This afternoon I read a few online reports that the microconsole Ouya is up for sale after failing to restructure its debt. If you remember the Android powered game console made headlines in 2012 with its insane press and 63,416 Kickstarter backers pledges of $8,596,474 to see the Ouya game console come to market.The company […]
Voyager 2, the multi-planetary exploratory probe launched in 1977, has finally entered interstellar space, some six years after its twin, Voyager 1, did the same. It’s now about 11 billion miles from Earth, the second-farthest-out human-made object in space. Interstellar space starts where the sun’s “heliosphere” ends — the big ball of radiation and plasma in which the planets bathe and by which they are protected. Both Voyagers have instruments on board that monitor all this stuff, and both have shown a major dropoff in electrical and plasma activity, suggesting they’ve crossed over. On Voyager’s 40th anniversary, here are 20 of the mission’s best images and discoveries The exact border of interstellar space is a matter of debate, a great deal of which occurred while Voyager 1 was on the very edge and scientists were arguing whether it was out or not. A consensus was reached, however, and most agree that both probes have now left the heliosphere. They have not, however, left the solar system, defined more or less by the extent of the Oort cloud, an enormous collection of dust and small objects caught in the sun’s gravity but just barely. Until the Voyagers leave that, in perhaps 30,000 years, they’re still technically in-system. Interestingly, although Voyager 2 was the second to enter interstellar space, it was actually the first to launch. The risk of failure for these complex, ambitious probes was high enough that NASA felt it should build 2 and send them out one after another, and it so happened that Voyager 2 launched 16 days before Voyager 1. However, the latter’s trajectory caused it to exit the ecliptic (the flat disk in which most of the solar system’s objects are found) earlier and at a different angle. That makes Voyager 2 NASA’s longest-running mission (though not the object in space for longest — early satellites are still floating around up there), and those working on it couldn’t be happier. “I think we’re all happy and relieved that the Voyager probes have both operated long enough to make it past this milestone,” said Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd at JPL, in a NASA news release. “This is what we’ve all been waiting for. Now we’re looking forward to what we’ll be able to learn from having both probes outside the heliopause.” Both Voyagers should continue operating for at least a few more years; their power sources are likely to go out around 2025. At that point they’ll have been in space sending back data for nearly 50 years. Congratulations to the team and, really, to humanity, for doing something so amazing. ... Read More
You’d think Facebook would be faster at copying itself. Five years after Facebook Messenger took a cue from WhatsApp and Voxer to launch voice messaging, and four months after TechCrunch reported Instagram was testing its own walkie talkie feature, voice messaging is rolling out globally on Instagram Direct today. Users can hold down the microphone button to record a short voice message that appears in the chat as an audio wave form that recipients can then listen to at their leisure. Voice messages are up to one-minute long, stay permanently listenable rather than disappearing, and work in one-on-one and group chats on iOS and Android. The feature offers an off-camera asynchronous alternative to the video calling feature Instagram released in June. It will have to compete with Viber, Zello, and Telegram as well as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp for the use case. Hands-free Direct messaging could make Instagram a more appealing chat app for drivers, people on the move with their hands full, or users in the developing world who want a more intimate connection without having to pay for the data for long audio or video calls. It could also be a win for users in countries with less popular languages or ones that aren’t easily compatible with smartphone keyboards, as they could talk to friends instead of typing. The launch deepens Facebook’s entry into the voice market. From its first voice messaging and VOIP features back in 2013 to its new voice control system Aloha that works on its recently launched Portal video chat screen, Facebook has long taken an interest in the accessibility of voice but only got serious about building it across its products in 2018. Along with Instagram video calling, today launch raises the question of whether Portal and Instagram will team up. That could make Portal more useful…but also risks making Instagram less cool by tightening its ties to Facebook. Say ‘Aloha’: A closer look at Facebook’s voice ambitions ... Read More
Elon Musk doesn’t respect the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), he said in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that aired Sunday night. Musk told CBS’s Lesley Stahl that none of his tweets have been censored since reaching a settlement with the SEC in September. He said that no one has to read his tweets before he hits send. He also explained he’d personally picked his successor as Tesla’s chairperson, before undercutting her authority by saying he could “get anything done that I want.” Musk has criticized the SEC before, but not quite like this The Tesla CEO announced in a tweet this August that he wanted to take his electric car company private, and that he had “funding secured” from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The... Continue reading… ... Read More
Soulja Boy is stepping back from “cranking it,” and pivoting to an entirely new field this week: selling his own video game consoles and refurbished tech accessories. Soulja has been a gamer his entire life, so it’s only natural for him to want to launch his own systems, and this week, he’s done just that. He now sells two different consoles on his website SouljaWatch.com, both of which bear his namesake: the SouljaGame Console and the SouljaGame Handheld. Soulja Boy claims that the console is capable of running PlayStation, NeoGeo, PC, Sega, Game Boy Advance, and NES games, as well as “SouljaGames.” The website states that the console comes with 800 games preinstalled onto the console. According to the site, the handheld runs Switch,... Continue reading… ... Read More
Just Cause 4 debuts at No.6... Read More
Typhoon Studios co-founders Alex Hutchinson and Reid Schneider describe the vision for their indie game, and how it will stand alongside AAA titles... Read More
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