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Science Project

The Science Project is a Weapon Blueprint available in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone.

It is a Ultra blueprint variant of the base weapon AK-47 , one of the Assault Rifles featured in Call of Duty.

The Science Project blueprint was released in Season 3 (BOCW) as part of the Bundle Tracer Pack: Nuclear Distillery Mastercraft .

Blueprint Info

• Game Black Ops Cold War
• Weapon Class Assault Rifles
• Release Season 3 (BOCW)

• Bundle Tracer Pack: Nuclear Distillery Mastercraft
• Special Effect Tracer Rounds - Toxic Green
• Special Effect #2 Dismemberment

Science Project - AK-47 - Blueprint Attachments:

Here are the attachments for the Science Project Blueprint featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone.

• Muzzle KGB Eliminator
• Optic Kobra Red Dot
• Stock Wire Stock
• Underbarrel Spetsnaz Speedgrip
• Magazine 40 Rnd

You can build your own Science Project weapon Blueprint by adding these attachments on a base AK-47 in the Gunsmith menu.

Tracer Pack: Nuclear Distillery Mastercraft Bundle Blueprints:

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Activision’s game studios focus on delivering the best possible games without compromise. Our Central Tech R&D team works alongside our studio specialists as we apply our research to evolve our products and keep ahead of where the industry is going next.

People at Activision have a long history of publications in conferences, journals, and magazines, and of collaborations with academic and private research groups. This website is the first time that the work has been collected and presented in a single place, a hub for sharing that will host blog posts, articles, and presentations from research within Activision. Its intended audience is developers, researchers, and anyone who is aspiring to become one.

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Euclid telescope sends back first images from ‘dark universe’ mission

Perseus cluster and Horsehead nebula captured in dazzling detail as part of effort to create cosmic 3D map

The Euclid space telescope has beamed back its first images in a mission that promises to lift a veil on the “dark universe”.

The €1bn (£850m) European Space Agency (Esa) mission is focused on dark matter and dark energy, which together make up 95% of the universe but their natures are almost entirely mysterious. The first images show the Perseus galaxy cluster and Horsehead nebula in dazzling detail and capture approximately 100,000 galaxies in a single snapshot, showcasing the telescope’s unmatched ability to make razor-sharp observations across a vast expanse of space.

Ultimately the telescope, which can detect galaxies out to 10bn light years, is aiming to create the largest cosmic 3D map ever made. This will allow astronomers to infer the large-scale distribution of dark matter and reveal the influence of dark energy in the early universe. Dark matter pervades the universe and acts as a cosmic glue that holds galaxies together, while dark energy is the name given to an enigmatic force that is thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe.

Prof Carole Mundell, the Esa’s director of science, said the mission, which launched in July , would push the frontiers of scientific knowledge into uncharted territory “beyond Einstein”.

“As humans, we’ve managed to figure out how 5% of the universe works and we’ve also figured out that there’s another 95% that remains unknown to us,” she said. “We can’t travel out to the edge of the universe to investigate, but we’re bringing those images back to Earth and studying them on computers – and for only €1.4bn. I think it’s magical.”

Over the next six years, Euclid will observe about 8bn galaxies using infrared and visible light across 36% of the night sky. In some cases, light from these distant bodies will pass close to dark matter on its journey towards Earth. When that happens, its gravitational field will bend the path of the light, making the galaxies appear distorted in the final image.

“A background round galaxy might be changed into a banana shape,” said Prof Mark Cropper of University College London, who led on designing Euclid’s optical camera. By analysing the patterns of distortion, astronomers could infer a map of dark matter distribution across the night sky and over the history of the universe. “You do it like toast in a toast rack,” Cropper said. “First you look at the distortion of the nearby galaxies and work out the dark matter in the first slice of toast. Then you go further back to the next slice – further and further away in the universe and back in time.”

The mission may not initially answer what dark matter is, but should at least reveal where it is and how it behaves.

Researchers will also observe the motion of galaxies to build a precise picture of the competing forces of gravity, which cause galaxies to clump together, and dark energy, which is driving the accelerated expansion of space. This will allow scientists to see, for the first time, how dark energy was at work in the early universe.

Mundell said: “Dark matter pulls galaxies together and causes them to spin more rapidly than visible matter alone can account for; dark energy is driving the accelerated expansion of the universe. Euclid will for the first time allow cosmologists to study these competing dark mysteries together.”

René Laureijs, the Esa’s Euclid project scientist, added: “We have never seen astronomical images like this before, containing so much detail. They are even more beautiful and sharp than we could have hoped for, showing us many previously unseen features in well-known areas of the nearby universe. Now we are ready to observe billions of galaxies, and study their evolution over cosmic time.”

• European Space Agency

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WW2 Warzone Environment Megapack

WW2 Warzone Environment with 856 Unique Meshes. Including all showcased assets, high-quality assets. With a good level of detail and optimized for Game Ready Projects.

• Supported Platforms
• Supported Engine Versions 5.0 - 5.3
• Download Type Complete Project This product contains a full Unreal Engine project folder, complete with Config files, Content files and .uproject file, which can be used as a template to create a new project.

Description

Release Sale only for limited time ( 50% off )

After one week since the devastating mortar attack, the village had only just begun to quiet down after the bombing. Most of the houses had become unusable, their walls collapsed and their plaster blown to pieces. Yet, despite all the devastation, The Looter`s hope remained unbroken when he discovered a crayon drawing on the ground created by his children.

We believe wars should only remain in games. A great man once said “ Peace at home, peace in the world.”

We are back with a new huge pack, Get ready to take your WW2-themed projects to the next level with the WW2 Warzone Environment. This pack took us around 5 months to complete as a team. This collection of high-quality assets is designed to bring the haunting, battle-scarred landscapes of this historic era to life in your Unreal Engine projects.

WW2 Warzone Environment with 800+ Unique Nanite Meshes. Including all showcased assets, and high-quality assets. With a good level of detail and optimized for Game Ready Projects.

Showcase Video

WW2 Real Footage like video

Demonstration / Features Video

Please visit Leartes WW2 website page for detailed information and examination.

You can use this product in your game, virtual production, cinematic, and any kind of work that you create using Unreal Engine. If you need custom support in your projects you may send your email requests to [email protected]

WW2 Warzone Environment Megapack Includes :

Realistic, immersive Showcase map that adds depth and atmosphere to your scenes.

Smoked Nanite and Smoked Standard LP or

Broken Nanite and Broken Standard LP variation of each asset.

Each Asset with Nanite, Standard, and LP manually crafted LODs.

Modular Buildings with destroyed variations.

Vehicles with broken variations.

Hero Assets, Statues, and more.

If you buy this pack, we send the Military Truck - Rigged/BP Controllable Vehicle for free! Please open a ticket for it.

Disclaimer :

The environment uses Real-time Lumen lighting. And if you will experience FPS loss because of Lumen you may disable it. If you need further support please contact us.

This environment will also be ready in the UEFN FAB Alpha Store by 22 November 2023.

All the Environment is made by the Leartes team with collaboration and feedbacks from Epic Games.

Walkthrough Video

If you want to populate your game environments or any kind of virtual production levels here is the pack that you get and use to get high-quality visuals and well-optimized assets.

For all your promotional requests, technical support needs, suggestions, and refund requests, please create a ticket .

Here you can join Leartes Discord channel for live support, discounts, and Custom Outsource Environment Projects.

Ultimate Level Art Tool:

Great news! For efficient and swift Showcase Level editing, we're thrilled to introduce our cutting-edge tool: the Ultimate Level Art Tool (ULAT) The tool allows you to create fast custom modular buildings. Moreover, it offers a seamless and distinctive way to populate your scenes naturally. This Environment pack is compatible with the Ultimate Level Art Tool.

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Technical Details

• 805 Unique Nanite Meshes 
• Attention to Detail / AAA Quality
• Controllable parameters in Material Instances
• High-Quality Assets
• Game ready/Optimized
• Unique Concepts of Assets
• High Attention to Details
• 687 meshes have nanite and Standard LP Mesh

Material Variations For Some Assets

Texture Sizes:

Texture Size: 4096 for detailed Assets, 2048 for Mid-sized Assets, & 1024 for small assets

Collision: Yes, Custom and Auto Generated

LODs: Yes, 3 LODs for complex assets

Number of Meshes: 805 Unique Meshes /

Number of Materials and Material Instances: 406

Number of Textures: 948

Number of Soundwaves: 95

Number of Blueprint: 64

Number of Niagara Particles: 7

Supported Development Platforms: All Platforms

Supported Development Versions: Unreal Engine UE5, 5.1,5.2,5.3+

Lumen enabled.

Includes Nanite meshes 

BATTLEFIELD LEARTES STUDIOS WORLD WAR NANITE WEAPONS MILITARY ZONE WRECK REALISTIC ENVIRONMENTS WW2 WORLD WAR II POST-WAR WARZONE MEGAPACK MODULAR BUILDINGS

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November 8, 2023

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Scientists report completion of chromosome XI, a major step towards creating the world's first synthetic yeast

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Journal information: Cell Genomics

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Warzone 2 DMZ: Where to Find Ashika Science Center

You're going to want to know where to find the Ashika Science Center for multiple missions.

Warzone 2 DMZ is full of missions to help boost your XP. You’re going to need to visit different locations to complete the various missions. The Ashika Science Center isn’t a named POI on your map, and you’re going to need to know where it is to complete more than one task. Here’s where to find the Ashika Science Center in  Call of Duty: Warzone 2 DMZ .

Where to find Ashika Science Center in DMZ

• The Ashika Science Center can be found on the west side of the Ashika Island map in the DMZ mode.
• The building is around the E4 region of the map and has a unique H-like shape that helps it stand out among the rest of the buildings.

I found the Ashika Science Center directly east of the Town Center, with the entrance facing the coastline. I came across a few enemies on my way there, so you’re going to want to stay vigilant en route.

Ashika Science Center Dead Drop

If you’re heading to the Science Center to locate the Dead Drop, you’ll find it in a white dumpster nearby. You’ll want to head to the west side of the Science Center, and hop over a dark green-blue wall. You’ll find the Dead Drop dumpster on the other side. Simply interact with the dumpster to use the Dead Drop.

Well, that’s it for finding the Ashika Science Center and the Dead Drop in Call of Duty: Warzone 2 DMZ . Stay tuned with us for more DMZ mission guides .

About the author

Maddison Ahlbrand

Maddison started her gamer journey traversing the lands of Runescape and World of Warcraft. These days, she can be found playing just about anything, and is always chasing the exciting discovery of a good game. Maddison has a degree in Art History and Fine Art, and is a freelance writer.

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Billionaire-backed company has bought all the land it needs for its ‘city of yesterday’

After years of stealth purchases and the threat of a $510 million lawsuit against locals, California Forever’s CEO says he now calls Solano County ‘home.’

By Andrew Paul | Published Nov 7, 2023 2:00 PM EST

A billionaire-backed Silicon Valley company says it now owns enough land to move forward with the next phases in creating a high-tech, utopian “ city of yesterday .” In a recent email to PopSci , California Forever CEO Jan Sramek says he hopes “residents [will] keep an open mind [and] hear what we have to say,” while promising “we’ll do the same in kind.”

The news marked a turning point in the secretive, years-long campaign costing over $800 million, alongside a recently dropped $510 million lawsuit against local landowners. According to the project’s website , the group intends to build a new, green smart municipality from scratch atop its 53,000 acres. But despite promising “ novel methods of design, construction and governance ,” the project’s details remain vague.

[Related: Silicon Valley’s wealthiest want to build their own city outside of San Francisco .]

Founded by Sramek, a 36-year-old former Goldman Sachs trader, California Forever has quietly bought up tens of thousands of acres northeast of San Francisco since at least 2018. Investors include prominent venture capitalists, LinkedIn’s co-founder, as well as Lauren Powell Jobs, billionaire philanthropist and wife of the late Steve Jobs.

After years spent flying under-the-radar, Flannery Associate’s parent company finally launched a public-facing website in September featuring conceptual renderings and CGI walkthroughs of an idyllic townscape. The official site’s FAQ section argues the stealth campaign was “the only way to avoid creating a rush of reckless short-term land speculation.”

In a separate statement provided to PopSci on Monday, a Flannery spokesperson relayed the company “does not anticipate making any additional purchases” once it finalizes the “few remaining properties” under contract in the coming weeks. It is unclear if the final properties under contract differ from those recently purchased from local Solano County farmers following the contentious legal battle. Flannery filed its $510 million lawsuit in May 2023 against a group of local landowners, citing antitrust violations.

Speaking with PopSci last week via email, Flannery’s spokesperson contended this “small group” of residents engaged in a “targeted campaign” of slander, but denied that the company was suing local farmers for simply refusing to sell. The spokesperson cited an alleged incident from July 2022, when a farmer offered his property to Flannery for $32,000 per acre—nearly 10 times “fair market value” at the time, claims Flannery. After company representatives refused to buy at that price point, the farmer allegedly engaged in a “secret conspiracy” alongside fellow landowners to agree upon a standard selling price “so [Flannery] cannot play owners against owners,” the spokesperson said.

“Flannery has been reasonable when settling the case with many of the defendants, and has been willing to negotiate generous settlements with the remaining defendants,” the spokesperson concluded last week. On November 3, Bloomberg Business revealed the lawsuit’s defendants have since agreed to sell their remaining land to Flannery Associates for $18,000 per acre.

Critics, however, continue to voice concerns over the project’s logistical, legal, and governmental vagaries. Earlier this year, Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) argued to a local California news outlet that the area’s proximity to Travis Air Force Base meant “[foreign] spy operations or any other nefarious activity could take place” there. Rep. Garamendi added such issues “could detrimentally impact the [base’s] ability…  to operate in a moment of national emergency,” and criticized Flannery’s then-ongoing lawsuit against locals. PopSci has reached out to Rep. Garamendi’s office for comment, but did not receive a response at the time of writing.

“Travis Air Force Base is critical to both our national security and to Solano County. We fully support its mission and always will,” reads a portion of California Forever’s FAQ page.

[Related: Why the tech billionaires can’t save themselves .]

In August, Solano County residents began receiving text and email opinion polls regarding a potential future ballot initiative. The messages at the time described an urban project including “a new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over 10,000 acres of new parks and open space.” In an interview with local Bay Area news outlet ABC 7 in September, Sramek also said he envisions it to be “one of the most walkable places in California, probably in America” while possessing a “very traditional feeling to it.”

“The idea of building a new community and economic opportunity in eastern Solano seemed impossible on the surface,” Sramek wrote to PopSci last week. “But after spending a lot of time learning about the community, which I now call home, I became convinced that with thoughtful design, the right long-term patient investors, and strong partnerships… we can create a new community,” Sramek said at the time.

Andrew Paul is Popular Science's staff writer covering tech news. Previously, he was a regular contributor to The A.V. Club and Input, and has had recent work also featured by Rolling Stone, Fangoria, GQ, Slate, NBC, as well as McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He lives outside Indianapolis.

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Psychologists Explain the Science of Attraction, and Why It Often Leads Us Astray

From first dates to political opposites, the reason why we like or dislike someone isn’t always based in reality.

The paper brings together multiple studies done by Charles Chu of Boston University and Brian S. Lowery of Stanford University, both of whom are organizational psychologists. This subfield focuses on how people perform as part of groups, usually in workplaces; but how individuals feel and relate to one another is still a part of that dynamic. In this research, they wanted to analyze why it is people feel they will get along with other people who have the same characteristics as them, like political beliefs or taste in art . This is called the similarity-attraction effect.

And while the idea of “attraction” is often used in a romantic or sexual way, it’s really anything that draws someone toward something or someone else. We feel drawn to the people who become our friends, whether they’re the funniest or nicest person at work or someone in a basketball fan Discord group.

In these studies, Chu and Lowery wanted to measure how much people self-identify with their interests and qualities. For example, some people might simply say they like cats or dogs , while others might identify as a “cat person” or a “dog person,” and some might go so far as to project personality traits onto those who like the other pet. But there are countless reasons someone would dislike cats or dogs, most of which have nothing to do with their personality or “essential self.” Projecting this way just turns which pet you like into a pseudoscience.

Similarly, the researchers go on to show that while being able to bond quickly with people can be a good thing, our opinion of others isn’t necessarily based in reality.

The Studies

For one study, the researchers had participants fill out a short personality test “to enhance the psychological realism,” then had them count some dots on the screen. After that, they were randomly given the role of “overestimator” or “underestimator,” unrelated to their answers, and then asked if they wanted to get to know a made-up person who was also an overestimator or underestimator. Participants who scored high in self-essentialism—the belief that people have a true nature or unchanging essence—were more drawn to the person with the same role as them. This was not true of the participants who had lower self-essentialist belief.

In this case, people felt strongly enough about a fake thing and a fake person that it moved the needle in a statistically significant way. It’s easy to see how the idea plays out when the situation is so stark. But what about issues people really care about most, the ones that reflect our deepest values?

In another study, the researchers randomly assigned each participant an issue: abortion, capital punishment, gun ownership , assisted suicide, or animal testing . They were asked what their beliefs were and how strongly they felt about that issue. In a way, I tipped my hand by saying these issues “reflect our deepest values”—that’s something a self-essentialist would say, and there are plenty of people who don’t feel that strongly or just don’t often think about these issues. They may have never asked their loved ones how they feel, let alone random new friends.

“The more an individual believed that their observable attributes are caused by an underlying essence, the more pronounced were their inferences of a broader shared view of the world with, and interpersonal attraction toward, a similar versus dissimilar target,” the researchers concluded. In other words, people were using each single issue, and their feelings about it, as a pivot on which to judge another person who was otherwise a total mystery.

The participants were confident that one thing, which for some of these studies was just made up, could help them decide if they would like another person. And while in one study it was a serious issue like the death penalty, in others it was who counted too many things, or who liked one artist instead of another. This, the researchers found, is how deeply self-essentialist thinking can affect our choices about how to associate with others.

Remember, People Are Complex

In a Boston University statement about his newly published research, Chu said, “We are all so complex. But we only have full insight into our own thoughts and feelings, and the minds of others are often a mystery to us. What this work suggests is that we often fill in the blanks of others’ minds with our own sense of self and that can sometimes lead us into some unwarranted assumptions.”

This seems especially common in dating. If you haven’t been this person, you have a friend who was: they start dating someone new, and they read a whole future into every little thing they have in common with the person they’re dating. But without examining it, we don’t know if other people feel strongly about what they’re telling us. They might feel more strongly about having a smooth and interesting conversation with a new person. They might be exaggerating in order to seem agreeable. These behaviors represent values of their own that should not be set aside or devalued.

The dating website OkCupid seems to have understood this idea years ago. On the site, you identify your beliefs about different issues, ranging in seriousness from your belief in astrology to how you feel about abortion. And then you rate how strongly you feel about these issues. One person can say they love astrology and that it’s their life; another can say they don’t really believe in it, but they don’t mind it either. Those two people could absolutely get along.

And while two people might both be “pro life,” one might be the kind of person who protests at clinics. Those two people share one kernel of one belief, but how they act on it could draw a values boundary between them—one that should be shared and explored.

The finding here might best be embodied by a joke from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother . Barney Stinson, the playboy heel of the group, says he thinks Cobra Kai’s Johnny Lawrence is the real hero of The Karate Kid . Barney describes almost the whole plot—a kid working hard on his way to the big tournament—before revealing a twist that he’s talking about the movie’s villain. He had us in the first half, as the meme goes .

So, the next time you meet someone new, consider setting aside your favorite movies or restaurants and asking questions with fewer of these external markers . And while issues like abortion and human rights will affect many relationships in a direct, concrete way and should be discussed early on, others may just throw up obstacles to understanding each other more. You don’t have to be the bookish Democrat who marries future President George W. Bush, but you might find more in common with the people around you.

“When you hear a single fact or opinion being expressed that you either agree or disagree with, it really warrants taking an additional breath and just slowing down,” Chu said in a statement. “If we’re constantly going around trying to figure out, who’s like me, who’s not like me, that’s not always the most productive way of trying to form impressions of other people.”

Caroline Delbert is a writer, avid reader, and contributing editor at Pop Mech. She's also an enthusiast of just about everything. Her favorite topics include nuclear energy, cosmology, math of everyday things, and the philosophy of it all. 

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NSF funds UC Irvine project to improve climate science learning in high schools

Biological sciences, education and engineering schools team up to create curriculum

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 30, 2023 – The National Science Foundation has awarded an interdisciplinary team from the University of California, Irvine a three-year, $1.6 million grant focused on creating an accessible and equity-centered model for high school environmental engineering education intended to inspire and properly prepare students for careers in this field.

The project, “Fostering Systems Thinking in High School Environmental Engineering Through Engagement of Coastal Communities,” will develop an inclusive curriculum to equip the next generation of environmental engineers with the necessary skills to analyze complex natural and social systems, collaborate with diverse communities and come up with creative solutions to climate change challenges.

Rossella Santagata , UCI professor of education and principal investigator on the grant, said: “In this project, we will utilize a new paradigm of ‘model-validate-iterate,’ where students model aspects of a dynamic real-world system, use data to validate whether their initial presumptions resonate with reality and then create multiple iterations as they explore how that system is changing over time. This is a novel way to teach engineering at the high school level, where typically a ‘design-build-test’ paradigm is emphasized, even though it’s not applicable to climate change engineering solutions.”

The project will examine students’ learning process and formation of critical science agency, as well as co-design the curriculum with local teachers, informal science educators, students from underrepresented populations, and nonprofit and community partners.

“Critical science agency involves learners developing expertise in both science and engineering and their own community contexts and then using that expertise to take justice-oriented action on problems their communities face,” said Jennifer Long, education and outreach coordinator for UCI’s Center for Environmental Biology and a co-principal investigator on the grant. “Using CSA as a foundation will be instrumental in helping the design team to create and study experiences that increase students’ understanding of complex issues related to environmental systems while preparing them with the skills and knowledge to take action on those issues.”

The other co-principal investigators participating in the project are Hosun Kang , associate professor of education, and Sara Ludovise of the Orange County Department of Education. Symone Gyles, assistant professor of education, and Brett Sanders , professor of civil and environmental engineering, are included on the grant as collaborators.

“With expanding populations, natural resources stretched to their limits and a rapidly changing climate, there’s enormous need across the U.S. and around the world for investments in public infrastructure that both effectively and equitably meets community needs for clean water, fresh air, safety from extreme events and healthy ecosystems,” Sanders said. “This is the work of environmental engineers, and our aim in this project is to create a high school launch pad for future engineers who are trained to think about problems broadly and about solutions in terms of benefits across many stakeholders.”

Added Santagata: “Our hope is to contribute to fostering resilience in students by preparing them to tackle the impacts of climate change while also learning to advocate for their communities.”

UCI’s Brilliant Future campaign: Publicly launched on Oct. 4, 2019, the Brilliant Future campaign aims to raise awareness and support for the university. By engaging 75,000 alumni and garnering $2 billion in philanthropic investment, UCI seeks to reach new heights of excellence in student success, health and wellness, research and more. The biological sciences, education and engineering schools play vital roles in the success of the campaign. Learn more at https://brilliantfuture.uci.edu/areas-to-support .

About the University of California, Irvine:  Founded in 1965, UCI is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by  U.S. News & World Report . The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit  www.uci.edu .

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu . Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists .

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Look, Up in the Sky! It’s a Can of Soup!

Amazon’s much-hyped drone project is dropping small objects on driveways. Some customers are not sure what it delivers beyond minestrone.

An Amazon drone delivers a can of Campbell’s Chunky Minestrone With Italian Sausage to the home of Dominique Lord and Leah Silverman in College Station, Texas. Credit... Video by Callaghan O’Hare For The New York Times

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By David Streitfeld

Reporting from College Station, Texas

• Nov. 4, 2023

Exactly a decade ago, Amazon revealed a program that aimed to revolutionize shopping and shipping. Drones launched from a central hub would waft through the skies delivering just about everything anyone could need. They would be fast, innovative, ubiquitous — all the Amazon hallmarks.

The buzzy announcement, made by Jeff Bezos on “60 Minutes” as part of a Cyber Monday promotional package, drew global attention. “I know this looks like science fiction. It’s not,” said Mr. Bezos, Amazon’s founder and the chief executive at the time. The drones would be “ready to enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place,” probably in 2015, the company said .

Eight additional years later, drone delivery is a reality — kind of — on the outskirts of College Station, Texas, northwest of Houston. That is a major achievement for a program that has waxed and waned over the years and lost many of its early leaders to newer and more urgent projects.

Yet the venture as it currently exists is so underwhelming that Amazon can keep the drones in the air only by giving stuff away. Years of toil by top scientists and aviation specialists have yielded a program that flies Listerine Cool Mint Breath Strips or a can of Campbell’s Chunky Minestrone With Italian Sausage — but not both at once — to customers as gifts. If this is science fiction, it’s being played for laughs.

A decade is an eternity in technology, but even so, drone delivery does not approach the scale or simplicity of Amazon’s original promotional videos. This gap between dazzling claims and mundane reality happens all the time in Silicon Valley. Self-driving cars, the metaverse, flying cars, robots, neighborhoods or even cities built from scratch, virtual universities that can compete with Harvard, artificial intelligence — the list of delayed and incomplete promises is long.

“Having ideas is easy,” said Rodney Brooks, a robotics entrepreneur and frequent critic of technology companies’ hype. “Turning them into reality is hard. Turning them into being deployed at scale is even harder.”

Amazon said last month that drone deliveries would expand to Britain, Italy and another, unidentified U.S. city by the end of 2024 . Yet even on the threshold of growth, a question lingers. Now that the drones finally exist in at least limited form, why did we think we needed them in the first place?

Dominique Lord and Leah Silverman live in College Station’s drone zone. They are Amazon fans and place regular orders for ground delivery. Drones are another matter, even if the service is free for Amazon Prime members. While it’s cool to have stuff literally land on your driveway, at least the first few times, there are many hurdles to getting stuff this way.

Only one item can be delivered at a time. It can’t weigh over five pounds. It can’t be too big. It can’t be something breakable, since the drone drops it from 12 feet. The drones can’t fly when it is too hot or too windy or too rainy.

You need to be home to put out the landing target and to make sure that a porch pirate doesn’t make off with your item or that it doesn’t roll into the street (which happened once to Mr. Lord and Ms. Silverman). But your car can’t be in the driveway. Letting the drone land in the backyard would avoid some of these problems, but not if there are trees.

Amazon has also warned customers that drone delivery is unavailable during periods of high demand for drone delivery.

The other active U.S. test site is Lockeford, Calif., in the Central Valley. On a recent afternoon, the Lockeford site seemed largely moribund, with only three cars in the parking lot. Amazon said it was delivering via drones in Lockeford and arranged for a New York Times reporter to come back to the site. It also arranged an interview with David Carbon, the former Boeing executive who runs the drone program. The company later canceled both without explanation.

A corporate blog post on Oct. 18 said that drones had safely delivered “hundreds” of household items in College Station since December, and that customers there could now have some medications delivered. Lockeford wasn’t mentioned.

After Ms. Silverman and Mr. Lord expressed initial interest in the drone program, Amazon offered $100 in gift certificates in October 2022 to follow through. But their service didn’t start until June, and then was suspended during a punishing heat wave when the drones could not fly.

The incentives, however, kept coming. The couple got an email the other day from Amazon pushing Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter, which usually costs $5.38 but was a “free gift” while supplies lasted. They ordered it, and a little while later a drone dropped a big box containing a small jar. Amazon said “some promotional items” are being offered “as a welcome.”

“We don’t really need anything they offer for free,” said Ms. Silverman, a 51-year-old novelist and caregiver. “The drones feel more like a toy than anything — a toy that wastes a huge amount of paper and cardboard.”

The Texas weather plays havoc with important deliveries. Mr. Lord, a 54-year-old professor of civil engineering at Texas A&M, ordered a medication through the mail. By the time he retrieved the package, the drug had melted. He’s hopeful that the drones can eventually handle problems like this.

“I still view this program positively knowing that it is in the experimental phase,” he said.

Amazon says the drones will improve over time. It announced a new model, the MK30, last year and released pictures in October. The MK30, which is slated to begin service by the end of 2024, was touted as having a greater range, an ability to fly in inclement weather and a 25 percent reduction in “perceived noise.”

When Amazon began working on drones years ago, the retailer took two or three days to ship many items to customers. It worried that it was vulnerable to potential competitors whose vendors were more local, including Google and eBay. Drones were all about speed.

“We can do half-hour delivery,” Mr. Bezos promised on “60 Minutes.”

For a while, drones were the next big thing. Google developed its own drone service, Wing, which now works with Walmart to deliver items in parts of Dallas and Frisco, Texas. Start-ups got funding — about $2.5 billion was invested between 2013 and 2019, according to the Teal Group, an aerospace consultancy. The veteran venture capitalist Tim Draper said in 2013 that “everything from pizza delivery to personal shopping can be handled by drones.” Uber Eats announced a food delivery drone in late 2019. The future was up in the air.

Amazon started thinking really long term. It envisioned, and got a patent for, a drone resupply vehicle that would hover in the sky at 45,000 feet. That’s above commercial airplanes, but Amazon said it could use the vehicles to deliver customers a hot dinner.

Yet on the ground, progress was slow, sometimes for technical reasons and sometimes because of the company’s corporate DNA. The same aggressive confidence that created a trillion-dollar business undermined Amazon’s efforts to work with the Federal Aviation Administration.

“The attitude was: ‘We’re Amazon. We’ll convince the F.A.A.,’” said one former Amazon drone executive, who asked for anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the subject. “The F.A.A. wants companies to come in with great humility and great transparency. That is not a strength of Amazon.”

A more complicated issue was getting the technology to the point where it was safe not just most of the time but all of the time. The first drone that lands on someone’s head, or takes off clutching a cat, sets the program back another decade, particularly if it is filmed.

“Part of the DNA of the tech industry is you can accomplish things you never thought you could accomplish,” said Neil Woodward, who spent four years as a senior manager in Amazon’s drone program. “But the truth is the laws of physics don’t change.”

Mr. Woodward, now retired, spent years at NASA in the astronaut program before moving to the private sector.

“When you work for the government, you have 535 people on your board of directors” — he was referring to Congress — “and a good chunk of them want to take your funding away because they have other priorities,” he said. “That makes government agencies very risk averse. At Amazon, you’re given a lot of rope, but you can get out over your skis.”

In the end, there must be a market. As Mr. Woodward put it, using an old Silicon Valley cliché: “Do the dogs like the dog food? Sometimes the dogs don’t.”

Archie Conner, 82, lives a few doors down from Mr. Lord and Ms. Silverman. He sees the drones as less a retail innovation and more a marketing one.

“When you hear a drone, you naturally think about Amazon. It’s real out-of-the-box thinking, even if no one orders at all,” he said. “Drones were on the news just the other day. People say, ‘Wow, Amazon did that.’”

Mr. Conner also ordered the free Skippy peanut butter but forgot to put out the landing target, so the drone went away. Then he ordered it again. Meanwhile, an Amazon delivery person showed up with the first jar. So now he and his wife, Belinda, have two jars.

“We haven’t found much we really want to pay for,” Mr. Conner said. “But we have enjoyed the free peanut butter.”

David Streitfeld has written about technology and its effects for 20 years. In 2013, he was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting.   More about David Streitfeld

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Major wind energy developer scraps two big offshore projects

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Wind energy developer Orsted is writing off $4 billion, due largely to the cancellation of two large offshore wind projects in New Jersey whose financial challenges mirror those facing the nascent industry.

It added fresh uncertainty to an industry seen by supporters as a way to help end the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels, but derided by opponents as inherently unworkable without massive financial subsidies.

The Danish company said Tuesday night it is  scrapping its Ocean Wind I and II projects  off the coast of southern New Jersey due to problems with supply chains, higher interest rates, and a failure to obtain the amount of tax credits the company wanted.

“These are obviously some very tough decisions,” Mads Nipper, Orsted’s CEO, said on an earnings conference call Wednesday.

He said the company, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, decided “to de-risk the most painful part of our portfolio, and that is the U.S.”

That statement went straight to the heart about concerns over the financial viability of the offshore wind industry in the northeastern U.S., which is in its infancy but has extensive plans from New England to the Carolinas.

Some projects already have been canceled, and many offshore wind developers are seeking better terms from governments with whom they have already contracted. New York  rejected such a request  two weeks ago.

New Jersey  approved a tax break for Orsted  in July, letting it keep federal tax credits that otherwise would have gone to ratepayers.

“While periodic local opposition in the U.S. made some headlines, these projects ultimately come down to economics, so higher costs and lower power prices are working against offshore wind,” said Louis Knight, an analyst at Third Bridge, a research firm advising private equity and other businesses. “Higher interest rates are adding to financing costs for these projects. There are other, cheaper ways to develop power in the U.S., most notably with solar and natural gas.”

But the main appeal of offshore wind for supporters, including environmentalists, many state governments and the Biden administration is precisely that it is not a fossil fuel business. The  hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever  measured hit this year, according to the World Meteorological Organization and the European climate service Copernicus.

“The urgency to transition to clean, renewable energy is an irreversible reality,” read a statement signed Wednesday by nearly 40 environmental, labor and community groups from New Jersey who support offshore wind, including the state’s chapter of the Sierra Club. “In a world of warming temperatures and extreme weather in likely the hottest year on record, maintaining the status quo of fossil fuel generation is not an option as the cost of climate inaction is undeniably high.”

Orsted’s stock price was down over 26% at midday Wednesday. The company said it hopes to re-use some supplies it has already purchased, such as cable and steel, on other projects.

Power generated from the Orsted projects was intended to come ashore and connect with the electrical grid at the site of a former coal-fired power plant that was  blown up last week .

The industry also faces stiff political headwinds, in New Jersey and nationally, most of it from Republicans, who have convinced the U.S.  Government Accountability Office  to look into the industry.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican who represents the area in southern New Jersey where Orsted’s wind farms would have been built, exulted in the decision to scrap the projects.

“David defeated Goliath!” he said in a statement late Tuesday night, calling wind farms bad for the economy, the environment and electric customers.

Numerous  resident groups also opposed the projects,  citing similar concerns, and said they do not want to see the ocean horizon dotted with wind turbines.

“Without billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies, these projects never made sense and could not stand on their own,” said Robin Shaffer, a spokesman for Protect Our Coast NJ, one of the most vocal opposition groups.

Despite the challenges, some wind projects are moving forward. Orsted said it is proceeding with its Revolution Wind project in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

In Virginia, a utility’s plans for an enormous wind farm off that state’s coast  gained key federal approval  Tuesday. Dominion Energy received a favorable “record of decision” from federal regulators who reviewed the potential environmental impact of its plan to build 176 turbines in the Atlantic, more than 20 miles off Virginia Beach.

And New Jersey still has several other offshore wind projects in various stages of development, with four new proposals submitted in August alone. They join the one remaining project of the three originally approved by the state,  Atlantic Shores . That is a project by Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America.

Atlantic Shores said Wednesday it remains committed to its project, though it hinted in a statement that it, too, is seeking additional help.

“We are actively engaging in conversations with the administration, regulators, and elected leaders across New Jersey to identify viable solutions that will not only preserve the progress made thus far, but also facilitate the successful execution of Atlantic Shores Project 1,” the company said.

UT/Texas Politics Project Poll Offers Preview of 2024 Presidential Contest in Texas

AUSTIN, Texas — With one year to go before the 2024 presidential election, the latest University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll finds former President Donald Trump dominating a crowded Republican primary field and holding a comfortable lead in a hypothetical rematch with President Joe Biden, who faces no serious competition in the Democratic primary so far.

Looking at Republican challengers to Trump for the presidential nomination, 62% of registered voters planning to vote in the GOP primary chose Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was second, with 13%, followed by former North Carolina governor and Trump-appointed ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who was the choice of 7%. Seven other candidates were the choice of 3% or less.

Trump also scored the highest among the major Republican candidates in hypothetical general election contests with Biden, leading the incumbent president 45% to 37%, with 13% preferring an unnamed “someone else” and 8% offering no opinion.

The poll surveyed 1,200 self-declared registered voters in Texas from Oct. 5–17 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.83 percentage points.

“Despite the extent of Donald Trump’s very public legal jeopardy and his contribution to the chaos among congressional Republicans in recent days, Donald Trump remains the most powerful gravitational force among Republican voters in Texas,” said James Henson, director of UT’s Texas Politics Project and a co-director of the poll. “None of the other candidates has demonstrated any ability to lure meaningful numbers of Texas Republican primary voters away from him.”

The poll also asked Texans about educational savings accounts and other public education issues at the center of the third special session of the 88th Texas Legislature currently underway in Austin. Poll results continue to suggest that such programs are a low priority for most Texas voters. Only 18% said they had heard “a lot” about efforts by state officials to establish a voucher, educational savings account, or school choice program.

When asked to evaluate a list of public education priorities for the Legislature to address, “school safety” was the top priority of the largest share, 30% of Texas voters, followed by teacher pay and retention with 19%, curriculum content with 14%, and parental rights had 12%. Only 7% of likely voters judged “vouchers, educational savings accounts (ESAs), or other ‘school choice’ legislation” as the Legislature’s most important educational priority.

On the issue of immigration and the flow of migrants on the Texas-Mexico border, more than a third of voters, 35%, cited immigration or border security as the most important problem facing the state. With Republican voters, 60% cited one or the other as the most important problem facing Texas, with no other problem breaking into double figures. The issues of immigration and border security were cited by only 9% of Democrats, but by 43% of independents, in a pattern seen in most UT/Texas Politics Project polling during the past decade.

“The border remains top of mind for the state’s Republican Party voters,” said Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project. “While the Legislature and its leadership remain in conflict establishing a school choice program, any policy that seeks to remove or repel immigrants from Texas will bind the Republican majority back together, however briefly.”

Other findings related to Texas and the 2024 election:

• Texas voters expressed more reservations about Biden’s age than about Trump’s. About two-thirds of voters, 69%, say Biden “is too old to be president in 2025,” while only 37% said the same of Trump.
• A majority of Democrats, 52%, view him as too old in the 2024 election, with only about a third disagreeing that Biden is too old (32%) and 16% unsure. Republican voters expressed less concern about Trump’s age: Only 19% say Trump would be too old to serve in 2025, with 75% saying he wouldn’t be, and only 7% expressing no opinion.
• In hypothetical head-to-head matchups between Biden and the top Republican candidates, only Trump bests Biden outside of the margin of error of the poll (+/- 2.83 percentage points).
• Regarding the 2024 Texas congressional election, 47% of voters say that they will support the GOP candidate in their district compared with 38% who say that they will be supporting the Democratic candidate.
• In the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, only 2 of the 14 potential candidates examined could be identified by 30% or more of potential Democratic primary voters: state Sen. Roland Gutierrez (30%) and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (41%).

Complete results — including a summary with methodological information, crosstabs and data files — can be found using the links at the top of this page and the overview posted at the Texas Politics Project website .

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