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The Morning After: NASA’s AIM spacecraft goes silent after a 15-year run

​​The probe was only meant to gather data for two years.

NASA

After 15 years in space, NASA’s AIM mission is ending. The agency said it was ending operational support for the spacecraft due to a battery power failure. NASA first noticed issues with AIM’s battery in 2019, but the probe was still sending a “significant amount of data” back to Earth. Following another recent decline in battery power, NASA says AIM has become unresponsive.

NASA launched the AIM – Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere – mission in 2007 to study noctilucent or night-shining clouds, which can last hundreds of years in the Earth's upper atmosphere. It was only meant to operate up in the skies for two years, but it’s provided data for multiple groundbreaking studies, including a recent 2018 study that found methane emissions (and the climate change effects) are causing night-shining clouds to form more frequently.

– Mat Smith

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The ‘Diablo IV’ beta has some rough queue times

‘We are aware some have experienced longer than expected wait times.’

Diablo IV’s early access weekend hasn’t gone as smoothly as Blizzard likely hoped it would. Shortly after the beta went live on Friday, many players found themselves in lengthy login queues – including Engadget editor Igor Bonifacic, who had to wait nearly two hours before he got to play the game for… 15 minutes before being disconnected. Blizzard addressed the issue after players complained on social media and the official Diablo IV forums. “The team is working through some issues behind the scenes that have been affecting players and causing them to be disconnected from the servers,” Blizzard said in its initial post on the wait times.

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Google Pixel 7 phones are cheaper than ever right now

The entire lineup, including every storage variant and colorway, is $150 off.

TMA
TMA (Engadget)

Arguably the best Android phones out there, the entire Pixel family is on sale,, including the flagship 7 Pro. At both Amazon and the Google Store, you can get the Pixel 7 Pro for $150 off, across all colorways and storage variants, meaning the 128GB, 256GB and 512GB models are $749, $849 and $949 at the moment. The more affordable Pixel 7 is also $150 off, again in all three colorways and both storage variants.

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Disco Elysium’s new Mode allows you to write new dialogue

But it's really just a photo mode.

Disco Elysium, one of the best releases of 2019 and 2021, finally has a dedicated photo mode, but it’s not like the one you find in most games. Its new Collage Mode grants you full access to all the characters, environments and props in the RPG. As you might imagine, you can use that power to pose your favorite NPCs in “a range of silly and sensible poses.” Collage Mode gives you the freedom to write your own dialogue for Disco Elysium, and makes it look like it came directly from the game.

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