Daily Tech News 29 January 2024

• Good news, everyone: Japan's Moon lander is working. (The Guardian)
  
  It landed more or less safely, but with the solar panels facing the wrong way, so it only had battery power. (Since there's no atmosphere on the Moon, solar cells that aren't in direct sunlight produce no power at all.)
  
  Mission control shut it down, in the hope that after a few days the angle of the Sun would shift enough to reach the solar panels.
  
  It did.

• And now that it's joined the Space Age Japan won't be using floppy disks anymore. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Coincidentally the first 8" floppy drives from IBM were introduced right about the time of Apollo 15.
  
  
  
• The rooftop solar industry is facing collapse. (Time)
  
  Not because solar panels themselves don't work, but because the industry employs sales tactics that would make a used car remora blush.
  
  
  
• Netflix is different now - and there's no going back. (The Verge)
  
  It still sucks - more than ever, in fact - but now it's more expensive.
  
  ...
  
  Yep, that's about it.
  
  
  
• California wants to mandate speed limiters in cars. (Car and Driver)
  
  Because of course it does.
  
  
  
• Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens have been incorrectly fined for driving in London's new clean air zone. (The Guardian)
  
  Fines can exceed 2000 pounds a day ($3.50), and if you fine people who weren't even there as if they were driving a 1950s double-decker omnibus, it adds up.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM

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