great screens, employing essentially the same tech. Apple’s iPhone X screen is sharper at 458 pixels-per-inch compared to 408ppi in the P20 Pro, but the P20 Pro has a slightly larger screen. We’re giving a narrow win to the iPhone X here.

Winner: Apple iPhone X

Camera

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Smartphone cameras have improved by leaps and bounds in recent years. Huawei is trying to take things to the next level with the P20 Pro by packing in three lenses: There’s a 40-megapixel main lens, an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, and a 20-megapixel monochrome lens. This is a seriously versatile shooter that should have no trouble in low-light conditions, be capable of stunning portraits with blurred backgrounds, and capture an incredible level of detail. We just need more time with it to see what it can do. The Pixel 2 and 2 XL, our current top picks for best smartphone camera, prove that more camera lenses aren’t necessarily the path to better camera performance, but we do expect the P20 Pro to deliver something special.

By contrast, the iPhone X combines two 12-megapixel lenses. We know it gets good results, particularly in the optical zoom and bokeh department. As cameras continue to improve, it’s getting harder to objectively pick the best, but the iPhone X stands up well in direct comparisons with phones like the Galaxy S9 Plus and Pixel 2 XL. Only time will tell if it can stand up to the P20 Pro.

The P20 Pro has a front-facing camera rated at 24-megapixels, while the iPhone X makes do with a 7-megapixel selfie camera.

Winner: Huawei P20 Pro

Software and updates

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

You’ll find the latest Android 8.1 Oreo on the P20 Pro, with Huawei’s EMUI 8.1 user interface on top. Stock Android fans and minimalists might not like it, but there are a few handy extras in there. Unfortunately, the presence of EMUI means that Android updates will not roll out to the P20 Pro as soon as they’re released. The schedule for updates will depend on Huawei. Apple’s iPhone X runs iOS 11, which is slick and accessible. It will continue to be updated to the latest version as soon as it rolls out. We’re not getting into Android vs iOS, but because it will benefit from the latest security and feature updates immediately, we’re giving the iPhone the win.

Winner: Apple iPhone X

Special features

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The standout feature of the P20 Pro is clearly that triple lens camera, but we’ve already covered that. The iPhone X has Face ID and animojis to take full advantage of that front-facing camera array. Both work extremely well. There is a face unlock option on the P20 Pro that uses 2-D mapping to authenticate users in only half a second, but it’s not as secure as the iPhone X’s Face ID, so you can’t use it for payments. Neither phone offers any other unique special features that the other doesn’t possess, so we’re calling this round a tie.

Winner: Tie

Price

There was definitely a bit of uproar about the price of Apple’s iPhone X when it first landed. There’s no doubt that $1,000 is a lot to spend on a phone. However, the Huawei P20 Pro costs 899 euros (around $1,100).

The phones are available globally now, but sadly the P20 Pro will not be released through carriers in the U.S. after they were pressured to drop Huawei phones by Republican politicians with security concerns about the Chinese manufacturer. The iPhone X is available from all the major carriers.

Winner: Apple iPhone X

Overall winner: Apple iPhone X

The Huawei P20 Pro is definitely something special. It has that impressive triple-lens camera and a bigger battery, but we prefer the design, display, and performance of the iPhone X. Truth be told, these are both excellent phones — they should be at these prices. If you’re used to Android and the camera is your main focus, then the P20 Pro is the better choice for you, but everyone else should probably pick the iPhone X.

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IBM’s Watson will make headlines at the Masters tournament

In just a few short days, we’ll watch enraptured as golf balls soar and a green jacket is awarded. We’re talking, of course, about the Masters tournament, which will begin on April 5 in Augusta, Georgia. And while our poor human eyes and brains may not be able to take in everything that’s going on at one of the largest golf tournaments in the world, luckily, we’ll have some help from our good friend Watson, the artificial intelligence program developed by IBM.

With the launch of the new My Moments feature on both the Masters website and the Masters app, you’ll be able to check out an automated, personalized highlight reel that ensures that you don’t miss a moment on the green.

Thanks to Watson, you’ll now have an artificially intelligent tool that can help you catch up on all the action you may have missed throughout the day. The single sign-on system allows you to check in across a number of different devices, but to always be served the most recent content. And this year in particular, IBM Watson will help curators identify so-called “Masters Moments,” the highlights that will make just about every sizzle reel that recaps the tournament.

The A.I. assistant will “watch” all live-stream video, and parcel out clips by intelligently recognizing the beginning and end of a player’s shot. It will then identify the player in the clip, the hole the golfer is playing, and which shot is being taken by leveraging visual recognition capabilities.

And to determine how highlight-worthy the shot is, Watson will examine key three factors — first, the audio track to gauge the roar of the crowd; second, player gestures like fist pumps or hands in the air (as well as emotions in a player’s face); and finally, a transcription of the broadcast commentary, which Watson will then analyze for keywords that denote excitement or anything extraordinary.

Watson will then score the highlights and index them in order to make the lives of the Masters digital team just a little bit easier. Plus, it’ll help the fans get access to content faster than ever before.

Even if you’re not a golf fan, you’ll soon likely be interacting with Watson in more ways than you know. At IBM’s annual Think conference a few weeks ago, the company unveiled the Watson Assistant, an intelligent helper that you could soon find not only in your house, but in your car, office, hotel, or just about anywhere else.

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European Space Agency tests giant parachute for its 2021 ExoMars mission

Parachutes may just help us get to Mars. A few days ago, the European Space Agency (ESA) tested its ExoMars landing parachutes for the first time, and happily, the trial parachute made it to ground without incident. Sure, the chute was deployed less than a mile above the Earth’s surface, but still, the fact that it managed to land smoothly marked a major milestone: It proved the ability of the parachute to descend with no fewer than 112 lines connected to a 1,100-pound test load. The parachute weighs in at 154 pounds total, and will be crucial to delivering the ExoMars rover to the Red Planet in a few years’ time.

The parachute, if successful, will become the largest ever to fly on a Mars mission, while the rover in tow will be the “first of its kind to drill below the surface and determine if evidence of life is buried underground, protected from the destructive radiation that impinges the surface today,” the ESA noted in a release. The latest test took place in sub-zero conditions in Kiruna, Sweden, which is meant to imitate the frigid temperatures the parachute will face on Mars. In its next test, the ESA will deploy the chute from a stratospheric balloon hovering around 19 miles off the ground — this ought to more closely reflect Mars’ low atmospheric pressure.

“The successful deployment of our large ExoMars parachute using a smaller pilot chute and its subsequent stable descent without damage, is a major milestone for the project,” said ESA’s Thierry Blancquaert, one of the members of the ExoMars team. “It was a very exciting moment to see this giant parachute unfurl and deliver the test module to the snowy surface in Kiruna.”

Later on in testing, the ESA will conduct a “full parachute deployment sequence, which comprises two main parachutes, each with a pilot chute,” the agency noted. If all goes well, we can expect to see the spacecraft carrying the chute take off in 2020. “We’re looking forward to assessing the full parachute descent sequence in the upcoming high-altitude tests,” Blancquaert noted. And we can say quite certainly, so are we.

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