Author Archives: Mariella Moon

NASA will soon announce whether Starliner’s astronauts are coming back on a SpaceX vehicle

Posted on by

On August 24, NASA will finally announce how Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronauts that flew to the ISS aboard Boeing's Starliner, will be coming home. Earlier this month, the agency said it was already in talks with SpaceX about the possibility of giving the astronauts two seats aboard an upcoming Crew Dragon mission. While NASA was making sure that the option was available, it continued asking Boeing for data to prove that the Starliner is safe to ride back to Earth. The Starliner's batteries won't last forever, though, and the agency needs to make a decision soon. 

In its announcement, NASA said that on August 24, its leadership will make a final examination of the data Boeing gathered through various ground tests and simulations by engineers with help from Williams and Wilmore. An hour later, at around 1PM Eastern time, it will hold a news conference to broadcast its official decision. You can watch the event on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube and the agency’s website, but we'll also keep you updated. 

The Starliner's first crewed mission blasted off the space in June on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket after several delays. It was only supposed to stay docked to the ISS for eight days before making its way back home with both astronauts. During its flight to the orbiting lab, however, five of its maneuvering thrusters had failed. The helium leak that caused Boeing and NASA to scrub its launch also came back and had even worsened. Over the past few months, engineers conducted tests and simulations on the ground to provide NASA with the data it wanted. "We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking," said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, back in June. 

If NASA does decide to go with its backup plan of making Wilmore and Williams hitch a ride on the Crew Dragon, then the Starliner will be coming back to Earth without a crew onboard. It's still unclear when the Starliner is making its way back to the planet, but it likely couldn't come soon enough for the company. Aside from the fact that the Starliner's batteries are running out, Boeing reported earlier this month that it took another $125 million in losses due to the spacecraft's delayed return. Wilmore and Williams will then be coming home as part of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, the same mission that had to be delayed because Starliner was still taking up one of the two slots on the ISS that can accommodate astronaut capsules. The Crew-9 capsule won't be flying back to Earth until February 2025, though, so the astronauts' supposed eight-day trip will turn into an eight-month stint. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-will-soon-announce-whether-starliners-astronauts-are-coming-back-on-a-spacex-vehicle-120049271.html?src=rss

Neuralink says it may have fixed its brain implant problem

Posted on by

Neuralink has published an update on the second patient in its early human trials, and it said that "promisingly," it has "observed no thread retraction" in the participant. The Elon Musk-led startup implants a chip into the human brain, allowing paralyzed patients to control devices, browse the internet and play video games with their thoughts. It implanted a chip into its first patient back in January, and while the procedure went well, some of the implants' connective threads retracted from the brain weeks later. That reduced the brain signals the device could receive. 

For its second patient called Alex, the company employed mitigation measures to prevent the same thing from happening, or at least lower its probability. It said it reduced brain motion during surgery and also reduced the gap between the implant and the surface of the brain. The company hasn't observed any thread retraction in the patient, so far. As for its first patient, it modified an algorithm to improve how his implant detects and translates signals after the was observed. It said the first patient's threads have stabilized and his implant has since recovered. 

Weeks after his surgery in July, Alex has already been able to use computer-aided design (CAD) software to design a custom mount for his Neuralink charger. The mount was 3D printed, and he has since added it to his setup. He has also been able to use his implant in conjunction with a mouth-operated joystick to play Counter-Strike 2 more effectively, because he can now move and aim at the same time. 

Neuralink say it's now working on making its chip capable of decoding multiple clicks and movements to "deliver full mouse and video game controller functionality." It's also developing algorithms that can recognize a user's intent to write by hand, which would enable faster text entry. That would then allow people who cannot speak, such as those with ALS, to be able to communicate with others more easily. Finally, the company apparently plans to give its implants the capability to interact with the real world, so that people can use it to move their own wheelchair or a robotic hand to feed or clean themselves.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/neuralink-says-it-may-have-fixed-its-brain-implant-problem-130055143.html?src=rss

Texas judge blocks the FTC from enforcing its ban on noncompete agreements

Posted on by

The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) efforts to ban noncompete agreements has been blocked by a federal judge in Texas. According to The Washington Post, US District Judge Ada Brown has determined that the agency doesn't have the authority to enforce the rule, which was supposed to take effect on September 4. She reportedly wrote in her decision that the FTC only looked at "inconsistent and flawed empirical evidence" and didn't consider evidence in support of noncompetes. "The role of an administrative agency is to do as told by Congress, not to do what the agency thinks it should do," she added. 

FTC Chair Lina M. Khan explained that "noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism" when the agency voted 3-2 in favor of the ban. Noncompete agreements are widely used in the tech industry, and preventing companies from adding them to contracts would mean that workers will be able to freely move to a new job or start a business in the same field. The two Republican commissioners in the FTC, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson, voted against the ban and also said that the agency "overstepped the boundaries of its power."

In July, Brown temporarily blocked the rule's enforcement to assess the lawsuit filed by Dallas tax services firm Ryan LLC mere hours after the FTC announced the ban. The US Chamber of Commerce and other groups of American businesses eventually joined the tax firm in challenging the new rule on noncompete clauses. 

"We are disappointed by Judge Brown's decision and will keep fighting to stop noncompetes that restrict the economic liberty of hardworking Americans, hamper economic growth, limit innovation, and depress wages," FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham told The Post. "We are seriously considering a potential appeal, and today's decision does not prevent the FTC from addressing noncompetes through case-by-case enforcement actions."

A federal judge in Florida also blocked the rule last week, though only for the lawsuit's plaintiffs. Meanwhile, another judge in Pennsylvania ruled last month that the agency has the authority to enforce the ban in a separate case filed by a tree-care company in the state. All three cases could still be appealed and could even make their way to the Supreme Court. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/texas-judge-blocks-the-ftc-from-enforcing-its-ban-on-noncompete-agreements-133059676.html?src=rss

Hyper Light Breaker’s early access launch delayed to 2025

Posted on by

Hyper Light Drifter fans, you'll have to wait a bit longer to start playing its follow-up title. Heart Machine has announced that it has pushed back Hyper Light Breaker's Steam Early Access launch to "very early next year." In its announcement, the developer said that after many conversations with its publisher Arc Games, it determined that it needed more time to polish the title's gameplay experience. It didn't reveal the issues it's still fixing, but it explained that it didn't want to ship a game that's not up to its standards. The studio also said that it didn't want to rush and burn its team out. 

"...we REALLY need to make sure that the core foundational units of the game are as strong as they can be, so that we can build on them during the Early Access period," Heart Machine wrote. The company originally aimed for a spring 2023 launch when it introduced the game two years ago. Since then, though, it has pushed back the game's early access launch date a few times, until it was supposed to come out this summer by the time we were able to play a preview of it. 

Hyper Light Breaker is an action rogue-lite with a full 3D environment, unlike its predecessor that has 2D visuals. It's an open-world game set in a fantasy-cyberpunk universe, where you can explore a landscape called the Overgrowth and play with friends through online co-op. Engadget Senior Editor Jessica Conditt called it a "hoverboard sim" in her hands-on, though, because you can just explore its world on a gliding slab, avoiding enemy encounters and enjoying the scenery if you want to.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/hyper-light-breakers-early-access-launch-delayed-to-2025-110019909.html?src=rss

NVIDIA’s ACE virtual human tech is making its way into an actual game

Posted on by

A game developer called Amazing Seasun Games is demonstrating NVIDIA's Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology through its upcoming multiplayer mecha game Mecha BREAK at Gamescom this year. NVIDIA unveiled ACE at Computer 2023, presenting it as a "custom AI model foundry service" that developers can use to make their games more interactive. Specifically, it will allow players to interact with NPCs without the constraints of pre-programmed conversations and will be able to give them appropriate responses. 

When NVIDIA launched the technology, it showed a player talking to an NPC called Jin at a ramen shop. The player asked how the character was, and Jin was able to respond naturally to tell them about his worries about his city's rising crime rates. NVIDIA said the developer will use its technology to bring Mecha BREAK's "characters to life and provide a more dynamic and immersive gameplay experience on GeForce RTX AI PCs."

The chipmaker also said that more developers are incorporating ACE into their creations. Perfect World Games, a Chinese developer, is using the technology to power its demo for Legends. In that game, or at least the demo of it, a character is able to identify people and objects in the real world through the computer's camera, thanks to ChatGPT-4o. 

In addition to the ACE demo in Mecha BREAK, NVIDIA has also announced that PC Game Pass access on GeForce NOW will become seamless starting on August 22. Players will only have to link their Xbox profile once to be able to easily stream Game Pass titles in the future. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nvidias-ace-virtual-human-tech-is-making-its-way-into-an-actual-game-130055827.html?src=rss

Star Wars: The Acolyte isn’t getting a second season

Posted on by

Lucasfilm has decided not to renew The Acolyte for a second season, according to Deadline and Variety. Fans won't get to see how the show was supposed to end and won't get to know how the plotlines its creator, Leslye Headland (Russian Doll), teased at the end of the first season would unravel. Engadget Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar called The Acolyte "Star Wars at its best" in his review, discussed how unique its premise was, and drew parallels between the series and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 

Deadline says the show had a strong start and garnered 4.8 million views in the first day it became available for streaming, reaching 11.1 million views after five days. However, viewership fell in the coming weeks, and its finale was reportedly the poorest performing finale for a Star Wars series. 

The Acolyte was a mystery-thriller story featuring a former Jedi trainee played by Amandla Stenberg, who's suspected of committing a series of crimes. Her former Jedi Master played by Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game) now has to find her to get to the bottom of things. Manny Jacinto, who played the smuggler Qimir, gained a lot of attention online due to this shirtless scenes. It was revealed in the later episodes that he plays a bigger role in the story, and viewers were even supposed to learn his real name in the next season. 

The show is still available to watch on Disney+ for those who don't mind not getting closure for its story. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/star-wars-the-acolyte-isnt-getting-a-second-season-120033350.html?src=rss

A Pacific Rim prequel series is being developed by the scriptwriter of Bird Box

Posted on by

The next entry in the Pacific Rim franchise could be an origin story for the universe, set before the events of the 2013 film by Guillermo del Toro. According to Variety, the franchise's producer Legendary Entertainment has signed a first-look TV deal with Eric Heisserer. One of the first projects he's developing with Carmen Lewis, his co-founder for his production company called Chronology, is a prequel series for Pacific Rim. Heisserer won several awards for his screenplay for Arrival, the Denis Villeneuve-directed sci-fi movie starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. He also wrote the script for the Netflix post-apocalyptic movie Bird Box, which starred Sandra Bullock. 

It sounds like the project is still in its very early stages, so we'll have to wait for its storyline and projected release date if it does get the green light. Seeing as it's supposed to be the Pacific Rim origin story, though, we may get to see the first kaijus emerging from the interdimensional portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. We may also get to see how the first Jaegers, or the gigantic mechas controlled by human pilots to fight the alien monsters, were designed and created. 

The original Pacific Rim movie was followed by Pacific Rim Uprising, its 2018 sequel film that starred John Boyega and was directed by Steven S. DeKnight. If the series pushes through, it'll follow Pacific Rim: The Black, an anime series that streamed on Netflix in 2021 and 2021, which serves as the continuation of the two films.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a-pacific-rim-prequel-series-is-being-developed-by-the-scriptwriter-of-bird-box-110043597.html?src=rss

Instagram’s experimental profile grid has rectangular images instead of squares

Posted on by

Instagram is testing a new profile grid layout that features rectangular images instead of the squares you're used to. In an Instagram story, Adam Mosseri has revealed that the app is testing a vertical grid for users' profiles. He explained that the original square grid was designed back in the day when the app only allowed users to upload square photos. Those days are long gone, and the vast majority of Instagram uploads are apparently vertical, specifically 4 x 3 images and 9 x 16 videos. He called cropping those uploads down to square as "pretty brutal." 

When you click on Instagram's video tab, you'll already see a rectangular grid, so the experimental layout won't look terribly unfamiliar. In fact, the test profile looks exactly the same, based on a screenshot that a user posted on Threads, except the grid includes photo posts and not just videos. A spokesperson told The Verge that the test has only rolled out to a small number of users and that the Instagram team will listen to feedback before expanding the redesigned grid's availability. 

Based on an old post by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, the app has been working on the new rectangular grid layout since at least 2022. It looks like the test is making its way to more users — and it seems like not everyone's happy about it. Mosseri posted his Story in response to a comment submitted to his "Ask Me Anything" session, pleading for the app not to kill the old layout.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagrams-experimental-profile-grid-has-rectangular-images-instead-of-squares-160007086.html?src=rss

National Public Data confirms breach that exposed Americans’ social security numbers

Posted on by

A data dump that contains 2.7 billion records of personal information for people living in the US, including their Social Security Numbers, have recently been leaked online. The data dump's contents were linked to National Public Data, a company that scrapes information from non-public sources and sells it for background checks. Now, the company has confirmed that it did have "a data security incident" wherein people's names, emails, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers and mailing addresses had been stolen. 

National Public Data's wording in its Security Incident report is a bit a vague and convoluted, but it did blame the security breach on a third-party bad actor. It said that the bad actor "was trying to hack into data in late December 2023" and that "potential leaks of certain data" took place in April 2024 and summer 2024, indicating that the hacker had successfully infiltrated its system. In April, a threat actor known as USDoD tried to sell 2.9 billion records of people living in the US, UK and Canada for $3.5 million. It claimed that it stole the information from National Public Data. Since then, the records have been leaked in chunks online with the more recent one being more comprehensive and containing more sensitive information. 

The company said it worked with law enforcement to review potentially affected records and will "try to notify" individuals "if there are further significant developments applicable" to them. It also said that it published the notice so that those who were potentially affected can take action. The company is advising people to monitor their financial accounts for fraudulent transactions, and it's also encouraging them to get free credit reports and to put a fraud alert on their file. 

The National Public Data is already facing a proposed class action lawsuit that was filed in early August by a plaintiff who received a notification from their identity theft protection service that their personal information was posted on the dark web. They argued that the company failed "to properly secure and safeguard the personally identifiable information that it collected and maintained as part of its regular business practices." 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/national-public-data-confirms-breach-that-exposed-americans-social-security-numbers-100046695.html?src=rss

FBI says Iranian hackers are targeting both presidential campaigns

Posted on by

A phishing campaign that the FBI believes is linked to Iran has been targeting members of the Trump and Harris camps as they seek to be elected as the president of the United States later this year. While the bad actors have reportedly been trying to spear-phish several advisers of the Biden-Harris and Trump campaigns, The Washington Post specifically named senior Trump adviser Susie Wiles as one of the targets. 

In June, federal agents worked with Microsoft and Google when they started investigating the spear phishing emails the presidential candidates' staff had received. Google recently published a report detailing how an Iranian government-backed threat actor called APT42 has been targeting high-profile users in Israel and the US for years. It also confirmed that its threat analysis group continued "to observe unsuccessful attempts from APT42 to compromise the personal accounts of individuals affiliated with President Biden, Vice President Harris and former President Trump, including current and former government officials and individuals associated with the campaigns." The company apparently had to block numerous attempts by the hackers to log into the staff members' email accounts.

The feds said that Roger Stone, an informal advisor to Trump, fell victim to the phishing emails sent by the Iranian hackers who were then able to take control of his account and send messages with phishing links to other people. Authorities reportedly didn't find evidence indicating the hackers had also successfully compromised the account of anybody in the Harris camp. 

Feds blamed Iran and Russia for spreading misinformation related to the 2020 US Presidential Election four years ago. However, the US still doesn't see Iran as a major threat when it comes with cyber attacks — The Post said officials are concerned that other countries like Russia and China have also launched more sophisticated attacks that won't be as easily detected. US authorities had linked Russia to various attempts at meddling with elections in the US for years, and officials even believe that Vladimir Putin directly ordered the launch of a campaign to destabilize the American vote and denigrate Hillary Clinton when she ran for president in 2016.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/fbi-says-iranian-hackers-are-targeting-both-presidential-campaigns-150019590.html?src=rss